Reconstructing Cosmological Matter Perturbations using Standard Candles and Rulers

Abstract

For a large class of dark energy (DE) models, for which the effective gravitational constant is a constant and there is no direct exchange of energy between DE and dark matter (DM), knowledge of the expansion history suffices to reconstruct the growth factor of linearized density perturbations in the non-relativistic matter component on scales much smaller than the Hubble distance. In this paper we develop a non-parametric method for extracting information about the perturbative growth factor from data pertaining to the luminosity or angular size distances. A comparison of the reconstructed density contrast with observations of large scale structure and gravitational lensing can help distinguish DE models such as the cosmological constant and quintessence from models based on modified gravity theories as well as models in which DE and DM are either unified, or interact directly. We show that for current SNe data, the linear growth factor at z = 0.3 can be constrained to 5%, and the linear growth rate to 6%. With future SNe data, such as expected from the JDEM mission, we may be able to constrain the growth factor to 2-3% and the growth rate to 3-4% at z = 0.3 with this unbiased, model-independent reconstruction method. For future BAO data which would deliver measurements of both the angular diameter distance and Hubble parameter, it should be possible to constrain the growth factor at z = 2.5 to 9%. These constraints grow tighter with the errors on the datasets. With a large quantity of data expected in the next few years, this method can emerge as a competitive tool for distinguishing between different models of dark energy.

More discussion and references added, results unchanged, matches the version to be published in ApJ

References in corpus (40)

• Dynamics of dark energy
• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
• New Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries of Type Ia Supernovae at z > 1: Narrowing Constraints on the Early Behavior of Dark Energy
• Models of f(R) Cosmic Acceleration that Evade Solar-System Tests
• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Likelihoods and Parameters from the WMAP data
• Improved Cosmological Constraints from New, Old and Combined Supernova Datasets
• Disappearing cosmological constant in f(R) gravity
• Chandra Cluster Cosmology Project III: Cosmological Parameter Constraints
• Observational Constraints on the Nature of the Dark Energy: First Cosmological Results from the ESSENCE Supernova Survey
• Reconstructing Dark Energy
• Two new diagnostics of dark energy
• A test of the nature of cosmic acceleration using galaxy redshift distortions
• WMAP constraints on low redshift evolution of dark energy
• Testing cosmological structure formation using redshift-space distortions
• Dynamics of interacting dark energy
• Searching for modified growth patterns with tomographic surveys
• Observational Tests of Modified Gravity
• The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO Survey: The LRG 2-Point Correlation Function and Redshift-Space Distortions
• DGP Specteroscopy
• On the Growth of Perturbations as a Test of Dark Energy
• Observational constraints on self-accelerating cosmology
• Measuring Baryon Acoustic Oscillations along the line of sight with photometric redshifs: the PAU survey
• On the growth of linear perturbations
• Constraints on scalar-tensor models of dark energy from observational and local gravity tests
• Ghosts in the self-accelerating universe
• Constructing stabilized brane world models in five-dimensional Brans-Dicke theory
• Model Independent Reconstruction of the Expansion History of the Universe and the Properties of Dark Energy
• Next Generation Redshift Surveys and the Origin of Cosmic Acceleration
• Is Modified Gravity Required by Observations? An Empirical Consistency Test of Dark Energy Models
• The growth of matter perturbations in some scalar-tensor DE models
• SPACE: the SPectroscopic All-sky Cosmic Explorer
• Falsifying Paradigms for Cosmic Acceleration
• First Cosmological Constraints on Dark Energy from the Radial Baryon Acoustic Scale
• Constraining Modified Gravity and Growth with Weak Lensing
• Perturbations of Self-Accelerated Universe
• Near-Horizon Solution for DGP Perturbations
• A Consistency Relation in Cosmology
• Beyond Two Dark Energy Parameters
• Induced cosmological constant and other features of asymmetric brane embedding
• Gravitational instability on the brane: the role of boundary conditions

Cited by in corpus (13)

• The dispersion of growth of matter perturbations in f(R) gravity
• Cosmographic Constraints and Cosmic Fluids
• The Statefinder hierarchy: An extended null diagnostic for concordance cosmology
• Dark Energy in Practice
• Chameleon dark energy models with characteristic signatures
• Constraining dark energy with gamma-ray bursts
• How close can an Inhomogeneous Universe mimic the Concordance Model?
• Testing for dynamical dark energy models with redshift-space distortions
• Testing flatness of the universe with probes of cosmic distances and growth
• Discriminating dark energy models by using the statefinder hierarchy and the growth rate of matter perturbations
• Reconstruction of cosmological matter perturbations in Modified Gravity
• The Distinguishability of Interacting Dark Energy from Modified Gravity
• Density perturbation in the models reconstructed from jerk parameter