Constraints on dark energy evolution

¹ Laboratoire Astrophysique de Toulouse-Tarbes, CNRS, 14 avenue É. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France e-mail: alain.blanchard@ast.obs-mip.fr
² CENTRA, Departamento de Fisica, Instituto Superior Técnico, Avenida Rovisco Pais, 1 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal e-mail: luis.ferramacho@ist.utl.pt
³ LAPP, Université de Savoie, CNRS/IN2P3, 9 chemin de Bellevue, BP 110, 74941 Annecy-le-Vieux Cedex, France e-mail: zolnierowski@lapp.in2p3.fr
⁴ CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, 75014 Paris, France e-mail: riazuelo@iap.fr

Received: 9 September 2009
Accepted: 12 January 2010

Abstract

We investigate a class of dark energy models in which the equation of state undergoes a rapid transition and for which the Hubble SN Ia diagram is known to be poorly discriminant. Interestingly enough, we find that transitions at high redshift can lead to distortion in the correlation function of dark matter at lower redshift. We therefore use a combination of the SN Ia Hubble diagram, cosmic microwave background data and power spectrum from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey luminous red galaxies (SDSS LRG) to constrain the redshift of a possible transition. We find that the fundamental cosmological parameters are well constrained independently of the presence of a transition. Acceptable transitions from an equation of state close to w = 0 to a value close to -1 are strongly rejected at redshifts much higher than those for which large scale structure and SN Ia data are available: the transition redshift can be rejected up to a value as high as 10. We conclude that no preference for a transition appears from present-day data.