Impact of symmetron screening on the Hubble tension: new constraints using cosmic distance ladder data

Understand

Fifth forces are ubiquitous in modified theories of gravity.

• To be compatible with observations, such a force must be screened on solar-system scales but may still give a significant contribution on galactic scales.
• If this is the case, the fifth force can influence the calibration of the cosmic distance ladder, hence changing the inferred value of the Hubble constant $H_0$.
• In this paper, we analyze symmetron screening and show that it generally increases the Hubble tension.