paper

On the Emergence of Accelerating Cosmic Expansion in f(R) Theories of Gravity

arXiv:1501.04004 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.91.103528

Abstract

We consider cosmological modelling in theories of gravity, using both top-down and bottom-up constructions. The top-down models are based on Robertson-Walker geometries, and the bottom-up constructions are built by patching together sub-horizon-sized regions of perturbed Minkowski space. Our results suggest that these theories do not provide a theoretically attractive alternative to the standard general relativistic cosmology. We find that the only theories that can admit an observationally viable weak-field limit have large-scale expansions that are observationally indistinguishable from the Friedmann solutions of General Relativity with . Such theories do not alleviate any of the difficulties associated with , and cannot produce any new behaviour in the cosmological expansion without simultaneously destroying the Newtonian approximation to gravity on small scales.

10 pages, 3 figures

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