text:
# I Introduction

## I Introduction

The discovery of a contemporary cosmic acceleration  is one of the most profound scientific observations of the 20th century. We are now challenged to answer the open and tantalizing question of what drives that acceleration. While a conventional explanation exists (i.e. dark energy – some new negative-pressure energy-momentum component), an intriguing line of thought is gaining attention: the accelerated expansion is not a result of yet another ingredient in our already gunky cosmic gas tank, but rather is a signal of our lack of understanding of gravitational physics on large scales .

Being able to observationally differentiate the two possibilities, dark energy versus modified gravity, is an essential component in developing the modified-gravity paradigm. One can easily envision some modified-gravity model leading to an expansion history that can be identically reproduced by some dark-energy model. Thus, observations that depend only on anomalous expansion histories are insufficient to tease out the acceleration’s root cause. However, as we argue in , if one attempts to modify cosmology at today’s Hubble scale, $`H_0`$, through altering the equations governing gravitational dynamics, then generically one expects that the gravitational force law of an isolated mass source is altered even at distance scales much smaller than $`H_0^1`$. This effect can then be exploited to differentiate between a modified-gravity explanation of today’s cosmic acceleration and dark energy (where the gravitational force law remains unaltered) .

A leading contender in modified-gravity explanations of acceleration is the braneworld theory of Dvali, Gabadadze, and Porrati (DGP). In this theory, gravity appears four-dimensional at short distances but is altered at distances large compared to some freely adustable crossover scale $`r_0`$ through the slow evaporation of the graviton off our four-dimensional braneworld universe into an unseen, yet large, fifth dimension . DGP gravity provides an alternative explanation for today’s cosmic acceleration : just as gravity is conventional four-dimensional gravity at short scales ($`rr_0`$) and appears five-dimensional at large distance scales ($`rr_0`$), so too the Hubble scale, $`H(t)`$, evolves by the conventional Friedmann equation at high Hubble scales but saturates at a fixed value as $`H(t)`$ approaches $`r_0^1`$. Thus, if one were to set $`r_0H_0^1`$, where $`H_0`$ is today’s Hubble scale, then DGP gravity could account for today’s cosmic acceleration in terms of the existence of extra dimensions and a modification of the laws of gravity. The resulting cosmic expansion history is specific and may be tested using a variety of cosmological observations . However, can we distinguish between DGP gravity and a dark energy model that mimics the same cosmic expansion history?

We would naively expect not to be able to probe the extra dimension at distances much smaller than the crossover scale $`r_0=H_0^1`$. However, in DGP, although gravity is four-dimensional at distances shorter than $`r_0`$, it is not four-dimensional Einstein gravity – it is augmented by the presence of an ultra-light gravitational scalar. One only recovers Einstein gravity in a subtle fashion , and a marked departure from Einstein gravity persists down to distances much shorter than $`r_0`$. For example, for $`r_0H_0^1`$ and a central mass source of Schwarzschild radius $`r_g`$, significant and cosmologically-sensitive deviations from Einstein gravity occur at distances greater than

$$r_{}=\left(r_gr_0^2\right)^{1/3}\left(\frac{r_g}{H_0^2}\right)^{1/3}.$$
(1)
Thus a marked departure from conventional physics persists down to scales much smaller than the distance at which the extra dimension is naively hidden, or for our discussion here, the distance at which the Friedmann equation was modified to account for accelerated cosmic expansion. This alteration of gravitational interactions provides a way of differentiating between DGP gravity and dark energy models, and is consist with the argument we put forth in .

Imminent solar system tests have been shown to be capable of probing the residual deviation from four-dimensional Einstein gravity at distances well below $`r_{}`$ . Nevertheless, it would be ideal to test gravitational physics where dramatic differences from Einstein gravity are anticipated. A detailed study of large scale structure in the Universe can provide such tests of gravitational physics at large distance scales. Unfortunately, prior analyses related to modified-gravity explanations of cosmic acceleration  are not applicable here. The modified force law is, in effect, sensitive to the background cosmological expansion, since this expansion is intimately tied to the extrinsic curvature of the brane , and this curvature controls the effective Newtonian potential. A more careful analysis must be performed. In the next section we briefly review DGP gravity and identify the new force law necessary to calculate how large scale structure evolves in this cosmological model. We then proceed and compare those results to the standard cosmology, as well as to a cosmology that exactly mimics the DGP expansion history using dark energy. Finally, we discuss the observational implications of our results on the growth of structure in DGP gravity and conclude with some remarks and a discussion of future work needed to improve upon our treatment.

## II DGP Gravity

We review the important points of the DGP braneworld model, including cosmology. We then modify the calculation performed in  to do determine the gravitational force law in an evolving cosmological background, rather than in a static background deSitter space. This calculation is the new result in this paper that allows one to answer questions of cosmological interest developed in the next sections.

### A The DGP Model

Consider a braneworld theory of gravity (one in which ordinary particles and fields, other than the graviton, are confined to a three-dimensional hypersurface – the brane – embedded in a higher dimensional space – the bulk) with an infinite-volume bulk and a metastable brane graviton . We take a four-dimensional braneworld embedded in a five-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. The bulk is empty; all energy-momentum is isolated on the brane. The action is

$$S_{(5)}=\frac{1}{16\pi }M^3d^5x\sqrt{g}R+d^4x\sqrt{g^{(4)}}_m+S_{GH}.$$
(2)
The quantity $`M`$ is the fundamental five-dimensional Planck scale. The first term in Eq. (2) corresponds to the Einstein-Hilbert action in five dimensions for a five-dimensional metric $`g_{AB}`$ (bulk metric) with Ricci scalar $`R`$. The term $`S_{GH}`$ is the Gibbons–Hawking action. In addition, we consider an intrinsic curvature term which is generally induced by radiative corrections by the matter density on the brane :

$$\frac{1}{16\pi }M_P^2d^4x\sqrt{g^{(4)}}R^{(4)}.$$
(3)
Here, $`M_P`$ is the observed four-dimensional Planck scale (see  for details). Similarly, Eq. (3) is the Einstein-Hilbert action for the induced metric $`g_{\mu \nu }^{(4)}`$ on the brane, $`R^{(4)}`$ being its scalar curvature. The induced metric is§§§Throughout this paper, we use $`A,B,\mathrm{}=\{0,1,2,3,5\}`$ as bulk indices, $`\mu ,\nu ,\mathrm{}=\{0,1,2,3\}`$ as brane spacetime indices, and $`i,j,\mathrm{}=\{1,2,3\}`$ as brane spatial indices.

$$g_{\mu \nu }^{(4)}=_\mu X^A_\nu X^Bg_{AB},$$
(4)
where $`X^A(x^\mu )`$ represents the coordinates of an event on the brane labeled by $`x^\mu `$. The action given by Eqs. (2) and (3) leads to the following equations of motion

$$\frac{1}{2r_0}G_{AB}+\delta (\mathrm{brane})G_{AB}^{(4)}=\frac{8\pi }{M_\mathrm{P}^2}T_{AB}|_{\mathrm{brane}},$$
(5)
where $`G_{AB}`$ is the bulk Einstein tensor, $`G_{AB}^{(4)}`$ is the Einstein tensor of the induced brane metric, and $`T_{AB}|_{\mathrm{brane}}`$ is the matter energy-momentum tensor on the brane. We have defined a crossover scale

$$r_0=\frac{M_\mathrm{P}^2}{2M^3}.$$
(6)
This scale characterizes that distance over which metric fluctuations propagating on the brane dissipate into the bulk .

