Early dark energy is not excluded by current large-scale structure data

Tristan L. Smith (1) , Vivian Poulin (2) , José Luis Bernal (3) , Kimberly K. Boddy (4) , Marc Kamionkowski (3) , Riccardo Murgia (2)

1 Swarthmore College
2 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier
3 JHU - Johns Hopkins University
4 University of Texas at Austin [Austin]

We revisit the impact of early dark energy (EDE) on galaxy clustering using BOSS galaxy power spectra, analyzed using the effective field theory (EFT) of large-scale structure (LSS) and anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from Planck. Recent studies found that these data place stringent constraints on the maximum abundance of EDE allowed in the Universe. We argue here that their conclusions are a consequence of their choice of priors on the EDE parameter space, rather than any disagreement between the data and the model. For example, when considering EFT-LSS, CMB, and high-redshift supernovae data we find the EDE and $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ models can provide statistically indistinguishable fits ($\mathrm{\Delta }{\chi }^2=0.12$) with a relatively large value for the maximum fraction of energy density in the EDE ($f_{\mathrm{ede}}=0.09$) and Hubble constant ($H_0=71\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{Mpc}$) in the EDE model. Moreover, we demonstrate that the constraining power added from the inclusion of EFT-LSS traces to the potential tension between the power-spectrum amplitudes $A_s$ derived from BOSS and from Planck that arises even within the context of $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$. Until this is better understood, caution should be used when interpreting $\mathrm{EFT}\text{-}\mathrm{BOSS}+Planck$ constraints to models beyond $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$. These findings suggest that EDE still provides a potential resolution to the Hubble tension and that it is worthwhile to test the predictions of EDE with future datasets and further study its theoretical possibilities.

Mots clés: cosmic background radiation: anisotropy; galaxy: power spectrum; energy: density; cosmological model: parameter space; satellite: Planck; effective field theory; dark energy; structure; tension; Hubble constant; resolution; supernova; galaxy: cluster; constraint; redshift: high

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Tristan L. Smith, Vivian Poulin, José Luis Bernal, Kimberly K. Boddy, Marc Kamionkowski, et al.. Early dark energy is not excluded by current large-scale structure data. Physical Review D, 2021, 103 (12), pp.123542. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevD.103.123542⟩. ⟨hal-02966255⟩