Void Lensing as a Test of Gravity

Tessa Baker, Joseph Clampitt, Bhuvnesh Jain, Mark Trodden

Published 2018-03-20Version 1

We investigate the potential of weak lensing by voids to test for deviations from General Relativity. We calculate the expected lensing signal of a scalar field with derivative couplings, finding that it has the potential to boost the tangential shear both within and outside the void radius. We use voids traced by Luminous Red Galaxies in SDSS to demonstrate the methodology of testing these predictions. We find that the void central density parameter, as inferred from the lensing signal, can shift from its GR value by up to 20% in some galileon gravity models. Since this parameter can be estimated independently using the galaxy tracer profiles of voids, our method provides a consistency check of the gravity theory. Although galileon gravity is now disfavoured as a source of cosmic acceleration by other datasets, the methods we demonstrate here can be used to test for more general fifth force effects with upcoming void lensing data.