Cosmological constraints and phenomenology of a beyond-Horndeski model

We study observational constraints on a specific dark energy model in the framework of GleyzesLanglois-Piazza-Vernizzi theories, which extends the Galileon ghost condensate (GGC) to the domain of beyond Horndeski theories. In this model, we show that the Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, combined with datasets of baryon acoustic oscillations, supernovae type Ia, and redshift-space distortions, give the tight upper bound vertical bar alpha((0))(H)vertical bar <= O(10(-6)) on today's beyond-Homdeski (BH) parameter alpha(H). This is mostly attributed to the shift of CMB acoustic peaks induced by the early-time changes of cosmological background and perturbations arising from the dominance of alpha(H) in the dark energy density. In comparison to the Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda CDM) model, our BH model suppresses the large-scale integrated-Sachs-Wolfe tail of CMB temperature anisotropies due to the existence of cubic Galileons, and it modifies the small-scale CMB power spectrum because of the different background evolution. We find that the BH model considered fits the data better than Lambda CDM according to the chi(2) statistics, yet the deviance information criterion (DIC) slightly favors the latter. Given the fact that our BH model with alpha(H) = 0 (i.e., the GGC model) is favored over CDM even by the DIC, there are no particular signatures for the departure from Horndeski theories in current observations.