Forecast and analysis of the cosmological redshift drift

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the potential of the cosmological redshift drift, or Sandage-Loeb test, as a precise method for testing cosmic acceleration and constraining cosmological parameters, using mock data and MCMC analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a model-independent mock data set for the Sandage-Loeb test and compares its constraining power with future SNe and BAO data using MCMC methods.

Findings

SL data provides strong constraints on matter density parameter.

SL data complements SNe and BAO in constraining dark energy parameters.

SL test shows high potential for testing cosmic acceleration.

Abstract

The cosmological redshift drift could lead to the next step in high-precision cosmic geometric observations, becoming a direct and irrefutable test for cosmic acceleration. In order to test the viability and possible properties of this effect, also called Sandage-Loeb (SL) test, we generate a model independent mock data set so as to compare its constraining power with that of the future mock data sets of Type Ia Supernovae (SNe) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO). The performance of those data sets is analyzed by testing several cosmological models with the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, both independently and combining all data sets. Final results show that, in general, SL data sets allow for remarkable constraints on the matter density parameter today $\Omega_m$ on every tested model, showing also a great complementarity with SNe and BAO data regarding dark energy (DE) parameters.