Reconstruction of the interaction term between dark matter and dark energy using SNe Ia, BAO, CMB, H(z) and X-ray gas mass fraction

TL;DR

This paper reconstructs the interaction between dark matter and dark energy using observational data and Chebyshev polynomial expansions, revealing possible crossing behaviors and constraining the interaction strength.

Contribution

It introduces a Chebyshev polynomial-based reconstruction method for the dark sector interaction and applies it to multiple models with observational data.

Findings

Possible crossing of the interaction term Q=0 in recent times

Energy transfer from dark energy to dark matter early on

Constraints indicate the interaction cannot fully solve the coincidence problem

Abstract

Recently, in [1] we developed a parametric reconstruction method to a homogeneous, isotropic and spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological model filled of a fluid of dark energy (DE) with constant equation of state (EOS) parameter interacting with dark matter (DM). The reconstruction method is based on expansions of the general interaction term and the relevant cosmological variables in terms of Chebyshev polynomials which form a complete set orthonormal functions. In this article, we reconstruct the interaction function expanding it in terms of only the first four Chebyshev polynomials and obtain the best estimation for the coefficients of the expansion assuming three models: (a) a DE equation of the state parameter w=-1 (an interacting cosmological Lambda), (b) a DE equation of the state parameter w = constant with a dark matter density parameter fixed, (c) a DE equation of the state parameter w = constant with a free constant dark matter density parameter to be estimated. In all the cases, the preliminary reconstruction shows that in the best scenario there exist the possibility of a crossing of the noninteracting line Q=0 in the recent past within the 1-sigma and 2-sigma errors from positive values at early times to negative values at late times. This means that, in this reconstruction, there is an energy transfer from DE to DM at early times and an energy transfer from DM to DE at late times. We conclude that this fact is an indication of the possible existence of a crossing behavior in a general interaction coupling between dark components. Finally, we conclude that in this scenario, the observations put strong constraints on the strength of the interaction so that its magnitude can not solve the coincidence problem or at least alleviate significantly.