Stephen Appleby

We study $F(R)$ modified gravity models which are capable of driving the accelerating epoch of the Universe at the present time whilst not destroying the standard Big Bang and inflationary cosmology. Recent studies have shown that a weak curvature singularity with $|R|\to\infty$ can arise generically in viable $F(R)$ models of present dark energy (DE) signaling an internal incompleteness of these models. In this work we study how this problem is cured by adding a quadratic correction with a suff

Galileon gravity offers a robust gravitational theory for explaining cosmic acceleration, having a rich phenomenology of testable behaviors. We explore three classes of Galileon models -- standard uncoupled, and linearly or derivatively coupled to matter -- investigating the expansion history with particular attention to early time and late time attractors, as well as the linear perturbations. From the relativistic and nonrelativistic Poisson equations we calculate the generalizations of the gra

Wide area cosmological surveys enable investigation of whether dark energy properties are the same in different directions on the sky. Cosmic microwave background observations strongly restrict any dynamical effects from anisotropy, in an integrated sense. For more local constraints we compute limits from simulated distance measurements for various distributions of survey fields in a Bianchi I anisotropic universe. We then consider the effects of fitting for line of sight properties where isotro

Galileon gravity is a robust theoretical alternative to general relativity with a cosmological constant for explaining cosmic acceleration, with interesting properties such as having second order field equations and a shift symmetry. While either its predictions for the cosmic expansion or growth histories can approach standard \Lambda CDM, we demonstrate the incompatibility of both doing so simultaneously. Already current observational constraints can severely disfavor an entire class of Galile

We investigate circumstances under which one can generalize Horndeski's most general scalar-tensor theory of gravity. Specifically we demonstrate that a nonlinear combination of purely kinetic gravity terms can give rise to an accelerating universe without the addition of extra propagating degrees of freedom on cosmological backgrounds, and exhibit self tuning to bring a large cosmological constant under control. This nonlinear approach leads to new properties that may be instructive for explori

We test the isotropy of the local universe using low-redshift supernova data from various catalogs and the nonparametric method of smoothed residuals. Using a recently developed catalog that combines supernova data from various surveys, we show that the isotropic hypothesis of a universe with zero velocity perturbation can be rejected with moderate significance, with p-value ~0.07 out to redshift z < 0.045. We estimate the direction of maximal anisotropy on the sky for various preexisting cat

If the equation of state of dark energy is anisotropic there will be additional quadrupole anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background induced by the time-dependent anisotropic stress quantified in terms of $\ensuremath{\Delta}w$. Assuming that the entire amplitude of the observed quadrupole is due to this anisotropy, we conservatively impose a limit of $|\ensuremath{\Delta}w|<2.1\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$ for any value of $w\ensuremath{\ge}\ensuremath{-}1$ as

Galileon gravity is a robust theoretical alternative to general relativity with a cosmological constant for explaining cosmic acceleration, with interesting properties such as having second order field equations and a shift symmetry. While either its predictions for the cosmic expansion or growth histories can approach standard \Lambda CDM, we demonstrate the incompatibility of both doing so simultaneously. Already current observational constraints can severely disfavor an entire class of Galile

Abstract We present measurements of the Minkowski functionals extracted from the SDSS-III BOSS catalogs. After defining the Minkowski functionals, we describe how an unbiased reconstruction of these statistics can be obtained from a field with masked regions and survey boundaries, validating our methodology with Gaussian random fields and mock galaxy snapshot data. From the BOSS galaxy data, we generate a set of four density fields in three dimensions corresponding to the northern and southern s

Abstract We apply the Minkowski tensor statistics to two-dimensional slices of the three-dimensional matter density field. The Minkowski tensors are a set of functions that are sensitive to directionally dependent signals in the data and, furthermore, can be used to quantify the mean shape of density fields. We begin by reviewing the definition of Minkowski tensors and introducing a method of calculating them from a discretely sampled field. Focusing on the statistic —a 2 × 2 matrix—we calculate

Well-tempering is a promising classical method of dynamically screening an arbitrarily large vacuum energy and generating a late-time, low energy de Sitter vacuum state. In this paper, we study for the first time self-tuning in teleparallel gravity and obtain well-tempered cosmological models in the teleparallel gravity analogue of Horndeski theory. This broadens the scope of well-tempered cosmology and teases the potentially far richer cosmological dynamics that could be anchored on teleperalle

Abstract We apply the Minkowski tensor statistics to three-dimensional Gaussian random fields. Minkowski tensors contain information regarding the orientation and shape of excursion sets that is not present in the scalar Minkowski functionals. They can be used to quantify globally preferred directions and also provide information on the mean shape of the subsets of a field. This makes them ideal statistics to measure the anisotropic signal generated by redshift space distortion in the low-redshi

We search for self tuning solutions to the Einstein-scalar field equations for the simplest class of `Fab-Four' models with constant potentials. We first review the conditions under which self tuning occurs in a cosmological spacetime, and by introducing a small modification to the original theory - introducing the second and third Galileon terms - show how one can obtain de Sitter states where the expansion rate is independent of the vacuum energy. We then consider whether the same self tuning