Cosmological Acceleration: Dark Energy or Modified Gravity?

Abstract

We review the evidence for recently accelerating cosmological expansion or "dark energy", either a negative pressure constituent in General Relativity (Dark Energy) or modified gravity (Dark Gravity), without any Dark Energy constituent. If constituent Dark Energy does not exist, so that our universe is now dominated by pressure-free matter, Einstein gravity must be modified at low curvature. The vacuum symmetry of any Robertson-Walker universe then characterizes Dark Gravity as low- or high-curvature modifications of Einstein gravity. The dynamics of either kind of "dark energy" cannot be derived from the homogeneous expansion alone, but requires also observing the growth of inhomogeneities. Present and projected observations are all consistent with a small fine tuned cosmological constant, with nearly static Dark Energy, or with gravity modified at cosmological scales. The growth of cosmological fluctuations will potentially distinguish static "dark energy" from dynamic "dark energy" with equation of state $w(z)$ either changing rapidly or tracking the background matter. But to cosmologically distinguish $Λ$CDM from modified gravity will require a weak lensing shear survey more ambitious than any now projected. Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati modifications of Einstein gravity may also be detected in refined bservations in the solar system or at the intermediate Vainstein scale. Dark Energy's epicyclic character, failure to explain the original Cosmic Coincidence ("Why now?") without fine tuning, inaccessibility to laboratory or solar system tests, along with braneworld theories, now motivate future precision solar system, Vainstein-scale and cosmological-scale studies of Dark Gravity.