To CPL, or not to CPL? What we have not learned about the dark energy equation of state

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nesseris, Savvas, Akrami, Yashar, Starkman, Glenn D.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910898123177984
author Nesseris, Savvas
Akrami, Yashar
Starkman, Glenn D.
author_facet Nesseris, Savvas
Akrami, Yashar
Starkman, Glenn D.
contents We show that using a Taylor expansion for the dark energy equation-of-state parameter and limiting it to the zeroth and first-order terms, i.e., the so-called Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) parametrization, instead of allowing for higher-order terms and then marginalizing over them, adds extra information not present in the data and leads to markedly different and potentially misleading conclusions. Fixing the higher-order terms to zero, one concludes that vacuum energy that is currently non-dynamical (e.g., the cosmological constant) is excluded at several $σ$ significance as the explanation of cosmic acceleration, even in Dark Energy Spectroscopic Survey (DESI) DR1 data. Meanwhile, instead marginalizing over the higher-order terms shows that we know neither the current dark energy equation of state nor its current rate of change well enough to make such a claim. This issue has become more prominent now with the recent release of high-quality Stage IV galaxy survey data. The results of analyses using simple Taylor expansions should be interpreted with great care.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_22529
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle To CPL, or not to CPL? What we have not learned about the dark energy equation of state
Nesseris, Savvas
Akrami, Yashar
Starkman, Glenn D.
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
We show that using a Taylor expansion for the dark energy equation-of-state parameter and limiting it to the zeroth and first-order terms, i.e., the so-called Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) parametrization, instead of allowing for higher-order terms and then marginalizing over them, adds extra information not present in the data and leads to markedly different and potentially misleading conclusions. Fixing the higher-order terms to zero, one concludes that vacuum energy that is currently non-dynamical (e.g., the cosmological constant) is excluded at several $σ$ significance as the explanation of cosmic acceleration, even in Dark Energy Spectroscopic Survey (DESI) DR1 data. Meanwhile, instead marginalizing over the higher-order terms shows that we know neither the current dark energy equation of state nor its current rate of change well enough to make such a claim. This issue has become more prominent now with the recent release of high-quality Stage IV galaxy survey data. The results of analyses using simple Taylor expansions should be interpreted with great care.
title To CPL, or not to CPL? What we have not learned about the dark energy equation of state
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22529