Constraints on Pre-Recombination Early Dark Energy from SPT-3G Public Data

TL;DR

This paper uses recent South Pole Telescope data to constrain early dark energy, finding it could contribute up to 10% of the universe's energy density before recombination, but current data do not definitively confirm its presence.

Contribution

It provides new constraints on early dark energy using SPT-3G data and examines how combined datasets influence evidence for EDE.

Findings

SPT-3G data alone cannot rule out ~10% EDE contribution.

Combined ACT DR4 and SPT-3G data show a 2.6σ hint of EDE.

Full Planck 2018 data do not support evidence for EDE.

Abstract

Early dark energy (EDE) is a proposed solution to the Hubble tension in which a new cosmological field accelerates cosmic expansion prior to recombination and reduces the physical size of the sound horizon. In previous work, a slight preference for a non-zero EDE contribution was found in the latest Atacama Cosmology Telescope data (ACT DR4), while the Planck satellite legacy data alone do not show evidence for it. In this work, we use the most recent public data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT-3G) to constrain the parameters of the EDE scenario. We find that at the current precision level of SPT-3G, an EDE contribution to the total energy density of the universe prior to recombination of $\sim 10\%$ can not be ruled out, but that the data are also consistent with no EDE. The combination of ACT DR4 and SPT-3G with the Planck large-scale temperature anisotropy measurement shows a hint ($2.6\sigma$) for non-zero EDE; however, this preference disappears when the full Planck 2018 data set is included.