Vincenzo Salzano, David F. Mota, Mariusz P. Dabrowski, Salvatore Capozziello

Modified gravity theories with a screening mechanism have acquired much interest recently in the quest for a viable alternative to General Relativity on cosmological scales, given their intrinsic property of being able to pass Solar System scale tests and, at the same time, to possibly drive universe acceleration on much larger scales. Here, we explore the possibility that the same screening mechanism, or its partial breaking at a certain astrophysical scale, might be responsible of those gravitational effects which, in the context of general relativity, are generally attributed to Dark Matter. We consider a recently proposed extension of covariant Galileon models in the so-called "beyond Horndeski" scenario, where a breaking of the Vainshtein mechanism is possible and, thus, some peculiar observational signatures should be detectable and make it distinguishable from general relativity. We apply this model to a sample of clusters of galaxies observed under the CLASH survey, using both new data from gravitational lensing events and archival data from X-ray intra-cluster hot gas observations. In particular, we use the latter to model the gas density, and then use it as the only ingredient in the matter clusters' budget to calculate the expected lensing convergence map. Results show that, in the context of this extended Galileon, the assumption of having only gas and no Dark Matter at all in the clusters is able to match observations. We also obtain narrow and very interesting bounds on the parameters which characterize this model. In particular, we find that, at least for one of them, the general relativity limit is excluded at $2\sigma$ confidence level, thus making this model clearly statistically different and competitive with respect to general relativity.

Fergus Simpson, Raul Jimenez, Carlos Pena-Garay, Licia Verde

We demonstrate that a scalar field is unable to reverse its direction of motion while continuously exchanging energy with another fluid. If the rate of transfer is modulated by the scalar's acceleration, the field can undergo a rapid process of freezing, despite being displaced from the local minimum of its potential. This enables dark energy to form from any potential, regardless of its shape. The field's equation of state mimicks that of a cosmological constant. We present a physically motivated realisation in the form of a derivative neutrino-majoron coupling. Coherent motions, which form only once the neutrinos become non-relativistic, could be responsible for instigating the freezing process. This would provide a natural resolution to the dark energy coincidence problem, while avoiding the dynamical instabilities associated with mass-varying neutrino models. Finally we discuss possible means by which this model could be experimentally verified.

R. Hagala, C. Llinares, D. F. Mota

Extending General Relativity by adding extra degrees of freedom is a popular approach to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe and to build high energy completions of the theory of gravity. The presence of such new degrees of freedom is, however, tightly constrained from several observations and experiments that aim to test General Relativity in a wide range of scales. The viability of a given modified theory of gravity therefore strongly depends on the existence of a screening mechanism that suppresses the extra degrees of freedom. We perform simulations, and find that waves propagating in the new degrees of freedom can significantly impact the efficiency of the screening mechanisms, thereby spoiling the viability of modified gravity theories. Specifically, we show that the waves produced can increase the amplitude of the fifth force and the Parametrized Post Newtonian parameters by several orders of magnitude.