Jose Beltrán Jiménez
CPT, Aix Marseille, Université Marseille

Abstract
The discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe has motivated an intense activity in infrarred modifications of gravity with an additional scalar degree of freedom. This scalar is then used to replace the cosmological constant as the responsible for the cosmic acceleration. A common problem in these models is that this scalar must be very light to have cosmological effects today. However, it typically mediates a long-range force that has not been observed in local gravity tests and this severely constraints such models. A resolution to this problem came about with the implementation of screening mechanism that allow to avoid local gravity tests while still having relevant cosmological effects. I will review some models featuring the different screening mechanism existing in the literature and how they work to evade local gravity tests. I will pay special attention to the so-called Vainshtein mechanism (present in Galileon/Horndeski theories and massive gravity...) and argue how the cosmological evolution of the field can induce non-screenable effects in local gravity observables, mainly a time-variation in Newton's constant and an anomalous propagation speed of gravitational waves. These effects are then constrained using solar system and binary pulsar observations.

2015 December 02, 15:30

IA/U.Lisboa
Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (C6.2.51)
Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa