Astrophysical Tests of Modified Gravity

Abstract

Chameleon and similar (symmetron and dilation) theories of gravity can exhibit new and interesting features on cosmological scales whilst screening the modifications on small scales thereby satisfying solar system tests of general relativity. This thesis explores the regime between these two scales: astrophysics. The majority of this thesis is focused on discerning new and novel astrophysical probes of chameleon gravity in the form of stellar structure and oscillation tests. These are used to place new constraints on the theory parameters and the implications of these are discussed, as are the future prospects for improving them using planned future surveys. The final two chapters review supersymmetric completions of these theories.

arXiv commentPh.D. thesis, University of Cambridge June 2014. 302 pages, 27 figures

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Testing gravity on large scales by combining weak lensing with galaxy clustering using CFHTLenS and BOSS CMASS
• Screened Fifth Forces Mediated by Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions: Theory and Astrophysical Probes
• Post-Newtonian parameters and cosmological constant of screened modified gravity
• Theoretical Accuracy in Cosmological Growth Estimation
• Disformally coupled inflation
• Horndeski stars
• Search for environment-dependent dilatons
• Search for dark energy with neutron interferometry
• Baryogenesis via Dark Matter-Induced Symmetry Breaking in the Early Universe