Comparison of dark energy models: A perspective from the latest observational data

TL;DR

This paper evaluates various dark energy models using the latest observational data, finding the cosmological constant remains the most favored model, while some dynamical models fit well and others are disfavored.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of dark energy models with current observational data using model selection criteria, highlighting which models are preferred or disfavored.

Findings

The cosmological constant model is still preferred by current data.

Some dynamical dark energy models fit the data well.

Certain models like Ricci and agegraphic dark energy are disfavored.

Abstract

In this paper, we compare some popular dark energy models under the assumption of a flat universe by using the latest observational data including the type Ia supernovae Constitution compilation, the baryon acoustic oscillation measurement from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the cosmic microwave background measurement given by the seven-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe observations and the determination of $H_0$ from the Hubble Space Telescope. Model comparison statistics such as the Bayesian and Akaike information criteria are applied to assess the worth of the models. These statistics favor models that give a good fit with fewer parameters. Based on this analysis, we find that the simplest cosmological constant model that has only one free parameter is still preferred by the current data. For other dynamical dark energy models, we find that some of them, such as the $\alpha$ dark energy, constant $w$, generalized Chaplygin gas, Chevalliear-Polarski-Linder parametrization, and holographic dark energy models, can provide good fits to the current data, and three of them, namely, the Ricci dark energy, agegraphic dark energy, and Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati models, are clearly disfavored by the data.