DGP and DGPish cosmologies from $f(Q)$ actions

TL;DR

This paper develops and tests new $f(Q)$ cosmological models where non-metricity influences cosmic evolution, comparing them with $\\Lambda$CDM using observational data, and finds no significant deviations from standard cosmology.

Contribution

It introduces two novel $f(Q)$ cosmological models with unique behaviors and performs comprehensive observational tests to evaluate their viability against $\\Lambda$CDM.

Findings

Models do not show significant deviations from $\\Lambda$CDM.

Both models fit observational data well.

No evidence of non-metricity effects beyond standard cosmology.

Abstract

In this work we explore and test new formulations of cosmological scenarios in $f(Q)$ theories. In these settings, the non-metricity scalar ($Q$) is the main source of gravity and Friedmann equations are modified to account for the associated degrees of freedom. This work focuses first on the derivation, and then theoretical and observational analysis of two such (new) exact cosmological models; they both display a non-standard behaviour in which an additional parameter encoding non-metricity effects acts in the fashion of a screened cosmological constant. One of the new settings has the same background evolution as the well know DGP cosmological model, while the other resembles the former considerably, although its origin is purely phenomenological. We use the Markov Chain Montecarlo method combined with standard statistical techniques to perform observational astrophysical tests relying upon background data, specifically these are Type Ia Supernovae luminosities and direct Hubble data (from cosmic clocks), along with Cosmic Microwave Background shift and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations data. In addition, we compute some of the cosmographic parameters and other discriminators with the purpose of refining our knowledge about these models in the light of their theoretical and observational signatures, and this allows for a better comparison with the (concordance) $\Lambda$CDM setup. We conclude that these scenarios do not show signatures indicating a departure from the $\Lambda$CDM behaviour.