Testing Screened Modified Gravity

TL;DR

This paper reviews screening mechanisms in modified gravity theories, discussing how they evade local tests and exploring methods to test these mechanisms across laboratory, astrophysical, and cosmological scales.

Contribution

It provides an effective field theory perspective on screening mechanisms and evaluates their potential for experimental and observational testing.

Findings

Screening mechanisms can hide scalar fields in high-density environments.

Laboratory and astrophysical tests can constrain or detect screened modified gravity.

Effective field theory offers a unified framework for understanding screening effects.

Abstract

Long range scalar fields with a coupling to matter appear to violate known bounds on gravitation in the solar system and the laboratory. This is evaded thanks to screening mechanisms. In this short review, we shall present the various screening mechanisms from an effective field theory point of view. We then investigate how they can and will be tested in the laboratory and on astrophysical and cosmological scales.