Testing signatures of phantom crossing through full-shape galaxy clustering analysis

TL;DR

This study uses full-shape galaxy clustering data combined with BAO and SNIa measurements to find strong evidence (up to 5 sigma) for a phantom crossing of dark energy at redshift 0.4-0.5, independent of CMB data.

Contribution

It demonstrates the effectiveness of the full-shape galaxy power spectrum in independently detecting deviations from $bc$CDM and probing dark energy dynamics.

Findings

Deviations from $bc$CDM at up to 5 sigma significance.

Evidence for the dark energy equation of state crossing the phantom divide.

Robustness of results even without CMB data.

Abstract

Recent observations of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey, when combined with measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and Type Ia supernovae (SNIa), provide compelling evidence for a phantom crossing at late times, along with statistically significant deviations from the standard $\Lambda$CDM model. In this work, we investigate the role of redshift-space galaxy clustering data by employing the pre-reconstruction full-shape (FS) galaxy power spectrum from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) data release 12 (DR12) sample. This dataset is analyzed in combination with BAO measurements from DESI data release 2 (DR2) and various SNIa samples. Our analysis demonstrates that the joint combination of these datasets can yield deviations from $\Lambda$CDM at a significance level of up to $\sim 5\sigma$, suggesting strong indications that the dark energy equation of state parameter $w(z)$ may have crossed the phantom divide ($w = -1$) in the redshift range $z \sim 0.4$-$0.5$. The precise location and strength of this crossing depend on the adopted theoretical parameterizations. Importantly, our results reveal that this trend persists even in the absence of CMB data, underscoring the robustness of the FS power spectrum as a powerful and independent probe for testing dark energy models and for distinguishing between competing cosmological scenarios.