Can conformally coupled modified gravity solve the Hubble tension?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The discrepancy between early-Universe inferences and direct measurements of the Hubble constant, known as the Hubble tension, recently became a pressing subject in high precision cosmology. As a result, a large variety of theoretical models have been proposed to relieve this tension. In this work we analyze a conformally coupled modified gravity (CCMG) model of an evolving gravitational constant due to the coupling of a scalar field to the Ricci scalar, which becomes active around matter-radiation equality, as required for solutions to the Hubble tension based on increasing the sound horizon at recombination. The model is theoretically advantageous as it has only one free parameter in addition to the baseline $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ cold dark matter ones. Inspired by similar recent analyses of so-called early dark energy models, we constrain the CCMG model using a combination of early- and late-Universe cosmological datasets. In addition to the Planck 2018 cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies and weak lensing measurements, baryon acoustic oscillations, and the Supernova H0 for the Equation of State datasets, we also use large-scale structure (LSS) datasets such as the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 and the full-shape power spectrum likelihood from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, including its recent analysis using effective field theory, to check the effect of the CCMG model on the (milder) ${S}_{8}$ tension between the CMB and LSS. We find that the CCMG model can slightly relax the Hubble tension, with ${H}_{0}=69.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.6\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}$ at 95% confidence level, while barely affecting the ${S}_{8}$ tension. However, current data does not exhibit a strong preference for CCMG over the standard cosmological model. Lastly, we show that the planned CMB-S4 experiment will have the sensitivity required to distinguish between the CCMG model and the more general class of models involving an evolving gravitational constant.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".