Can Early Dark Energy be Detected in Non-Linear Structure?

TL;DR

This study uses N-body simulations to examine whether early dark energy leaves detectable signatures in non-linear cosmic structures, finding it indistinguishable from standard models in key statistics.

Contribution

First simulation-based analysis of early dark energy effects on non-linear structure formation, challenging semi-analytic expectations.

Findings

Early dark energy does not produce unique non-linear structure signatures.

Universal mass functions are valid for early dark energy cosmologies.

Detecting early dark energy via non-linear structure statistics is difficult.

Abstract

We present the first study of early dark energy cosmologies using N-body simulations to investigate the formation of non-linear structure. In contrast to expectations from semi-analytic approaches, we find that early dark energy does not imprint a unique signature on the statistics of non-linear structures. Investigating the non-linear power spectra and halo mass functions, we show that universal mass functions hold for early dark energy, making its presence difficult to distinguish from $\Lambda$CDM. Since early dark energy biases the baryon acoustic oscillation scale, the lack of discriminating power is problematic.