Complementary Roles of Distance and Growth Probes in Testing Time-Varying Dark Energy

Fuente: arXiv
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Autore principale: Lee, Seokcheon
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Lee, Seokcheon
author_facet Lee, Seokcheon
contents Distance measurements have long provided the primary observational constraints on the expansion history of the Universe and the properties of dark energy. However, because such observables depend on cumulative line-of-sight integrals over the Hubble rate, their sensitivity to time-dependent features of the dark energy equation of state is intrinsically limited. In this work, we examine this limitation from an information-based perspective using the eigenvalue structure of the Fisher information matrix constructed from distance, expansion rate, and growth observables. We show that distance and expansion-rate data generically produce a strongly hierarchical Fisher spectrum dominated by a single information mode, reflecting an irreducible loss of sensitivity to temporal variations in dark energy. This behavior can be traced directly to the integrated kernel structure of geometric observables. Growth measurements, by contrast, respond through differential dynamics and can introduce additional independent information directions. Using both controlled mock data and survey-like configurations representative of next-generation experiments, we find that the impact of growth information depends not only on its nominal precision but also on the structure of the data covariance. In simplified mock setups, growth measurements can partially activate a second information direction even at moderate precision. In Euclid-like configurations, however, the information remains effectively one-dimensional until growth precision reaches the percent level, below which a second mode emerges rapidly. These results clarify the complementary roles of distance and growth probes and provide a model-independent criterion for assessing the physical content of cosmological constraints on dynamical dark energy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_08207
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Complementary Roles of Distance and Growth Probes in Testing Time-Varying Dark Energy
Lee, Seokcheon
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Distance measurements have long provided the primary observational constraints on the expansion history of the Universe and the properties of dark energy. However, because such observables depend on cumulative line-of-sight integrals over the Hubble rate, their sensitivity to time-dependent features of the dark energy equation of state is intrinsically limited. In this work, we examine this limitation from an information-based perspective using the eigenvalue structure of the Fisher information matrix constructed from distance, expansion rate, and growth observables. We show that distance and expansion-rate data generically produce a strongly hierarchical Fisher spectrum dominated by a single information mode, reflecting an irreducible loss of sensitivity to temporal variations in dark energy. This behavior can be traced directly to the integrated kernel structure of geometric observables. Growth measurements, by contrast, respond through differential dynamics and can introduce additional independent information directions. Using both controlled mock data and survey-like configurations representative of next-generation experiments, we find that the impact of growth information depends not only on its nominal precision but also on the structure of the data covariance. In simplified mock setups, growth measurements can partially activate a second information direction even at moderate precision. In Euclid-like configurations, however, the information remains effectively one-dimensional until growth precision reaches the percent level, below which a second mode emerges rapidly. These results clarify the complementary roles of distance and growth probes and provide a model-independent criterion for assessing the physical content of cosmological constraints on dynamical dark energy.
title Complementary Roles of Distance and Growth Probes in Testing Time-Varying Dark Energy
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08207