Spherical collapse in modified gravity with the Birkhoff theorem.

We study structure formation in a phenomenological model of modified gravity which interpolates between Λcold dark mtter (ΛCDM) and Dvali–Gabadadze–Porrati (DGP) gravity. In our model, the Friedmann equation assumes the form with the interpolation parameter α. Generalization of spherical collapse by using the Birkhoff theorem along with the modified growth equation shows that the overdensity for spherical collapse δc in these models is significantly lowered compared to ΛCDM, leading to enhanced number densities of massive clusters and enhanced cluster merging rates. We find that δc( z) is well fitted by a function of the form . We examine the sensitivity of Planck's and SPT's Sunyaev–Zel'dovich survey to constrain the modified gravity parametrization, and find that these experiments can easily distinguish between models with a cosmological constant and modified gravity by including prior constraints from cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies. Applying a Fisher matrix formalism yields an expected accuracy of Δα∼ 0.04 (SPT), ..., 0.07( Planck) for a combined measurement of the cluster redshift distribution and the CMB temperature and polarization power spectrum, assuming ΛCDM as the fiducial cosmology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]