The effect of Dark Matter and Dark Energy interactions on the peculiar velocity field and the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates how interactions between Dark Matter and Dark Energy influence the peculiar velocity field and the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, proposing new observables to constrain dark sector coupling.

Contribution

It introduces two new observables based on peculiar velocities to constrain Dark Matter-Dark Energy interactions, showing these can be more effective than current methods.

Findings

Peculiar velocities can vary by factors of 2 to 5 compared to standard models.

Current SZ effect limits are consistent with previous constraints from CMB and galaxy clusters.

Data favor Dark Energy decaying into Dark Matter to address the coincidence problem.

Abstract

The interaction between Dark Matter and Dark Energy has been proposed as a mechanism to alleviate the coincidence problem. We analyze the effect of the interaction on the evolution of the gravitational field and propose two new observables based on its effect on the matter peculiar velocity field. We find that for different model parameters the matter peculiar velocity could be factor 2 times larger or 5 times smaller than the amplitude of velocity perturbations in the concordance LCDM cosmological model at the same scales. We compare the effect on the peculiar velocities with those on the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect and we show that velocities can potentially provide constraints on the strength of the interaction stronger than those currently available. We show that the current upper limits on the amplitude of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich power spectrum provide constraints on the coupling within the dark sectors that are consistent with those obtained previously from the CMB and galaxy clusters. In particular, we show that current upper limits from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope favor Dark Energy decaying into Dark Matter, as required to solve the coincidence problem.