### B The Cosmological Background

Let us review some important details of the cosmological background, for a general expansion of a spatially-flat brane into a Minkowski-flat bulk. We are primarily interested in the late evolution of the Universe, in particular the matter-dominated era where the energy-momentum content of the universe is well-represented by a pressureless distribution of galaxies, spatially homogeneous on the largest scales. The spatially homogeneous cosmological background of such a Universe is driven by energy-momentum given by

$$T_B^A|_{\mathrm{brane}}=\delta (z)\mathrm{diag}(\rho (\tau ),0,0,0,0),$$
(7)
with spacetime geometry dictated by the line element

$$ds^2=\left(1\frac{\ddot{\overline{a}}}{\dot{\overline{a}}}|z|\right)^2d\tau ^2\overline{a}^2(\tau )\left(1\frac{\dot{\overline{a}}}{\overline{a}}|z|\right)^2\left[\delta _{ij}d\lambda ^id\lambda ^j\right]dz^2.$$
(8)
Here, dot refers to differentiation with respect to the cosmological time $`\tau `$, the coordinate $`z`$ is the extra dimension, and the brane scale factor, $`\overline{a}(\tau )`$ satisfies a modified Friedmann equation

$$H^2\pm \frac{H}{r_0}=\frac{8\pi }{3M_\mathrm{P}^2}\rho (\tau ),$$
(9)
where $`H(\tau )=\dot{\overline{a}}/\overline{a}`$. The two choices of sign represent two distinct cosmological phases. The phase of interest (the self-accelerating phase) corresponds to the lower sign, but we keep both for the sake of completeness.

This new Friedmann equation Eq. (9) already makes the theory distinct from standard $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology, and observational signatures constraining DGP cosmology have been considered in e.g. . Using constraints from Type 1A supernovae , the best fit $`r_0`$ is $`r_0=1.21_{0.09}^{+0.09}H_0^1`$, where $`H_0`$ is today’s Hubble scale. Taking $`H_070\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, it implies $`r_05\mathrm{Gpc}`$.

However, we wish to focus on those properties of DGP gravity that are affected by the modification of the force law, and cannot be mimicked by some dark energy component that produced the same expansion history. Following this program, we focus particularly at distance scales much smaller than the Hubble radius, $`H^1`$. As described in the introduction, the gravitational force law is significantly different from four-dimensional Einstein, even at these short distance scales. We wish to determine the form of the corrections in the background of the expected matter-dominated cosmology, Eq. (9).

We are concerned with processes at distances, $`r`$, such that $`rH1`$. Under that circumstance it is useful to change coordinates to a frame that surrenders explicit brane spatial homogeneity but preserves isotropy

$`r(\tau ,\lambda ^i)`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{a}(\tau )\lambda `$ (10)
$`t(\tau ,\lambda ^i)`$ $`=`$ $`\tau +{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2}{2}}H(\tau )\overline{a}^2(\tau ),`$ (11)
for all $`z`$ and where $`\lambda ^2=\delta _{ij}\lambda ^i\lambda ^j`$. The line element becomes

$$ds^2=\left[12(H+\dot{H}/H)|z|(H^2+\dot{H})r^2\right]dt^2\left[12H|z|\right]\left[(1+H^2r^2)dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega }\right]dz^2,$$
(12)
where here dot repreresents differentiation with respect to the new time coordinate, $`t`$. Moreover, $`H=H(t)`$ in this coordinate system. All terms of $`𝒪(r^3H^3)`$ or $`𝒪(z^2H^2,zHrH)`$ and higher have been neglected.

The coordinate system in Eq. (12) will be the most useful when considering the cosmological scenarios we are interested in. One can see that the bulk is a Rindler space. This has a fairly natural interpretation if one imagines the bulk picture . One imagines riding a local patch of the brane, which appears as hyperspherical surface expanding into (or away from) a five-dimensional Minkowski bulk. This surface either accelerates or decelerates in its motion with respect to the bulk, creating a Rindler-type potential.

### C Nonrelativistic Matter Sources

We are interested in finding the metric for compact, spherically symmetric overdensities in the background of a matter-dominated cosmology. Because we are only concerned with distance scales such that $`rH1`$, then to leading-order in $`r^2H^2`$ and $`zH`$, the solutions to the field equations Eqs. (5) are also solutions to the static equations, i.e. the metric is quasistatic, where the only time dependence comes from the slow evolution of the extrinsic curvature of the brane. To be explicit, we are looking at the nonrelativistic limit, where the metric, or the gravitational potentials, of a matter source depends only on the instantaneous location of its elements, and not on the motion of those elements.

Under this circumstance, one can choose a coordinate system in which the cosmological metric respects the spherical symmetry of the matter source. Let the line element be

$$ds^2=N^2(t,r,z)dt^2A^2(t,r,z)dr^2B^2(t,r,z)[d\theta ^2+\mathrm{sin}^2\theta d\varphi ^2]dz^2.$$
(13)
We are interested in small deviations of the metric from flatness so we define new functions $`\{n(t,r,z),a(t,r,z),b(t,r,z)\}`$ such that

$`N(t,r,z)`$ $`=`$ $`1+n(t,r,z)`$ (14)
$`A(t,r,z)`$ $`=`$ $`1+a(t,r,z)`$ (15)
$`B(t,r,z)`$ $`=`$ $`r[1+b(t,r,z)].`$ (16)
The key is that because we are interested primarily in phenomena whose size is much smaller than the cosmic horizon, the effect of cosmology is almost exclusively to control the extrinsic curvature, of the brane. This can be interpreted as a modulation of the brane’s stiffness or the strength of the scalar gravitational mode.

