On the Emergence of Accelerating Cosmic Expansion in f(R) Theories of Gravity
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Volume
91
Pagination
103528 - ?
Publisher URL
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevD.91.103528
Journal
Phys. Rev. D
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We consider cosmological modelling in $f(R)$ theories of gravity, using both top-down and bottom-up constructions. The top-down models are based on Robertson-Walker geometries, and the bottom-up constructions are built by patching together sub-horizon-sized regions of perturbed Minkowski space. Our results suggest that these theories do not provide a theoretically attractive alternative to the standard general relativistic cosmology. We find that the only $f(R)$ theories that can admit an observationally viable weak-field limit have large-scale expansions that are observationally indistinguishable from the Friedmann solutions of General Relativity with $\Lambda$. Such theories do not alleviate any of the difficulties associated with $\Lambda$, and cannot produce any new behaviour in the cosmological expansion without simultaneously destroying the Newtonian approximation to gravity on small scales.