Beyond the Cosmological Standard Model

TL;DR

This review discusses the current state and future prospects of modified gravity theories beyond the standard cosmological model, emphasizing screening mechanisms, experimental tests, and theoretical principles guiding these modifications.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive framework for understanding, classifying, and testing modified gravity theories, highlighting recent developments and future experimental directions.

Findings

Classification of screening mechanisms into three broad classes.

Summary of laboratory, solar system, astrophysical, and cosmological tests.

Identification of future tests sensitive to new gravitational physics.

Abstract

After a decade and a half of research motivated by the accelerating universe, theory and experiment have a reached a certain level of maturity. The development of theoretical models beyond \Lambda, or smooth dark energy, often called modified gravity, has led to broader insights into a path forward, and a host of observational and experimental tests have been developed. In this review we present the current state of the field and describe a framework for anticipating developments in the next decade. We identify the guiding principles for rigorous and consistent modifications of the standard model, and discuss the prospects for empirical tests. We begin by reviewing attempts to consistently modify Einstein gravity in the infrared, focusing on the notion that additional degrees of freedom introduced by the modification must screen themselves from local tests of gravity. We categorize screening mechanisms into three broad classes: mechanisms which become active in regions of high Newtonian potential, those in which first derivatives become important, and those for which second derivatives are important. Examples of the first class, such as f(R) gravity, employ the familiar chameleon or symmetron mechanisms, whereas examples of the last class are galileon and massive gravity theories, employing the Vainshtein mechanism. In each case, we describe the theories as effective theories. We describe experimental tests, summarizing laboratory and solar system tests and describing in some detail astrophysical and cosmological tests. We discuss future tests which will be sensitive to different signatures of new physics in the gravitational sector. Parts that are more relevant to theorists vs. observers/experimentalists are clearly indicated, in the hope that this will serve as a useful reference for both audiences, as well as helping those interested in bridging the gap between them.