Signatures of kinetic gravity braiding in cosmological probes of the gravitational field
astro-ph.CO, gr-qc, physics.comp-ph
Submitted: 2026-07-30
Updated: 2026-07-30
Comments: 38 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables
Code: https://github.com/gevolution-code/gevolution-1.3
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: We study the observational signatures of kinetic gravity braiding (KGB) models in relativistic cosmological probes constructed along the past light cone.
Terminology
Abstract
We study the observational signatures of kinetic gravity braiding (KGB) models in relativistic cosmological probes constructed along the past light cone. Using the relativistic N-body code KGB-evolution, we generate light-cone outputs and compute several observables that directly probe the gravitational field, including weak gravitational lensing convergence, Shapiro time delay, the integrated Sachs-Wolfe and Rees-Sciama (ISW-RS) effects, and gravitational redshift. Full-sky maps and angular power spectra of these quantities are constructed and compared with k-essence models and predictions from linear perturbation theory. We find that the derivative coupling between the scalar field and the metric modifies both the amplitude and the time evolution of the gravitational potentials, producing scale-dependent deviations ranging from a few percent to tens of percent. In particular, the ISW-RS signal exhibits the largest fractional response, as the slower decay of the Weyl potential suppresses the KGB signal in the ISW-dominated regime, whereas nonlinear evolution reverses this trend at higher multipoles, producing differences of tens of percent relative to k-essence. Weak gravitational lensing also provides a strong complementary probe and, for the model considered here, exhibits clear deviations from the k-essence prediction at small scales with enhancements up to about 10 - 12% at multipoles about 10 squared - 10 cubed. Our results show that linear perturbation theory accurately describes the large-scale behaviour, while nonlinear effects become important at smaller scales, particularly for the ISW-RS signal and, more moderately, for the convergence, and must therefore be included for reliable theoretical predictions.
Sources
- hi_class: Horndeski in the Cosmic Linear Anisotropy Solving System
- hi_class: Background Evolution, Initial Conditions and Approximation Schemes
- Effective Field Theory of Cosmic Acceleration: an implementation in CAMB
- General relativity and cosmic structure formation
- gevolution: a cosmological N-body code based on General Relativity
- $k$-evolution: a relativistic N-body code for clustering dark energy
- Parametrising non-linear dark energy perturbations
- Imperfect Dark Energy from Kinetic Gravity Braiding
- Maximal freedom at minimum cost: linear large-scale structure in general modifications of gravity
- Consistent perturbations in an imperfect fluid
- Clustering dark energy imprints on cosmological observables of the gravitational field
- Extended Dark Energy analysis using DESI DR2 BAO measurements
- KGB-evolution: a relativistic $N$-body code for kinetic gravity braiding models
- Weak-lensing observables in relativistic N-body simulations
- Weak lensing for precision cosmology
- Hierarchical Cosmic Shear Power Spectrum Inference
- Measuring the dark side (with weak lensing)
- Testing (modified) gravity with 3D and tomographic cosmic shear
- KiDS-450: The tomographic weak lensing power spectrum and constraints on cosmological parameters
- Distortions in the Surface of Last Scattering
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