The Redshift Sensitivities of Dark Energy Surveys
arXiv:astro-ph/0602213 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.73.083001
Abstract
Great uncertainty surrounds dark energy, both in terms of its physics, and the choice of methods by which the problem should be addressed. Here we quantify the redshift sensitivities offered by different techniques. We focus on the three methods most adept at constraining w, namely supernovae, cosmic shear, and baryon oscillations. For each we provide insight into the family of w(z) models which are permitted for a particular constraint on either w=w0 or w=w0+wa(1-a). Our results are in the form of "weight functions", which describe the fitted model parameters as a weighted average over the true functional form. For example, we find the recent best-fit from the Supernovae Legacy Survey (w=-1.023) corresponds to the average value of w(z) over the range 0<z<0.4. Whilst there is a strong dependence on the choice of priors, each cosmological probe displays distinctive characteristics in their redshift sensitivities. In the case of proposed future surveys, a SNAP-like supernova survey probes a mean redshift of z ~ 0.3, with baryon oscillations and cosmic shear at z ~ 0.6. If we consider the evolution of w, sensitivities shift to slightly higher redshift. Finally, we find that the weight functions may be expressed as a weighted average of the popular "principal components".
arXiv comment11 pages, 10 figures, changes reflect published version
References in corpus (23)
- Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant
- Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae
- First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
- Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large-Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies
- Type Ia Supernova Discoveries at z>1 From the Hubble Space Telescope: Evidence for Past Deceleration and Constraints on Dark Energy Evolution
- Exploring the Expansion History of the Universe
- Accelerating Universes with Scaling Dark Matter
- Baryonic Features in the Matter Transfer Function
- The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Power-spectrum analysis of the final dataset and cosmological implications
- Constraints on dark energy from Chandra observations of the largest relaxed galaxy clusters
- Probing Dark Energy with Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations from Future Large Galaxy Redshift Surveys
- Probing dark energy using baryonic oscillations in the galaxy power spectrum as a cosmological ruler
- First Estimations of Cosmological Parameters From BOOMERANG
- Parameterization of Dark-Energy Properties: a Principal-Component Approach
- Measuring the Equation-of-state of the Universe: Pitfalls and Prospects
- Measuring the cosmic evolution of dark energy with baryonic oscillations in the galaxy power spectrum
- Universal fitting formulae for baryon oscillation surveys
- Weak Lensing from Space III: Cosmological Parameters
- Revealing the Nature of Dark Energy Using Bayesian Evidence
- Cosmology with the Square Kilometre Array
- Importance of Supernovae at z>1.5 to Probe Dark Energy
- Response of distance measures to the equation of state
- Illuminating Dark Energy with Cosmic Shear
Cited by in corpus (32)
- Observational Probes of Cosmic Acceleration
- Bayes in the sky: Bayesian inference and model selection in cosmology
- Cosmology and Fundamental Physics with the Euclid Satellite
- Cosmology and fundamental physics with the Euclid satellite
- Reconstructing Dark Energy
- Two new diagnostics of dark energy
- Nonparametric Dark Energy Reconstruction from Supernova Data
- CFHTLenS: Testing the Laws of Gravity with Tomographic Weak Lensing and Redshift Space Distortions
- Nonparametric Reconstruction of the Dark Energy Equation of State
- Nonparametric Reconstruction of the Dark Energy Equation of State from Diverse Data Sets
- Dynamical behavior of generic quintessence potentials: constraints on key dark energy observables
- Quintessence reconstructed: new constraints and tracker viability
- Early massive clusters and the bouncing coupled dark energy
- Hubble parameter reconstruction from a principal component analysis: minimizing the bias
- Forecasts for Dark Energy Measurements with Future HI Surveys
- Reconstructing the history of dark energy using maximum entropy
- To Bin or Not To Bin: Decorrelating the Cosmic Equation of State
- Model-independent determination of the cosmic expansion rate. I. Application to type-Ia supernovae
- Can we ever distinguish between quintessence and a cosmological constant?
- Dark Energy, A Cosmological Constant, and Type Ia Supernovae
- Fisher Matrix Decomposition for Dark Energy Prediction
- Cosmological Parameter Estimation from SN Ia data: a Model-Independent Approach
- An optimal basis system for cosmology: data analysis and new parameterisation
- Surveying the dark side
- An Alternative Approach to Holographic Dark Energy
- Sensitivity and figures of merit for dark energy supernovae surveys
- Complementarity of Future Dark Energy Probes
- Measurement of the baryonic acoustic oscillation scale in 21 cm intensity fluctuations during the reionisation era
- Nonparametric determination of redshift evolution index of Dark Energy
- Redshift Sensitivity of the Kaiser Effect
- Constraining the expansion history of the universe from the red shift evolution of cosmic shear
- Biased Cosmology: Pivots, Parameters, and Figures of Merit