We take the energy-momentum tensor to now be

$$T_B^A|_{\mathrm{brane}}=\delta (z)\mathrm{diag}(\rho (t)+\delta \rho (t,r),0,0,0,0),$$
(17)
where the source mass is an overdensity of compact support (i.e. its extent is some radius, $`RH^1`$). Given a source mass whose overdensity with respect to the cosmological background goes as $`\delta \rho (r,t)`$, we may define an effective Schwarzschild radius

$$R_g(r,t)=\frac{8\pi }{M_\mathrm{P}^2}_0^rr^2\delta \rho (r,t)𝑑r.$$
(18)
We solve the perturbed Einstein equations in quasistatic approximation by generalizing the method used in , obtaining the metric of a spherical mass overdensity $`\delta \rho (t,r)`$ in the background of the cosmology described by Eq. (12) (rather than deSitter space). The metric on the brane, using the residual gauge fixing $`b(t,r)|_{z=0}=0`$, is then given by

$`rn^{}(t,r)|_{z=0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_g}{2r}}\left[1+\mathrm{\Delta }(r)\right](H^2+\dot{H})r^2`$ (19)
$`a(t,r)|_{z=0}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_g}{2r}}\left[1\mathrm{\Delta }(r)\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}H^2r^2`$ (20)
where dot now denotes differentiation with respect to $`t`$ and prime denotes differentiation with respect to $`r`$. Note that the background contribution is included in these metric components. The quantity $`\mathrm{\Delta }(r)`$ is defined as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(r)=\frac{3\beta r^3}{4r_0^2R_g}\left[\sqrt{1+\frac{8r_0^2R_g}{9\beta ^2r^3}}1\right],$$
(21)
and

$$\beta =\frac{1\pm 2r_0H+2r_0^2H^2}{1\pm 2r_0H}.$$
(22)
Though it is not of explicit interest here, the full $`z`$–dependence of the metric may be deduced from Eqs. (19) and (20) using equations laid out in the appendix of Ref.  with trivial alterations accounting for the differing cosmological background.

The result Eqs. (19)–(22) is valid for $`rH^1`$ and $`rr_0`$, but only if the spatial support of $`\delta \rho (r,t)`$ extends only to radii much less than $`H^1`$, so that there is a clear distinction between the matter making up the overdensity and the cosmological background. The result is virtually identical to the strictly static deSitter background case except there $`\beta =1\pm 2r_0H`$. One may also confirm that in the absence of perturbations (i.e., $`\delta \rho `$ or $`R_g=0`$), the background metric Eq. (12) is a consistent, quasistatic solution. This point is analogous to the well-known idea that one may reproduce the Friedmann equation in matter-dominated cosmologies with just the Newtonian interaction bewteen matter particles.

From inspection of Eq. (22), we see that, in addition to $`r_0`$, there exists a new transition scale

$$r_{}=\left[\frac{r_0^2R_g}{\beta ^2}\right]^{1/3},$$
(23)
such that when $`rr_{}`$, the Einstein phase, the metric functions on the brane reduce to

$`n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_g}{2r}}\pm \sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{R_gr}{2r_0^2}}}`$ (24)
$`a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_g}{2r}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{R_gr}{8r_0^2}}}.`$ (25)
When $`rr_{}`$, the weak-brane phase, the metric functions on the brane become

$`n`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_g}{2r}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\beta }}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(H^2+\dot{H})r^2`$ (26)
$`a`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{R_g}{2r}}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3\beta }}\right]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}H^2r^2.`$ (27)
In this phase, the extra scalar mode, the would-be radion, alters the effective Newton’s constants for the gravitational potentials represented by $`n(t,r)n(t,r)|_{\mathrm{background}}`$, the Newtonian potential, and $`a(t,r)a(t,r)|_{\mathrm{background}}`$, the gravitomagnetic potential.

One may simply check that the full $`(t,r,z)`$-dependent metric satisfies the complete modified Einstein equations Eqs. (5) to the desired order. Note that to this order of precision, the velocity of the matter distribution $`\delta \rho (t,r)`$ does not affect spacetime geometry (until order $`v^2`$ or $`vrH`$), thus corroborating the quasistatic approximation.

### D Caveats

The approximations $`v1`$ ($`v`$ represents peculiar matter velocities) and $`rH1`$ play a role in several places and allow a series of crucial simplifications that need to be spelled out. These two approximations are lumped together because the Hubble-flow velocity and peculiar velocities play almost identical roles in the relevant field equations. The following are the operational simplifications:

* Nonrelativistic, quasi-static sources. Source-velocity dependent contributions to the gravitational field are subleading. One may use the static Einstein equations and still be assured that the metric on the brane is accurate to $`𝒪(v^2,r^2H^2)`$.
* Near-field regime. Related to the above simplification, the source evolves slowly enough that radiative effects are negligible at these radii. We may safely avoid scalar radiation on the brane and gravity-wave evaporation into the bulk and other radiative bulk effects . These radiative scalar modes may also have classical instabilities that might become relevant outside this regime .
* Resolving background matter from perturbation. This simplification is specific to DGP gravity. The metric components Eqs. (19) and (20) depends on the background Hubble expansion, and the calculation crucially depends on the assumption that the overdensity does not alter the background cosmology. This can been seen to be self-consistent in the DGP field equations only when the radius of support for the overdensity is much smaller than the Hubble radius, $`H^1`$.
* Geodesic motion is Newtonian, i.e. the geodesic equation reduces to Newton’s second law where the potential is $`g_{00}`$ or $`n(t,r)`$.

If we stray too far from the assumptions $`v1`$ and $`rH1`$, then effects safely disregarded may start intruding into and complicating the analysis, particularly when $`HH_0`$, introducing additional effects of equal significance to the ones included here.

## III Growth of Density Perturbations

### A Spherical Perturbations

Let us consider the evolution of a spherical top-hat perturbation $`\delta (t,r)`$ of top-hat radius $`R_t`$, where $`\rho (t,r)=\overline{\rho }(t)(1+\delta )`$ is the full density distribution and $`\overline{\rho }(t)`$ is the background density. At subhorizon scales ($`Hr1`$), the contribution from the Newtonian potential, $`n(t,r)`$, dominates the geodesic evolution of the overdensity. From Eq. (26) it follows the equation of motion for the perturbation $`\delta `$ is,

$$\ddot{\delta }\frac{4}{3}\frac{\dot{\delta }^2}{1+\delta }+2H\dot{\delta }=4\pi G\overline{\rho }\delta (1+\delta )\left[1+\frac{2}{3\beta }\frac{1}{ϵ}\left(\sqrt{1+ϵ}1\right)\right],$$
(28)
where the definition of $`ϵ8r_0^2R_g/9\beta ^2R_t^3`$ follows from the identification of the expression in square brackets with $`1+\mathrm{\Delta }(r)`$ (see Eq. (21)), and we have restricted ourselves to the self-accelerating branch (i.e., the lower sign choice in all equations in the previous section).

