Cosmology with subdominant Horndeski scalar field

Abstract

We study the cosmological evolution of a scalar field in Horndeski gravity, assuming that the scalar field is subdominant with respect to the cosmic fluid. We first analyse the most general shift-symmetric action that respects local Lorentz symmetry. We show that the bound on the speed of gravitational waves set by GW170817+GRB170817A imposes a constraint only on the linear coupling between the scalar and the Gauss-Bonnet invariant and this constraint is rather mild. Then, we consider some interesting examples of theories that break shift-symmetry, such as the Damour-Esposito-Farèse model of spontaneous scalarization and a theory with a quadratic coupling to the Gauss-Bonnet invariant that can lead to black hole scalarization. In both cases, tuning of cosmological initial conditions is necessary to keep the scalar field dormant during cosmic evolution.

v2: published version

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• New Horizons for Fundamental Physics with LISA
• Spontaneous scalarization
• Large and Ultra-compact Gauss-Bonnet Black Holes with a Self-interacting Scalar Field
• On the Existence of Solutions with a Horizon in Pure Scalar-Gauss-Bonnet Theories
• Compact object scalarization with general relativity as a cosmic attractor
• $d+1$ formalism in Einstein-scalar-Gauss-Bonnet gravity
• Spin-orbit effects for compact binaries in scalar-tensor gravity
• Multi-scalar Gauss-Bonnet gravity -- hairy black holes and scalarization
• Addressing the High-$f$ Problem in Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Boson Dark Energy Models with Dark Matter - Dark Energy Interaction
• Angular and radial stabilities of spontaneously scalarized black holes in the presence of scalar-Gauss-Bonnet couplings
• Cosmology in theories with spontaneous scalarization of neutron stars
• Symmetry restoration in the vicinity of neutron stars with a nonminimal coupling