Model-agnostic assessment of dark energy after DESI DR1 BAO

TL;DR

This paper reconstructs dark energy properties in a model-independent way using DESI DR1 BAO data, finding no significant evidence for dynamical dark energy and providing constraints on key cosmological parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a model-agnostic reconstruction method for dark energy and cosmological parameters using observational data, avoiding assumptions of specific dark energy models.

Findings

No significant evidence for dynamical dark energy from DESI data.

Model-independent constraints on Hubble constant and matter density.

Results are consistent across different cosmological models.

Abstract

Baryon acoustic oscillation measurements by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (Data Release 1) have revealed exciting results that show evidence for dynamical dark energy at $\sim3\sigma$ when combined with cosmic microwave background and type Ia supernova observations. These measurements are based on the $w_0w_a$CDM model of dark energy. The evidence is less in other dark energy models such as the $w$CDM model. In order to avoid imposing a dark energy model, we reconstruct the distance measures and the equation of the state of dark energy independent of any dark energy model and driven only by observational data. Our results show that the model-agnostic (in terms of late-time models) evidence for dynamical dark energy from DESI is not significant. Our analysis also provides model-independent constraints on cosmological parameters such as the Hubble constant and the matter-energy density parameter at present. Although we used CMB distance priors (not full CMB data) from a $\Lambda$CDM early-time model, our results remain largely similar for other cosmological models, provided that these models do not differ significantly from the standard model.