For clarity, we may recast the time evolution of $`\beta `$ and $`ϵ`$ in terms of $`\delta `$ and the time-dependent value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$. Defining $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m(t)\frac{8\pi \overline{\rho }(t)}{3M_P^2H^2(t)}`$, and using the Friedmann equation, Eq. (9),

$$\beta =\frac{1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2}{1\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2},ϵ=\frac{8}{9}\frac{(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m)^2}{(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2)^2}\mathrm{\Omega }_m\delta .$$
(29)
We stress that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$ is a time-dependent quantity – it goes to unity at high redshift $`1zz_{eq}`$, where the evolution is Einstein-deSitter (but in the matter dominated regime), and at present it reduces to the usual value that we denote as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=\mathrm{\Omega }_m(z=0)`$. We see that $`\beta `$ is negative, of order unity at present, and approaches minus infinity at high redshift, whereas $`ϵ`$ is proportional to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m\delta `$ with a coefficient of order unity. Note that for large $`\delta `$, Eq. (28) reduces to the standard evolution of spherical perturbations in general relativity. However, when $`\delta `$ is small, the correction term in the square brackets can be noticeably different from unity.

### B Linear Growth

Let us focus first on linear perturbation growth at scales $`rH^1`$. In this regime $`\delta (r,t)1`$, therefore one is always in the weak-brane regime,This is always true for top-hat perturbations, but in practice the size $`r`$ is related to the amplitude $`\delta `$ through the perturbation spectrum. However, for 1$`\sigma `$ fluctuations of scale $`r=10100`$ Mpc/$`h`$ with typical profiles given by the two-point correlation function, $`r_{}`$ corresponds to $`515`$ Mpc/$`h`$. Therefore perturbations accessible to large-scale structure surveys are a natural probe of DGP gravity in the weak-brane regime. $`rr_{}`$, and the only effect of DGP gravity is a modification of Newton’s constant. Equation (28) reduces to

$$\ddot{\delta }+2H\dot{\delta }=4\pi G\overline{\rho }\left(1+\frac{1}{3\beta }\right)\delta .$$
(30)
Note that the effective Newton’s constant,

$$G_{\mathrm{eff}}=G\left(1+\frac{1}{3\beta }\right),$$
(31)
is time-dependent. Since $`\beta `$ is negative, as time goes on the effective gravitational constant decreases, and this extra repulsion (compared to general relativity) leads to suppressed growth. For example, if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3`$, $`G_{\mathrm{eff}}/G=0.72,0.86,0.92`$ at $`z=0,1,2`$.

The growing-mode solution of Eq. (30), $`D_+`$, is shown as a function of redshift $`z`$ in Fig. 1. The top panel shows as dashed lines the ratio of $`D_+`$ in DGP gravity to that in a dark energy (DE) scenario with the same Friedmann equation but standard gravity, for two values of the present matter density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3`$ (top) and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.2`$ (bottom). Notice how the change in the effective Newton constant leads to a suppression of $`D_+`$. Incidentally, this suppression is about two times larger than for models of modified gravity (with the same expansion history) that obey the Birkhoff’s law . The lower panel compares the growth factor $`D_+`$ to that in the standard cosmological constant scenario (with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$), again for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3`$ (top) and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.2`$ (bottom). We see here that the change in the expansion history (from a cosmological constant to DGP) leads to an additional suppression of the growth. In the language of dark energy, this is because the non-standard term in the Friedmann equation Eq. (9) can be thought of as a contribution from a dark energy component with an effective equation of state given by

$$w_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{1}{1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m},$$
(32)
therefore, for fixed $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$ such a term dominates the expansion of the universe earlier in DGP gravity than in DE models with a cosmological constant, leading to an enhanced expansion rate $`H`$ and therefore and additional suppression over the one provided by the change in the force law. We will examine the observational consequences of this in Sec. IV.

The growth of velocity perturbations is also a useful observable, and it follows directly from the continuity equation in the linear approximation. It is specified by $`fd\mathrm{ln}D_+/d\mathrm{ln}a`$ and it can be parametrized in terms of the time variable $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$; in fact, one finds the following differential equation for $`f(\mathrm{\Omega }_m)`$ directly from Eq. (30),

$$\frac{df}{d\mathrm{\Omega }_m}+\frac{1}{3\mathrm{\Omega }_m(1\mathrm{\Omega }_m)}\left[(2\mathrm{\Omega }_m)f+(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m)f^2\right]=\frac{1}{3}\frac{(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m)(1+2\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2)}{(1\mathrm{\Omega }_m)(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m^2)}$$
(33)
whose numerical solution follows approximately $`f(\mathrm{\Omega }_m)\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{2/3}`$, which can be contrasted with the standard $`f(\mathrm{\Omega }_m)\mathrm{\Omega }_m^{5/9}`$ for flat models with a cosmological constant. The top panel of Fig. 1 shows the ratio of $`f`$ for DGP and DE models with the same expansion history, for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3,0.2`$, showing that differences of at least $`10\%`$ are expected, whereas comparing DGP to cosmological constant models with the same $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$ larger differences are obtained, e.g. for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.2`$, $`f^{\mathrm{DGP}}/f^{\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}}=0.83`$. These deviations are well within the range that can be probed with current redshift surveys.

### C Non-Linear Growth

The left panel in Fig. 2 shows the full solution of Eq. (28) with an initial condition of $`\delta _i=3\times 10^3`$ at $`z_i=1000`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3`$, and the corresponding solution in the cosmological constant case. Whereas such a perturbation collapses in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM case at $`z=0.66`$ when its linearly extrapolated density contrast is $`\delta _c=1.689`$, for the DGP case the collapse happens much later at $`z=0.35`$ when its $`\delta _c=1.656`$. In terms of the linearly extrapolated density contrasts things do not look very different, in fact, when the full solutions are expressed as a function of the linearly extrapolated density contrasts, $`\delta _{\mathrm{lin}}=D_+\delta _i/(D_+)_i`$ they are very similar to within a few percent (right panel in Fig. 2). This implies that all the higher-order moments of the density field will be very close to that in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models. Indeed, such moments are determined by the vertices $`\nu _n`$ defined from ($`\nu _11`$)

$$\delta (\delta _{\mathrm{lin}})=\underset{n=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{\nu _n}{n!}\delta _{\mathrm{lin}}^n,$$
(34)
e.g. the skewness is $`S_3=3\nu _2`$ , up to smoothing corrections that depend on the transformation from Lagrangian to Eulerian space. However since $`\nu _n=d^n\delta /d\delta _{\mathrm{lin}}^n`$ at $`\delta _{\mathrm{lin}}=0`$, the $`\nu _n`$’s in DGP gravity will all be very similar to those in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM (we have checked this explicitly for $`S_3`$, obtaining less than $`1\%`$ change). This can be useful in the sense that it allows the use of the non-linear growth to constrain the bias between galaxies and dark matter in the same way as it is done in standard case, thus inferring the linear growth factor from the normalization of the power spectrum in the linear regime. Although the result in the right panel in Fig. 2 may seem a coincidence at first sight, Eq. (28) says that the nontrivial correction from DGP gravity in square brackets is maximum when $`\delta =0`$ (which gives the renormalization of Newton’s constant). As $`\delta `$ increases the correction disappears (since DGP becomes Einstein at high-densities), so most of the difference between the two evolutions happens in the linear regime, which is encoded in the linear growth factor.

