Solving an Interacting Quintessence Model with a Sound Horizon Initial Condition and its Observational Constraints

TL;DR

This paper investigates a coupled quintessence dark energy model with sound horizon initial conditions, analyzing its effects on the Hubble constant tension and cosmic microwave background, and constraining parameters with observational data.

Contribution

It introduces a novel initial condition based on the sound horizon at recombination for a coupled quintessence model and explores its implications on cosmological parameters.

Findings

H_0 increases with coupling strength

Interaction affects early-time energy density

Model slightly improves H_0 and S_8 tensions

Abstract

Astronomical observations suggest that the current standard $\Lambda$-Cold Dark Matter model in modern cosmology has some discrepancies when fitting the data during the whole expansion history of the universe. To solve the Hubble constant ($H_0$) tension, usually an unknown mechanism is considered that shifts the sound horizon at the decoupling era. On the other hand, dynamical dark energy models are also considered to resolve the problems of the cosmological constant, and the additional degrees of freedom require initial conditions for a solution. In this article we have considered a coupled quintessence dark energy model with a special focus on its early-time behaviour. In our solution the initial conditions are naturally decided by setting the value of the sound horizon at the recombination time, $\theta^*$. We find that during this process, $H_0$ could be derived and its value rises with the coupling strength of the interaction. We also performed the background and cosmic microwave background power spectrum analysis, and find that the existence of the interaction term affects the energy density during a narrow time interval range and shifts the early cosmic microwave background spectrum. We also constrained the parameter space of the underlying scenario using the markov chain monte carlo analysis. We find that the best-fit values of $H_0$ and $S_8$ are improved slightly for the interacting model, but not enough to release the tensions.