Determining Cosmological Parameters with Latest Observational Data

TL;DR

This study combines multiple observational datasets to refine constraints on cosmological parameters, confirming the $ m extLambda$CDM model's validity and exploring dark energy, curvature, neutrino mass, and inflationary parameters.

Contribution

It provides updated, tighter constraints on dark energy's equation of state, curvature, neutrino mass, and inflation parameters using the latest observational data.

Findings

The dark energy EoS is tightly constrained around -1.

The universe's curvature is consistent with flatness.

Neutrino mass upper limit is improved to 0.161 eV.

Abstract

In this paper, we combine the latest observational data, including the WMAP five-year data (WMAP5), BOOMERanG, CBI, VSA, ACBAR, as well as the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) and Type Ia Supernoave (SN) "Union" compilation (307 sample) to determine the cosmological parameters. Our results show that the $\Lambda$CDM model remains a good fit to the current data. In a flat universe, we obtain the tight limit on the constant EoS of dark energy as, $w=-0.977\pm0.056$ ($1 \sigma$). For the dynamical dark energy models with time evolving EoS, we find that the best-fit values are $w_0=-1.08$ and $w_1=0.368$, implying the preference of Quintom model whose EoS gets across the cosmological constant boundary. For the curvature of universe, our results give $-0.012<\Omega_k<0.009$ (95% C.L.) when fixing $w_{\DE}=-1$. When considering the dynamics of dark energy, the flat universe is still a good fit to the current data. Regarding the neutrino mass limit, we obtain the upper limits, $\sum m_{\nu}<0.533$ eV (95% C.L.) within the framework of the flat $\Lambda$CDM model. When adding the SDSS Lyman-$\alpha$ forest power spectrum data, the constraint on $\sum m_{\nu}$ can be significantly improved, $\sum m_{\nu}<0.161$ eV (95% C.L.). Assuming that the primordial fluctuations are adiabatic with a power law spectrum, within the $\Lambda$CDM model, we find that the upper limit on the ratio of the tensor to scalar is $r<0.200$ (95% C.L.) and the inflationary models with the slope $n_s\geq1$ are excluded at more than $2 \sigma$ confidence level. However, in the framework of dynamical dark energy models, the allowed region in the parameter space of ($n_s$,$r$) is enlarged significantly. Finally, we find no evidence for the large running of the spectral index. (Abridged)