The cosmological scalar perturbations of standard matter are investigated in the context of extended teleparallel f(T) gravity theories using the $$1+3$$1+3 covariant formalism. After a review of the background gravitational field equations of f(T) gravity and the introduction of the covariant perturbation variables, the usual scalar and harmonic decomposition have been performed, and the analysis of the growth of the density contrasts in the quasi-static approximation for two non-interacting fluids scenarios, namely torsion-dust and torsion-radiation mixtures is presented for the generic f(T) gravity theory. Special applications to two classes of f(T) gravity toy models, namely $$f(T) = \mu T_0 \Big (\frac{T}{T_0}\Big )^n$$f(T)=μT0(TT0)n and $$f(T) = T+ \mu T_0 \Big (-\frac{T}{T_0}\Big )^n$$f(T)=T+μT0(-TT0)n, have then been made within the observationally viable regions of their respective parameter spaces, and the growth of the matter density contrast for both torsion-dust and torsion-radiation epochs of the Universe has been examined. The exact solutions of the dust perturbations, with growing amplitudes in cosmic time, are obtained for some limiting cases of n. Similarly, the long- and short-wavelength modes in the torsion-radiation case are treated, with the amplitudes either oscillating or monotonically growing with time. Overall, it is noted that f(T) models contain a richer set of observationally viable structure growth scenarios that can be tested against up-and-coming observational data and can accommodate currently known features of the large-scale structure power spectrum in the general relativistic and $$\varLambda CDM$$ΛCDM limits.

In this paper, the scalar–tensor theory is applied to the study of perturbations in a multifluid universe, using the [Formula: see text] covariant approach. Both scalar and harmonic decompositions are instituted on the perturbation equations. In particular, as an application, we study perturbations on a background Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmology consisting of both radiation and dust in the presence of a scalar field. We consider both radiation-dominated and dust-dominated epochs, respectively, and study the results. During the analysis, quasi-static approximation is instituted. It is observed that the fluctuations of the energy density decrease with increasing redshift, for different values of [Formula: see text] of a power-law [Formula: see text] model.

In this paper, we undertake a unified study of background dynamics and cosmological perturbations in the presence of the Chaplygin gas. This is done by first constraining the background cosmological parameters of different Chaplygin gas models with SNIa data, and then feeding these observationally constrained parameters in the analysis of cosmological perturbations. Based on the statistical criteria we followed, none of the models has a substantial observational support but we show that the so-called 'original' and 'generalized' Chaplygin gas models have some observational support and less observational support, respectively, whereas the 'modified' and 'modified generalized' Chaplygin gas models miss out on the less observational support category but cannot be ruled out. The so-called 'generalized cosmic Chaplygin gas' model, on the other hand, falls under the no observational support category of the statistical criterion and can be ruled out. We follow the 1 + 3 covariant formalism of perturbation theory and derive the evolution equations of the fluctuations in the matter density contrast of the matter-Chaplygin gas system for the models with some or less statistical support. The solutions to these coupled systems of equations are then computed in both short-wavelength and long-wavelength modes.

This paper explores the possibility of treating the exotic Chaplygin-gas (CG) fluid model as some manifestation of an f (T ) gravitation. To this end, we use the different cosmological CG equations of state, compare them with the equation of state for the modified teleparallel gravity and reconstruct the corresponding Lagrangian densities. We then explicitly derive the equation of state parameter of the torsion fluid w T and study its evolution for vacuum-torsion, radiation-torsion, dust-torsion, stiff fluidtorsion and radiation-dust-torsion multi-fluid systems. The obtained Lagrangians have, in general, matter dependence due to the matter-torsion coupling appearing in the energy density and pressure terms of the modified teleparallel gravity theory. For the simplest CG models, however, it is possibly to reconstruct f (T ) Lagrangians that depend explicitly on the torsion scalar T only. The preliminary results show that, in addition to providing Chaplygin-gas-like solutions to the modified teleparallel gravitation, which naturally behave like dark matter and dark energy at early and late times respectively, the technique can be used to overcome some of the challenges attributed to the CG cosmological alternative. 749