Defying the laws of gravity I: model-independent reconstruction of the Universe expansion from growth data

ABSTRACT Using redshift space distortion data, we perform model-independent reconstructions of the growth history of matter inhomogeneity in the expanding Universe using two methods: crossing statistics and Gaussian processes. We then reconstruct the corresponding history of the Universe background expansion and fit it to Type Ia supernovae data, putting constraints on (Ωm, 0, σ8, 0). The results obtained are consistent with the concordance flat-ΛCDM model and General Relativity as the gravity theory given the current quality of the inhomogeneity growth data.