A new test of gravity -- I: Introduction to the method

Abstract

We introduce a new scheme based on the marked correlation function to probe gravity using the large-scale structure of the Universe. We illustrate our approach by applying it to simulations of the metric-variation $f(R)$ modified gravity theory and general relativity (GR). The modifications to the equations in $f(R)$ gravity lead to changes in the environment of large-scale structures that could, in principle, be used to distinguish this model from GR. Applying the Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm, we use the observed number density and two-point clustering to fix the halo occupation distribution (HOD) model parameters and build mock galaxy catalogues from both simulations. To generate a mark for galaxies when computing the marked correlation function we estimate the local density using a Voronoi tessellation. Our approach allows us to isolate the contribution to the uncertainty in the predicted marked correlation function that arises from the range of viable HOD model parameters, in addition to the sample variance error for a single set of HOD parameters. This is critical for assessing the discriminatory power of the method. In a companion paper we apply our new scheme to a current large-scale structure survey.

11 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in the Monthly Notcies of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Hitting the mark: Optimising Marked Power Spectra for Cosmology
• Towards an optimal marked correlation function analysis for the detection of modified gravity
• An Analytically Tractable Marked Power Spectrum
• Marked statistics across the cosmic web: Environmental dependent clustering in modified gravity simulations
• Probing gravity with non-linear clustering in redshift space