The Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program: A Reanalysis Of Cosmology Results And Evidence For Evolving Dark Energy With An Updated Type Ia Supernova Calibration

TL;DR

This paper reanalyzes DES supernova data with improved calibration and modeling, providing updated cosmological constraints that suggest weak evidence for evolving dark energy.

Contribution

It introduces the DES-Dovekie sample with recalibrated supernova data and refines cosmological parameter estimates, including evidence for dark energy evolution.

Findings

Omega_m = 0.330 ± 0.015 in Flat Lambda CDM

w_0 = -0.803 ± 0.054 and w_a = -0.72 ± 0.21 in Flat w_0 w_a CDM

Weak preference (5:1 odds) for evolving dark energy

Abstract

We present improved cosmological constraints from a re-analysis of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) 5-year sample of Type Ia supernovae (DES-SN5YR). This re-analysis includes an improved photometric cross-calibration, recent white dwarf observations to cross-calibrate between DES and low redshift surveys, retraining the SALT3 light curve model and fixing a numerical approximation in the host galaxy colour law. Our fully recalibrated sample, which we call DES-Dovekie, comprises $\sim$1600 likely Type Ia SNe from DES and $\sim$200 low-redshift SNe from other surveys. With DES-Dovekie, we obtain $\Omega_{\rm m} = 0.330 \pm 0.015$ in Flat $\Lambda$CDM which changes $\Omega_{\rm m}$ by $-0.022$ compared to DES-SN5YR. Combining DES-Dovekie with CMB data from Planck, ACT and SPT and the DESI DR2 measurements in a Flat $w_0 w_a$CDM cosmology, we find $w_0 = -0.803 \pm 0.054$, $w_a = -0.72 \pm 0.21$. Our results hold a significance of $3.2\sigma$, reduced from $4.2\sigma$ for DES-SN5YR, to reject the null hypothesis that the data are compatible with the cosmological constant. This significance is equivalent to a Bayesian model preference odds of approximately 5:1 in favour of the Flat $w_0 w_a$CDM model. Using generally accepted thresholds for model preference, our updated data exhibits only a weak preference for evolving dark energy.