One of the fundamental hypotheses in observational cosmology is the validity of the so-called cosmic distance-duality relation (CDDR). In this paper, we perform Monte Carlo simulations based on the method developed in Holanda, Goncalves & Alcaniz (20
12) [JCAP 1206 (2012) 022] to answer the following question: what is the number of galaxy clusters observations N_{crit} needed to check the validity of this relation at a given confidence level? At 2sigma, we find that N_{crit} should be increased at least by a factor of 5 relative to the current sample size if we assume the current observational uncertainty sigma_{obs}. Reducing this latter quantity by a factor of 2, we show that the present number of data would be already enough to check the validity of the CDDR at 2sigma.
Cosmography provides a direct method to map the expansion history of the Universe in a model-independent way. Recently, different kinds of observations have been used in cosmographic analyses, such as SNe Ia and gamma ray bursts measurements, weak an
d strong lensing, cosmic microwave background anisotropies, etc. In this work we examine the prospects for constraining cosmographic parameters from current and future measurements of galaxy clusters distances based on their Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE) and X-ray observations. By assuming the current observational error distribution, we perform Monte Carlo simulations based on a well-behaved parameterization for the deceleration parameter to generate samples with different characteristics and study the improvement on the determination of the cosmographic parameters from upcoming data. The influence of galaxy clusters (GC) morphologies on the $H_0- q_0$ plane is also investigated.
A phenomenological attempt at alleviating the so-called coincidence problem is to allow the dark matter and dark energy to interact. By assuming a coupled quintessence scenario characterized by an interaction parameter $epsilon$, we investigate the p
recision in the measurements of the expansion rate $H(z)$ required by future experiments in order to detect a possible deviation from the standard $Lambda$CDM model ($epsilon = 0$). We perform our analyses at two levels, namely: through Monte Carlo simulations based on $epsilon$CDM models, in which $H(z)$ samples with different accuracies are generated and through an analytic method that calculates the error propagation of $epsilon$ as a function of the error in $H(z)$. We show that our analytical approach traces simulations accurately and find that to detect an interaction {using $H(z)$ data only, these must reach an accuracy better than 1%.
We use current measurements of the expansion rate $H(z)$ and cosmic background radiation bounds on the spatial curvature of the Universe to impose cosmological model-independent constraints on cosmic opacity. To perform our analyses, we compare opaci
ty-free distance modulus from $H(z)$ data with those from two supernovae Ia compilations: the Union2.1 plus the most distant spectroscopically confirmed SNe Ia (SNe Ia SCP-0401 $z=1.713$) and two Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) subsamples. The influence of different SNe Ia light-curve fitters (SALT2 and MLCS2K2) on the results is also verified. We find that a completely transparent universe is in agreement with the largest sample in our analysis (Union 2.1 plus SNe Ia SCP-0401). For SDSS sample a such universe it is compatible at $< 1.5sigma$ level regardless the SNe Ia light-curve fitting used.
