Alternative High-z Cosmic Tracers and the Dark Energy Equation of State

TL;DR

This paper proposes using alternative cosmic tracers, such as starburst galaxies and X-ray AGN, to measure dark energy properties and matter content, aiming to improve constraints and break degeneracies in cosmological parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method combining starburst galaxies and X-ray AGN as cosmic tracers to better constrain dark energy and matter content, reducing errors and degeneracies.

Findings

Preliminary analysis yields Omega_m=0.28^{+0.02}_{-0.04}

Dark energy equation of state w=-1.0 +-0.1

Method shows promise for improved cosmological constraints

Abstract

We propose to use alternative cosmic tracers to measure the dark energy equation of state and the matter content of the Universe [w(z) & \Omega_m]. Our proposed method consists of two components: (a) tracing the Hubble relation using HII-like starburst galaxies, as an alternative to SNIa, which can be detected up to very large redshifts, z~4, and (b) measuring the clustering pattern of X-ray selected AGN at a median redshift of ~1. Each component of the method can in itself provide interesting constraints on the cosmological parameters, especially under our anticipation that we will reduce the corresponding random and systematic errors significantly. However, by joining their likelihood functions we will be able to put stringent cosmological constraints and break the known degeneracies between the dark energy equation of state (whether it is constant or variable) and the matter content of the universe and provide a powerful and alternative rute to measure the contribution to the global dynamics, and the equation of state, of dark energy. A preliminary joint analysis of X-ray selected AGN (based on a small XMM survey) and the currently largest SNIa sample (Kowalski et al 2008), provides: Omega_m=0.28^{+0.02}_{-0.04} and w=-1.0 +-0.1.