### D Late-time ISW Effect

We now consider the late-time integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for perturbations with scale $`rH^1`$. For this purpose, we need to identify the gravitational potentials for linear overdensities as perturbations around a homogeneous cosmological background with the line element

$$ds^2=\left[1+2\mathrm{\Phi }(\tau ,\lambda )\right]d\tau ^2\overline{a}^2(\tau )\left[1+2\mathrm{\Psi }(\tau ,\lambda )\right]\left[d\lambda ^2+\lambda ^2d\mathrm{\Omega }\right].$$
(35)
Here $`\mathrm{\Phi }(\tau ,\lambda )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }(t,\lambda )`$ are the relevant gravitational potentials and $`\lambda `$ is a comoving radial coordinate. In effect we want to determine $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ given $`n`$ and $`a`$. Unlike the case of Einstein’s gravity, $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Psi }`$, due to additional contribution of the first term in Eq. (5). One may perform a coordinate transformation to determine that relationship. We find that, assigning $`r=\overline{a}(\tau )\lambda `$, and

$`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`nn|_{\mathrm{background}}`$ (36)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dr}{r}\left[a(\tau ,r)a(\tau ,r)|_{\mathrm{background}}\right]},`$ (37)
keeping only the important terms when $`rH1`$. But since we are concerned with linear density perturbations, we find from Eqs. (26) and (27) that the quantity of interest for the ISW effect is the time derivative of

$$^2(\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Psi })=\frac{8\pi }{M_P^2}\overline{a}^2\rho \delta ,$$
(38)
where $``$ is the gradient in comoving spatial coordiantes. This result is identical to the four-dimensional Einstein result, the contributions from the brane effects exactly cancelling. This result is not entirely surprising since the effect of the brane is the introduction of a new gravitational scalar that couples to the trace of the energy-momentum tensor. However, the ISW effect has to do with the evolution of photons through a gravitational field (in the weak field limit), and photons will not couple to the gravitational scalar (its trace vanishes). Thus, the late-time ISW effect for DGP gravity will be identical to that of a dark energy cosmology that mimics the DGP cosmic expansion history, Eq. (9), at least at scales small compared to the horizon. Our approximation does not allow us to address the ISW effect at the largest scales (relevant for the CMB at low multipoles), but it is applicable to the cross-correlation of the CMB with galaxy surveys. At larger scales, one expects to encounter difficulties associated with leakage of gravity off the brane (for order-unity redshifts) and other bulk effects  that we were successfully able to ignore at subhorizon scales.

Discussion of photon geodesics naturally leads one to ask how lensing may be altered due to DGP contributions. For weak lensing by large-scale structure, one is in the weak field limit and therefore Eq. (38) applies; that is, the weak lensing pattern is identical to that for Einstein gravity, apart from the difference in expansion histories and change in the force-law. In other words, reconstruction of the dark matter distribution in DGP from weak lensing only requires changing the growth rate and the geometrical distances.In is a nontrivial result that light deflection by a compact spherical source is identical to that in four-dimensional Einstein gravity (even with potentials Eqs. (19)–(22) substantially differing from those of Einstein gravity) through the nonlinear transition between the Einstein phase and the weak-brane phase. As such, there remains the possibility that for aspherical lenses that this surprising null result does not persist through that transition and that DGP may manifest itself through some anomalous lensing feature.

### E Beyond Isolated Spherical Perturbations

Since we have derived the growth of spherical isolated perturbations, it is fair to ask how well do we expect our results to hold in the realistic case of a superposition of perturbations of arbitrary shape. In the linear regime, one expects to recover the same result as here, since the linearized equations obey the superposition principle and one may construct arbitrary perturbations from a linear superposition of isolated spherical perturbations. In the linear regime, DGP gravity reduces to a Brans-Dicke theory with a slowly time-dependent Newton’s constant, Eq. (31). The Newtonian potential is then just a solution to Poisson’s equation for a given matter distribution source. It would be interesting, however, to corroborate this prescription with a fully consistent linear solution for an arbitrary perturbation spectrum along the lines of those presented in , restricted to scales smaller than the Hubble radius.

For the non-linear growth, the situation is more complicated since the relation between the gravitational potential and the density fluctuation $`\delta `$ is non-linear and the principle of superposition no longer holds. Here, however, one should keep in mind that these non-linearities only develop late in the evolution after the universe starts to accelerate, thus the corrections to superposition have a small time to act. It is however difficult to say something more quantitative at this point.

## IV Observational Consequences

What are the implications of these results for testing DGP gravity using large-scale structure? A clear signature of DGP gravity is the suppressed (compared to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM) growth of perturbations in the linear regime due to the different expansion history and the addition of a repulsive contribution to the force law. However, in order to predict the present normalization of the power spectrum at large scales, we need to know the normalization of the power spectrum at early times from the CMB. A fit of the to pre-WMAP CMB data was performed in Ref.  using the angular diameter distance for DGP gravity, finding a best fit (flat) model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^00.3`$, with a very similar CMB power spectrum to the standard cosmological constant model (with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^00.3`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }^0=0.7`$) and other parameters kept fixed at the same value. Here we use this fact, plus the normalization obtained from the best-fit cosmological constant power-law model from WMAP  which has basically the same (relevant for large-scale structure) parameters as in , except for the normalization of the primordial fluctuations which has increased compared to pre-WMAP data (see e.g. Fig. 11 in ). The normalization for the cosmological constant scale-invariant model corresponds to present rms fluctuations in spheres of 8 Mpc/$`h`$, $`\sigma _8=0.9\pm 0.1`$ (see Table 2 in ). We assume a flat model, since it was shown in  to be consistent as well with the DGP angular diameter distance. We ignore the fact that the ISW effect at low multipoles (where the CMB power spectrum has large error bars) can be different in DGP gravity, this has a small effect on the overall normalization of the primordial fluctuations that are determined by the overall power spectrum.

