Weighing the spatial and temporal fluctuations of the dark universe

TL;DR

This paper proposes a model-independent method to measure the ratio of gravitational potentials across different scales and redshifts, providing a powerful test for distinguishing between standard cosmology and alternative dark universe models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, model-independent approach to extract the gravitational potential ratio from observational data, enhancing the ability to test modifications of general relativity and dark energy clustering.

Findings

Future surveys can effectively measure the potential ratio.

The ratio serves as a key discriminator for dark universe models.

Method enhances testing of GR and dark energy theories.

Abstract

A generic prediction of the standard cosmology, based on general relativity (GR), dark matter and the cosmological constant (and more generally, smooth dark energy), is that, the two gravitational potentials describing the spatial and temporal scalar perturbations of the universe are equivalent. Modifications in GR or dark energy clustering in general violate this relation. Thus this ratio serves as a smoking gun of the dark universe. We propose a method to extract this ratio at various cosmological scales and redshifts from a set of measurements, in a model independent way. The ratio measured by future surveys has strong discriminating power for a variety of dark universe scenarios.