Testing Modified Gravity with Cosmic Shear

TL;DR

This study uses cosmic shear data to constrain modified gravity models, particularly $f(R)$ and Dilaton theories, accounting for baryon feedback and neutrinos, and finds strong evidence against certain models within current observational limits.

Contribution

It introduces a unified tomographic framework to evaluate the impact of modified gravity, baryon feedback, and neutrinos on cosmic shear, providing new constraints on these theories.

Findings

Disfavors specific $f(R)$ models with high confidence.

Constraints weaken with additional physical effects but remain significant.

Certain neutrino and baryon feedback combinations are excluded by data.

Abstract

We use the cosmic shear data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey to place constraints on $f(R)$ and {\it Generalized Dilaton} models of modified gravity. This is highly complimentary to other probes since the constraints mainly come from the non-linear scales: maximal deviations with respects to the General-Relativity + $\Lambda$CDM scenario occurs at $k\sim1 h \mbox{Mpc}^{-1}$. At these scales, it becomes necessary to account for known degeneracies with baryon feedback and massive neutrinos, hence we place constraints jointly on these three physical effects. To achieve this, we formulate these modified gravity theories within a common tomographic parameterization, we compute their impact on the clustering properties relative to a GR universe, and propagate the observed modifications into the weak lensing $\xi_{\pm}$ quantity. Confronted against the cosmic shear data, we reject the $f(R)$ $\{ |f_{R_0}|=10^{-4}, n=1\}$ model with more than 99.9% confidence interval (CI) when assuming a $\Lambda$CDM dark matter only model. In the presence of baryonic feedback processes and massive neutrinos with total mass up to 0.2eV, the model is disfavoured with at least 94% CI in all different combinations studied. Constraints on the $\{ |f_{R_0}|=10^{-4}, n=2\}$ model are weaker, but nevertheless disfavoured with at least 89% CI. We identify several specific combinations of neutrino mass, baryon feedback and $f(R)$ or Dilaton gravity models that are excluded by the current cosmic shear data. Notably, universes with three massless neutrinos and no baryon feedback are strongly disfavoured in all modified gravity scenarios studied. These results indicate that competitive constraints may be achieved with future cosmic shear data.