Figure 3 shows the present value of $`\sigma _8`$ as a function of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$ for DGP gravity, where we assume that the best-fit normalization of the primordial fluctuations stays constant as we change $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$, and recompute the transfer function and growth factor as we move away from $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3`$. Since most of the contribution to $`\sigma _8`$ comes from scales $`r<100h`$/Mpc, we can calculate the transfer function using Einstein gravity, since these modes entered the Hubble radius at redshifts high enough that they evolve in the standard fashion. The value of $`\sigma _8`$ at $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.3`$ is then given by $`0.9`$ times the ratio of the DGP to $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM growth factors shown in the bottom panel of Fig. 1. The error bars in $`\sigma _8`$ reflect the uncertainty in the normalization of primordial fluctuations, and we keep them a constant fraction as we vary $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$ away from $`0.3`$. We see in Fig. 3 that for the lower values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$ preferred by fitting the acceleration of the universe, the additional suppression of growth plus the change in the shape of the density power spectrum drive $`\sigma _8`$ to a rather small value. This could in part be ameliorated by increasing the Hubble constant, but not to the extent needed to keep $`\sigma _8`$ at reasonable values. The vertical lines show the best-fit and 1$`\sigma `$ error bars from fitting DGP gravity to the supernova data from  in . This shows that fitting the acceleration of the universe requires approximately $`\sigma _80.7`$ to 1$`\sigma `$ and $`\sigma _80.8`$ to 2$`\sigma `$.

In order to compare this prediction of $`\sigma _8`$ to observations one must be careful since most determinations of $`\sigma _8`$ have built in the assumption of Einstein gravity or $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models. We use galaxy clustering, which in view of the results in Sect. III C for higher-order moments, should provide a test of galaxy biasing independent of gravity being DGP or Einstein. Recent determinations of $`\sigma _8`$ from galaxy clustering in the SDSS survey  give $`\sigma _8^{}=0.89\pm 0.02`$ for $`L^{}`$ galaxies at an effective redshift of the survey $`z_s=0.1`$. We can convert this value to $`\sigma _8`$ for dark matter at $`z=0`$ as follows. We evolve to $`z=0`$ using a conservative growth factor, that of DGP for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0=0.2`$. In order to convert from $`L^{}`$ galaxies to dark matter, we use the results of the bispectrum analysis of the 2dF survey  where $`b=1.04\pm 0.11`$ for luminosity $`L1.9L^{}`$. We then scale to $`L^{}`$ galaxies using the empirical relative bias relation obtained in  that $`b/b^{}=0.85+0.15(L/L^{})`$, which is in very good agreement with SDSS (see Fig. 30 in ). This implies $`\sigma _8=1.00\pm 0.11`$. Even if we allow for another $`10\%`$ systematic uncertainty in this procedure, the preferred value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$ in DGP gravity that fits the supernovae data is about 2$`\sigma `$ away from that required by the growth of structure at $`z=0`$.

An independent way of testing DGP gravity with large-scale structure is to constrain the growth of velocity fluctuations through $`f`$. This affects the redshift distortions of the power spectrum and can be extracted from measurements, though at present the errors are somewhat large (see e.g. ) for an accurate test, but this should improve soon. The interesting feature of this test is that it is independent of the normalization of the primordial fluctuations, unlike the $`\sigma _8`$ normalization discussed above; thus it will be important to check that the same conclusions follow in this case.

## V Concluding Remarks

In this paper we identified how one may test the modifications of the gravitational force law expected in Dvali–Gabadadze–Porrati (DGP) gravity at scales of cosmological interest. While cosmology is altered when the Hubble scale becomes comparable to today’s Hubble scale, $`H_0^1`$, the force law is correspondingly altered at much shorter scales and affects, for example, the growth of density perturbations at redshifts of order unity.

Although the results obtained in this paper are qualitatively comparable to those found in , they differ in key ways since DGP gravity does not obey Birkhoff’s law. The form of the gravitational force law between localized mass sources is sensitive to the background cosmological expansion. So, while the results show deviations from Newtonian gravity of order unity at distance scales greater than the scale $`r_{}(r_g/H_0^2)^{1/3}`$, where $`r_g`$ is the Schwarzschild radius of the mass source, the quantitative details differ. In particular, the suppression of the growth of structure is a factor about two larger than in Birkoff-law models with the same expansion history. Moreover, DGP gravity deviates significantly from four-dimensional Einstein gravity through the emergence of an ultra-light graviscalar mode. Because such a mode does not couple to photons, the new effects do not manifest themselves in the late-time integrated Sachs–Wolfe (ISW) effect, at least at the subhorizon scales we consider. While the gravitational potentials are indeed altered by order-unity factors late in the cosmic expansion history, they precisely cancel, so that the late-time ISW effect in DGP gravity is identical to that for a dark energy theory that mimics the DGP expansion history. The same situation applies to weak gravitational lensing.

We have done a first assessment of the observational viability of DGP gravity to simultaneously explain the acceleration of the universe and the growth of structure. In order to improve the comparison against observations a number of issues remain unsolved. First, one would like to check that the linear growth factor for sub-horizon scales derived under the spherical approximation holds for more general perturbations, as expected by the superposition principle in the linear regime. A more non-trivial check would be to generalize this to the non-linear case, or at least second-order in perturbation theory, to check the deviations from superposition assumed here in the nonlinear case. To do a full comparison of the CMB power spectrum against data it remains to solve for the ISW effect at scales comparable to the horizon. Our treatment found no difference from general relativity (except from the change in the expansion history), but this is only valid at subhorizon scales.

Nevertheless, the main problem for DGP gravity to simultaneously explain cosmic acceleration and the growth of structure is easy to understand: the expansion history is already significantly different from a cosmological constant, corresponding to an effective equation of state with $`w_{\mathrm{eff}}=(1+\mathrm{\Omega }_m)^1`$. This larger value of $`w`$ suppresses the growth somewhat due to earlier epoch of the onset of acceleration. In addition, the new repulsive contribution to the force law suppreses the growth even more, driving $`\sigma _8`$ to a rather low value, in contrast with observations. If as error bars shrink the supernovae results continue to be consistent with $`w_{\mathrm{eff}}=1`$, this will drive the DGP fit to a yet lower value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m^0`$ and thus a smaller value of $`\sigma _8`$. For these reasons we expect the tension between explaining acceleration and the growth of structure to be robust to a more complete treatment of the comparison of DGP gravity against observations.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors thank C. Deffayet, G. Dvali, G. Gabadadze, A. Gruzinov, M. Takada and M. Zaldarriaga for helpful communications and insights. A. L. and G. S. wish to thank the CERN Theory Division and the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics for their hospitality. This work is sponsored by DOE Grant DEFG0295ER40898, the CWRU Office of the Provost, NASA grant NAG5-12100, NSF grant PHY-0101738, and CERN. G. S. thanks Maplesoft for the use of Maple V.


