Evidence for interacting dark energy from BOSS

TL;DR

This paper presents evidence that interacting dark energy models better explain high-redshift baryon acoustic oscillation data than the standard Lambda-CDM model, suggesting possible deviations in dark energy behavior at early times.

Contribution

It introduces a phenomenological interacting dark energy model that fits high-redshift BAO data and improves concordance with observations over Lambda-CDM.

Findings

Interacting models fit BAO data better than Lambda-CDM.

Small positive coupling constants are compatible with observations.

Dark energy equation of state slightly favors deviation from a cosmological constant.

Abstract

The result presented by the BOSS-SDSS Collaboration measuring the baryon acoustic oscillations of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest from high-redshift quasars indicates a $2.5\sigma$ departure from the standard $\Lambda$-cold-dark-matter model. This is the first time that the evolution of dark energy at high redshifts has been measured, and the current results cannot be explained by simple generalizations of the cosmological constant. We show here that a simple phenomenological interaction in the dark sector provides a good explanation for this deviation, naturally accommodating the Hubble parameter obtained by BOSS, $H(z=2.34)=222 \pm 7 ~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$. By performing a global fit of the parameters with the inclusion of this new data set together with the Planck data for the interacting model, we are able to show that some interacting models have constraints for $H(2.34)$ and $D_\mathrm{A}(2.34)$ that are compatible with the ones obtained by the BOSS Collaboration, showing a better concordance than $\Lambda$CDM. We also show that the interacting models that have a small positive coupling constant, which helps alleviate the coincidence problem, are compatible with the cosmological observations. Adding the likelihood of these new baryon acoustic oscillations data shows an improvement in the global fit, although it is not statistically significant. The coupling constant could not be fully constrained by the data sets used, but the dark energy equation of state shows a slight preference for a value different from a cosmological constant.