Supernova constraints on higher-dimensional cosmology with a phantom field

Abstract

We use observational data on the magnitude-redshift relation for Type Ia supernovae together with constraints on the ages of the oldest stars to rule out a higher-dimensional extension of General Relativity with a negative kinetic-energy scalar field. This theory is of considerable physical interest because it produces accelerated expansion at both early and late times with a single new field, as in quintessential inflation scenarios. It is also of mathematical interest because it is characterized by an analytic expression for the macroscopic scale factor $a(t)$. We show that cosmological solutions of this theory can be usefully parametrized by a single quantity, the lookback time ${\tau }_{\text{tr}}$ corresponding to the transition from deceleration to acceleration. Supernovae data from the recently released Supernova Cosmology Project Union 2.1 compilation single out a narrow range of values for ${\tau }_{\text{tr}}$. In the context of the theory, however, these same values of ${\tau }_{\text{tr}}$ imply that the universe is much older than the oldest observed stars.

10 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Parameter Results
• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Likelihoods and Parameters from the WMAP data
• Hubble parameter measurement constraints on the cosmological deceleration-acceleration transition redshift
• Binned Hubble parameter measurements and the cosmological deceleration-acceleration transition
• Decaying Dark Energy in Higher-Dimensional Gravity
• Cosmological Coincidence without Fine Tuning
• Higher dimensional cosmological model with a phantom field
• A New Vector-Tensor Theory and Higher-Dimensional Cosmology