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# Intermittency and the passive nature of the magnitude of the magnetic field

## Abstract

It is shown that the statistical properties of the magnitude of the magnetic field in turbulent electrically conducting media resemble, in the inertial range, those of passive scalars in fully developed three-dimensional fluid turbulence. This conclusion, suggested by the data from Advanced Composition Explorer, is supported by a brief analysis of the appropriate magnetohydrodynamic equations.

In recent years, the problem of turbulent advection and diffusion of scalar and vector fields, both passive and active, has received renewed attention (see, for instance, Refs. shr -ching  and the papers cited there). Corresponding experimental results are still few in number, partly because one is still grappling with the precise correspondence between the hypotheses of the theory and their experimental realization. We discuss here one of the most interesting examples considered recently: the case of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in which the magnetic field fluctuation $`𝐁`$ is described by the equation

$$\frac{𝐁}{t}=\times (𝐯\times 𝐁)+\eta ^2𝐁.$$
$`(1)`$
Here, $`𝐯`$ is the turbulence velocity and the $`\eta `$ is magnetic diffusivity. Equation (1) can be regarded as a vector analogue of the advection-diffusion equation

$$\frac{\theta }{t}=(𝐯)\theta +D^2\theta $$
$`(2)`$
for the evolution of a passive scalar $`\theta `$ subject to molecular diffusivity $`D`$. Aside from the fact that $`𝐁`$ is a vector and $`\theta `$ a scalar, the equations are different also because $`𝐯`$ in Eq. (1) can be affected quite readily by the feedback of the magnetic field $`𝐁`$. Our interest here is to explore the extent of similarities, despite these obvious differences, in the inertial range statistics of the magnetic and passive scalar fields.

Solar wind is an excellent natural “laboratory” for the MHD problem. It is known that the statistical properties of velocity fluctuations in the solar wind are remarkably similar to those observed in fluid turbulence bur . It is also known that the plasma power spectra of the magnetic field and velocity fluctuations often contain an “inertial” range with a slope of approximately $`5/3`$ (for reviews, see gold ,bur ). The approximately $`5/3`$ power-law is especially common for magnitude fluctuations $`B=\sqrt{B_i^2}`$ (the summation over repeated indexes is assumed) of the magnetic field, as one can see in Fig. 1. For computing this spectrum, we have used the data obtained from Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite magnetometers for the year 1998. In this period, the sun was quiet and the data are statistically stable. The range of scales for which the “$`5/3`$” power holds is taken to be the inertial range; the smaller scales are obliterated because of the instrument resolution and the truncation at the large-scale end is governed by the record length chosen for Fourier transforming.

The nature of the spectrum for each individual component of the magnetic field is more variable from one component of $`𝐁`$ to another, and from one situation to another, perhaps because of large anisotropies in the magnetic field $`𝐁`$, but the result for the $`magnitude`$ of $`𝐁`$ seems more robust. Scaling spectrum with the $`5/3`$ slope (Fig. 1) is quite typical of that observed for passive scalar fluctuations in fully developed three-dimensional fluid turbulence (the so-called Corrsin-Obukhov spectrum my ). Spurred by this similarity, we were motivated to explore further the properties of the magnitude $`B`$, and compare them with those of the passive scalar. More detailed statistical information is provided by the structure functions scaling

$$|\mathrm{\Delta }B_\tau |^p\tau ^{\zeta _p},$$
$`(3)`$
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }B_\tau =B(t+\tau )B(t).$$
$`(4)`$
The exponent $`\zeta _2`$ is directly related to the spectral exponent (in our case $`\zeta _25/31=2/3`$ my ). If the dependence of $`\zeta _p`$ on $`p`$ is nonlinear, it is well-known that one has to deal with intermittency.

Figure 2 shows the scaling of structure functions for the solar wind data. Slopes of the straight-line fits in the apparently scaling region provide us the scaling exponents $`\zeta _p`$; these are shown in Fig. 3 as circles. Triangles in the figure indicate experimental values obtained for temperature fluctuations in the atmosphere schmidt . The other experimental data other1 ,other2  are in agreement with each other to better than 5$`\%`$. The $``$ symbols are for the passive scalar field obtained by numerically solving the advection-diffusion in three-dimensional turbulence gotoh . It is clear that the exponents for the passive scalar data are in essential agreement with those for the magnitude fluctuations of the magnetic field.

One can, in fact, analyze the solar wind data somewhat differently using the notion of the extended self-similarity (ESS). Since, empirically, the fourth order exponent is quite closely equal to 1 for the magnetic field magnitude, i.e.,

$$|\mathrm{\Delta }B_\tau |^4\tau ,$$
$`(5)`$
we can extend the scaling range (and consequently improve the confidence with which those exponents are determined) by redefining them as

$$|\mathrm{\Delta }B_\tau |^p|\mathrm{\Delta }B_\tau |^4^{\zeta _p}.$$
$`(6)`$
Figure 4 shows the ESS dependence (6). The slopes of the best-fit straight lines in this figure provide us with the ESS scaling exponents $`\zeta _p`$, which are shown in Fig. 5 as circles. The other symbols have remained unchanged from Fig. 3. The shift of the exponents $`\zeta _p`$ in comparison to those from ordinary self-similarity is about 4$`\%`$, but the scaling interval for ESS is considerably larger. This increased scaling range is well-known in other contexts ben .

The results shown in Figs. 3 and 5 suggest that at least up to the level of the fourth-order the scaling exponents for the passive scalars and for the magnitude of the magnetic field are essentially the same. This is both surprising and thought-provoking, and needs to be understood further. To this end, let us return to Eq. (1) and specialize comment , for simplicity, to the case of incompressible moving medium ($`𝐯=0`$). Equation (1) can then be rewritten as

$$\frac{𝐁}{t}=(𝐯)𝐁+(𝐁)𝐯+\eta ^2𝐁.$$
$`(7)`$
Let us now consider the equation for the magnitude $`B`$ of the magnetic fluctuations given by $`𝐁=B𝐧`$, where $`𝐧`$ is the unit vector with its direction along $`𝐁`$: $`n_i=B_i/B`$. Multiplying both sides of Eq. (7) by the vector $`𝐧`$ and taking into account that $`n_i^2=1`$ we obtain

$$\frac{B}{t}=(𝐯)B+\eta ^2B+\lambda B,$$
$`(8)`$
in which the “friction-stretching” (or the production) coefficient $`\lambda `$ in the last term has the form

$$\lambda =n_in_j\frac{v_i}{x_j}\eta \left(\frac{n_i}{x_j}\right)^2,$$
$`(9)`$
with the indices $`i`$ and $`j`$ representing the space coordinates, and the summation over repeated indexes is assumed. The first term on the right hand side of Eq. (9) is crucial for any dynamo effect.

