Investigating Dark Energy Equation of State With High Redshift Hubble Diagram

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dark energy equation of state using high redshift Hubble diagram data, finding evidence for an evolving dark energy component at over 3 sigma, challenging the cosmological constant model.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach based on a specific parametrization of w(z) to analyze high redshift data, confirming dark energy evolution independently of cosmographic methods.

Findings

Evidence for evolving dark energy EOS at >3 sigma

Disfavors the constant cosmological constant model

Supports the tension observed in previous studies

Abstract

Several independent cosmological data, collected within the last twenty years, revealed the accelerated expansion rate of the Universe, usually assumed to be driven by the so called dark energy, which, according to recent estimates, provides now about 70 % of the total amount of matter-energy in the Universe. The nature of dark energy is yet unknown. Several models of dark energy have been proposed: a non zero cosmological constant, a potential energy of some self interacting scalar field, effects related to the non homogeneous distribution of matter, or effects due to alternative theories of gravity. Recently, it turned out that the standard flat LambdaCDM is disfavored (at 4 sigma) when confronted with a high redshift Hubble diagram, consisting of supernovae of type Ia (SNIa), quasars (QSOs) and gamma ray-bursts (GRBs) ([1-3]). Here we use the same data to investigate if this tension is confirmed, using a different approach: actually in [1-3], the deviation between the best fit model and the LambdaCDM model was noticed by comparing cosmological parameters derived from cosmographic expansions of their theoretical predictions and observed high redshift Hubble diagram. In this paper we use a substantially different approach, based on a specific parametrization of the redshift dependent equation of state (EOS) of dark energy component w(z). Our statistical analysis is aimed to estimate the parameters characterizing the dark energy EOS: our results indicate (at > 3 sigma level) an evolving dark energy EOS, while the cosmological constant has a constant EOS, wLambda =-1. This result not only confirms the tension previously detected, but shows that it is not an artifact of cosmographic expansions.