No Arabic abstract
We investigate the possibility of using cosmological observations to probe and constrain an imperfect dark energy fluid. We consider a general parameterization of the dark energy component accounting for an equation of state, speed of sound and viscosity. We use present and future data from the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), large scale structures and supernovae type Ia. We find that both the speed of sound and viscosity parameters are difficult to nail down with the present cosmological data. Also, we argue that it will be hard to improve the constraints significantly with future CMB data sets. The implication is that a perfect fluid description might ultimately turn out to be a phenomenologically sufficient description of all the observational consequences of dark energy. The fundamental lesson is however that even then one cannot exclude, by appealing to observational evidence alone, the possibility of imperfectness in dark energy.
We study the effects of dark energy (DE) anisotropic stress on features of the matter power spectrum (PS). We employ the Parametrized Post-Friedmannian (PPF) formalism to emulate an effective DE, and model its anisotropic stress properties through a two-parameter equation that governs its overall amplitude ($g_0$) and transition scale ($c_g$). For the background cosmology, we consider different equations of state to model DE including a constant $w_0$ parameter, and models that provide thawing (CPL) and freezing (nCPL) behaviors. We first constrain these parameters by using the Pantheon, BAO, $H_0$ and CMB Planck data. Then, we analyze the role played by these parameters in the linear PS. In order for the anisotropic stress not to provoke deviations larger than $10%$ and $5%$ with respect to the $Lambda$CDM PS at $k sim 0.01 ,h/text{Mpc}$, the parameters have to be in the range $-0.30< g_0 < 0.32$, $0 leq c_g^2 < 0.01$ and $-0.15 < g_0 < 0.16$, $0 leq c_g^2 < 0.01$, respectively. Additionally, we compute the leading nonlinear corrections to the PS using standard perturbation theory in real and redshift space, showing that the differences with respect to the $Lambda$CDM are enhanced, especially for the quadrupole and hexadecapole RSD multipoles.
Since the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the universe, it was necessary to introduce a new component of matter distribution called dark energy. The standard cosmological model considers isotropy of the pressure and assumes an equation of state $p=omega rho$, relating the pressure $p$ and the energy density $rho$. The interval of the parameter $omega$ defines the kind of matter of the universe, related to the fulfillment, or not, of the energy conditions of the fluid. The recent interest in this kind of fluid with anisotropic pressure, in the scenario of the gravitational collapse and star formation, imposes a carefull analysis of the energy conditions and the role of the components of the pressure. Here, in this work, we show an example where the classification of dark energy for isotropic pressure fluids is used incorrectly for anisotropic fluids. The correct classification and its consequences are presented.
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) will use a new imaging camera on the Blanco 4-m telescope at CTIO to image 5000 square degrees of sky in the South Galactic Cap in four optical bands, and to carry out repeat imaging over a smaller area to identify and measure lightcurves of Type Ia supernovae. The main imaging area overlaps the planned Sunyaev-Zeldovich survey of the South Pole Telescope. The idea behind DES is to use four distinct and largely independent methods to probe the properties of dark energy: baryon oscillations of the power spectrum, abundance and spatial distribution of clusters, weak gravitational lensing, and Type Ia supernovae. This white paper outlines, in broad terms, some of the theoretical issues associated with the first three of these probes (the issues for supernovae are mostly different in character), and with the general task of characterizing dark energy and distinguishing it from alternative explanations for cosmic acceleration. A companion white paper discusses the kind of numerical simulations and other theoretical tools that will be needed to address the these issues and to create mock catalogs that allow end-to-end tests of analysis procedures. Although we have been thinking about these problems in the specific context of DES, many of them are also relevant to other planned dark energy studies.
Low density regions are less affected by the nonlinear structure formation and baryonic physics. They are ideal places for probing the nature of dark energy, a possible explanation for the cosmic acceleration. Unlike void lensing, which requires identifications of individual voids, we study the stacked lensing signals around the low-density-positions (LDP), defined as places that are devoid of foreground bright galaxies in projection. The method allows a direct comparison with numerical results by drawing correspondence between the bright galaxies with halos. It leads to lensing signals that are significant enough for differentiating several dark energy models. In this work, we use the CFHTLenS catalogue to define LDPs, as well as measuring their background lensing signals. We consider several different definitions of the foreground bright galaxies (redshift range & magnitude cut). Regarding the cosmological model, we run six simulations: the first set of simulations have the same initial conditions, with $rm{w_{de}=-1,-0.5,-0.8,-1.2}$; the second set of simulations include a slightly different $Lambda$CDM model and a w(z) model from cite{2017NatAs...1..627Z}. The lensing results indicate that the models with $rm{w_{de}=-0.5,-0.8}$ are not favored, and the other four models all achieve comparable agreement with the data.
In the context of the dark energy scenario, the Einstein Yang-Mills Higgs model in the SO(3) representation was studied for the first time by M. Rinaldi (see JCAP 1510, 023 (2015)) in a homogeneous and isotropic spacetime. We revisit this model, finding in particular that the interaction between the Higgs field and the gauge fields generates contributions to the momentum density, anisotropic stress and pressures, thus making the model inconsistent with the assumed background. We instead consider a homogeneous but anisotropic Bianchi-I space-time background in this paper and analyze the corresponding dynamical behaviour of the system. We find that the only attractor point corresponds to an isotropic accelerated expansion dominated by the Higgs potential. However, the model predicts non-negligible anisotropic shear contributions nowadays, i.e. the current Universe can have hair although it will loose it in the future. We investigate the evolution of the equation of state for dark energy and highlight some possible consequences of its behaviour related to the process of large-scale structure formation. As a supplement, we propose the Higgs triad as a possibility to make the Einstein Yang-Mills Higgs model be consistent with a homogeneous and isotropic spacetime.