If the statistical behaviors of $`\theta `$ and $`B`$ are to be similar, as suggested by Figs. 1, 3 and 5, we should be able to observe the underlying similarity between Eqs. (2) and (8). There is a major difference corresponding the presence in Eq. (8) of the production term $`\lambda B`$. However, given the empirical indications that $`B`$ and $`\theta `$ are similar in the inertial range, it is appropriate to look for circumstances under which the $`\lambda `$ term in Eq. (8) may be small. The second term in $`\lambda `$ is assured to be small because the smallness of the magnetic diffusivity $`\eta `$, but difficulties may arise from the first term on the right hand side of Eq. (9).

To eliminate directional dependencies in Eq. (8), let us make the following conditional average of that equation. That is, fix the magnitude $`B`$ in the vector field $`𝐁=B𝐧`$ while performing the average over all realizations of the direction vector field $`𝐧`$ permitted by the vector equation (7). Let us denote this ensemble average as $`\mathrm{}_𝐧`$. From the definition, this averaging procedure does not affect $`B`$ itself, but affects the velocity field $`𝐯`$ and the “friction-stretching” coefficient $`\lambda `$ in Eq. (8). We thus obtain

$$\frac{B}{t}=(𝐯_𝐧)B+\eta ^2B+\lambda _𝐧B.$$
$`(10)`$
It is worth emphasizing that the solutions of the original equation (7) satisfy Eqs. (8) and (10), but not all possible formal solutions of the Eqs. (8) and (10) satisfy Eq. (7); similarly, not all formal solutions of Eq. (10) satisfy Eq. (8) while all solutions of Eq. (8) do satisfy Eq. (10). Restricting comments to the relationship between Eqs. (8) and (10), the solutions of the two equations are the same only if the initial conditions are the same and if realizations of $`𝐯_𝐧`$ and of $`\lambda _𝐧`$, related to these initial conditions by the conditional average procedure, are obtained from solutions applicable to Eq. (8).

Returning now to Eq. (10), the conditionally averaged velocity field $`𝐯_𝐧`$ may posses statistical properties that are different from those of the original velocity field $`𝐯`$, and there can be circumstances under which $`\lambda _𝐧=0`$, or small. If so, the similarity between Eqs. (2) and (10) (and, consequently, Eq. (8)) can be the basis for the similarity in statistical properties of their solutions. Therefore, finding conditions under which $`\lambda _𝐧=0`$, or small, seems to be a useful exercise.

It is, however, difficult to guess a prioiri when $`\lambda _𝐧`$ is negligible, because there is no small parameter for the stretching part of $`\lambda `$. Therefore, let us consider a generic set of conditions, presumably for the inertial range, which can result in $`n_in_jv_i/x_j_𝐧=0`$. This can be a combination of isotropy, which yields

$$n_in_j_𝐧=0(ij)$$

and

$$n_1^2_𝐧=n_2^2_𝐧=n_3^2_𝐧,$$
$`(11)`$
and statistical independence

$$n_in_j\phi _𝐧=n_in_j_𝐧\phi _𝐧,$$
$`(12)`$
where $`\phi =v_k/x_l`$ for arbitrary $`k`$ and $`l`$.

We should emphasize that the conditional average indicated by $`\mathrm{}_𝐧`$ and the global average indicated by $`\mathrm{}`$ are quite different; because of this, the quantity $`B`$ in (10) remains a fluctuating variable. To eliminate the stretching part from the conditionally averaged coefficient $`\lambda _𝐧`$—this being critical for explaining the observed similarity in the scaling of structure functions between $`B`$ and $`\theta `$—one does not need to satisfy conditions (11) and (12) for all realizations of the magnetic field $`𝐁`$, but only for the subset of realizations that gives the main statistical contribution to the structure functions (3). Let us name this subset of realizations as I. The structure functions (3) depend on the statistical properties of the increments with respect to $`\tau `$, namely $`\mathrm{\Delta }B_\tau `$, belonging to the inertial range of scales. One of the consequences of intermittency is that the statistical properties of the increments are essentially different from those of the field $`𝐁`$ itself. Therefore, the subset I need not generally coincide with the subset G, say, that gives the main statistical contribution to the global average $`n_in_jv_k/x_l`$. This means, in particular, that the conditions (11) and (12) can be valid for the inertial interval (i.e. for subset I), while globally (i.e. for subset G) these conditions could well be violated.

We now use conditions (11) and (12) in the presence of the incompressibility condition $`v_i/x_i=0`$ and obtain

$$\lambda _𝐧=\eta \left(\frac{n_i}{x_j}\right)^2_𝐧.$$
$`(13)`$
That is, the difference between the passive scalar equation (2) and the conditionally averaged equation (10) for $`B`$ is reduced to pure “friction” with the friction coefficient given by (13). Equation (10) can then be reduced in Lagrangian variables to

$$\frac{dB}{dt}=\lambda _𝐧B,$$
$`(14)`$
with the “multiplicative noise” $`\lambda _𝐧`$ given by Eq. (13). Weak diffusion of Lagrangian “particles” can be described as their wandering around the deterministic trajectories. Introduction of a weak diffusion is equivalent to introduction of additional averaging in Eq. (14) over random trajectories zeld1 . The small parameter $`\eta `$ in (13) and (14) will then determine a slow time in comparison with the time scales in the inertial interval and will therefore not affect scaling properties of $`B`$ in the inertial interval. This explains the similarity of scaling between $`B`$ and $`\theta `$.

In summary, we have shown that remarkable scaling similarities exist in the inertial range between the passive scalar and the magnitude of the magnetic field in MHD flows. Motivated by this observation, we have derived the dynamical equation for $`B`$ and argued that, under circumstances governed by Eqs. (11) and (12), dynamical similarity exists between the equations governing the passive scalar and the magnitude of the magnetic fluctuations. The conditions under which (11) and (12) are valid, perhaps best described as “directional randomness”, may be quite general and applicable to other circumstances (though, perhaps, not for the vorticity equation whose form is strongly nonlinear in any turbulent situation).

We are grateful to ACE/MAG instrument team as well as to the ACE Science Center for providing the data and support, to T. Gotoh for providing Ref. gotoh  before publication, and to G. Falkovich, to J. Schumacher and to V. Yakhot for comments.