On nonlocally interacting metrics, and a simple proposal for cosmic acceleration

Understand

We propose a simple, nonlocal modification to general relativity (GR) on large scales, which provides a model of late-time cosmic acceleration in the absence of the cosmological constant and with the same number of free parameters as in standard cosmology.

• The model is motivated by adding to the gravity sector an extra spin-2 field interacting nonlocally with the physical metric coupled to matter.
• The form of the nonlocal interaction is inspired by the simplest form of the Deser-Woodard (DW) model, $\alpha R\frac{1}{\Box}R$, with one of the Ricci scalars being replaced by a constant $m^{2}$, and gravity is therefore modified in the infrared by adding a simple term of the form $m^2\frac{1}{\Box}R$ to the Einstein-Hilbert term.
• We study cosmic expansion histories, and demonstrate that the new model can provide background expansions consistent with observations if $m$ is of the order of the Hubble expansion rate today, in contrast to the simple DW model with no viable cosmology.