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This document presents a summary of the 2023 Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry Workshop hosted by CERN. The workshop brought together experts from around the world to discuss the exciting developments in large-scale atom interferometer (AI) prototypes and their potential for detecting ultralight dark matter and gravitational waves. The primary objective of the workshop was to lay the groundwork for an international TVLBAI proto-collaboration. This collaboration aims to unite researchers from different institutions to strategize and secure funding for terrestrial large-scale AI projects. The ultimate goal is to create a roadmap detailing the design and technology choices for one or more km-scale detectors, which will be operational in the mid-2030s. The key sections of this report present the physics case and technical challenges, together with a comprehensive overview of the discussions at the workshop together with the main conclusions., Comment: Summary of the Terrestrial Very-Long-Baseline Atom Interferometry Workshop held at CERN: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1208783/

The accelerated expansion of the universe implies the existence of an energy contribution known as dark energy. Associated with the cosmological constant in the standard model of cosmology, the nature of this dark energy is still unknown. We will discuss an alternative gravity model in which this dark energy contribution emerges naturally, as a result of allowing for a time-dependence on the gravitational constant, $G$, in Einstein's field equations. With this modification, Bianchi's identities require an additional tensor field to be introduced so that the usual conservation equation for matter and radiation is satisfied. The equation of state of this tensor field is obtained using additional constraints, coming from the assumption that this tensor field represents the space-time response to the variation of $G$. We will also present the predictions of this model for the late-universe data, and show that the energy contribution of this new tensor is able to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe without the addition of a cosmological constant. Unlike many other alternative gravities with varying gravitational strength, the predicted $G$ evolution is also consistent with local observations and therefore this model does not require screening. We will finish by discussing possible other implications this approach might have for cosmology and some future prospects., Comment: Prepared for the proceedings of Alternative Gravities and Fundamental Cosmology - ALTECOSMOFUN'21 (https://indico.cern.ch/event/873762/) conference. Matches the version published at Universe Special Issue: Alternative Gravities and Fundamental Cosmology

In this work, we investigate cosmologies where the gravitational constant varies in time, with the aim of explaining the accelerated expansion without a cosmological constant. We achieve this by considering a phenomenological extension to general relativity, modifying Einstein's field equations such that $G$ is a function of time, $G(t)$, and we preserve the geometrical consistency (Bianchi identity) together with the usual conservation of energy by introducing a new tensor field to the equations. In order to have concrete expressions to compare with cosmological data, we posit additional properties to this tensor field, in a way that it can be interpreted as a response of spacetime to a variation of $G$. Namely, we require that the energy this tensor represents is nonzero only when there is a time variation of $G$, and its energy depends on the scale factor only because of its coupling to $G$ and the matter and radiation energy densities. Focusing on the accelerated expansion period, we use type Ia supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillation data to determine the best fit of the cosmological parameters as well as the required variation in the gravitational constant. As a result, we find that it is possible to explain the accelerated expansion of the Universe with a variation of $G$ and no cosmological constant. The obtained variation of $G$ stays under 10 \% of its current value in the investigated redshift range and it is consistent with the local observations of $\dot{G}/G$., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. D Published in 12 March 2020 - https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.101.063513

In this work, we investigate Newtonian cosmologies with a time-varying gravitational constant, $G(t)$. We examine whether such models can reproduce the low-redshift cosmological observations without a cosmological constant, or any other sort of explicit dark energy fluid. Starting with a modified Newton's second law, where $G$ is taken as a function of time, we derive the first Friedmann--Lema{\^i}tre equation, where a second parameter, $G^*$, appears as the gravitational constant. This parameter is related to the original $G$ from the second law, which remains in the acceleration equation. We use this approach to reproduce various cosmological scenarios that are studied in the literature, and we test these models with low-redshift probes: type-Ia supernovae (SNIa), baryon acoustic oscillations, and cosmic chronometers, taking also into account a possible change in the supernovae intrinsic luminosity with redshift. As a result, we obtain several models with similar $\chi^2$ values as the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. When we allow for a redshift-dependence of the SNIa intrinsic luminosity, a model with a $G$ exponentially decreasing to zero while remaining positive (model 4) can explain the observations without acceleration. When we assume no redshift-dependence of SNIa, the observations favour a negative $G$ at large scales, while $G^*$ remains positive for most of these models. We conclude that these models offer interesting interpretations to the low-redshift cosmological observations, without needing a dark energy term., Comment: Matching the version published at MNRAS, https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa2310