Any unified dark matter cosmology can be decomposed into dark matter interacting with vacuum energy, without introducing any additional degrees of freedom. We present observational constraints on an interacting vacuum plus dark energy corresponding to a generalised Chaplygin gas cosmology. We consider two distinct models for the interaction leading to either a barotropic equation of state or dark matter that follows geodesics, corresponding to a rest-frame sound speed equal to the adiabatic sound speed or zero sound speed, respectively. For the barotropic model, the most stringent constraint on α comes from the combination of CMB+SNIa+LSS(m) gives α < 1.44 × 10 −5 at the 95% confidence level, which indicates that the barotropic model must be extremely close to the ΛCDM cosmology. For the case where the dark matter follows geodesics, perturbations have zero sound speed, and CMB+SNIa+gISW then gives the much weaker constraint −0.1522 < α < 0.2556 at the 95% confidence level.

We use observational data from Type Ia Supernovae (SN), Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and observational Hubble data (OHD), and the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, to constrain the cosmological scenario of holographic dark energy with varying gravitational constant. We consider both flat and non-flat background geometry, and we present the corresponding constraints and contour-plots of the model parameters. We conclude that the scenario is compatible with observations. In 1σ we find ΩΛ0 = 0.72

Two searches for supersymmetric particles in final states containing a same-flavour opposite-sign lepton pair, jets and large missing transverse momentum are presented. The proton–proton collision data used in these searches were collected at a centre-of-mass energy  TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb. Two leptonic production mechanisms are considered: decays of squarks and gluinos with Z bosons in the final state, resulting in a peak in the dilepton invariant mass distribution around the Z-boson mass; and decays of neutralinos (e.g. ), resulting in a kinematic endpoint in the dilepton invariant mass distribution. For the former, an excess of events above the expected Standard Model background is observed, with a significance of three standard deviations. In the latter case, the data are well-described by the expected Standard Model background. The results from each channel are interpreted in the context of several supersymmetric models involving the production of squarks and gluinos.

Kinematical models are constrained by the latest observational data from geometry-distance measurements, which include 557 type Ia supernovae (SNIa) Union2 data and 15 observational Hubble data. Considering two parameterized deceleration parameter, the values of current deceleration parameter q0, jerk parameter j0 and transition redshift zT , are obtained. Furthermore, we show the departures for two parameterized kinematical models from ΛCDM model according to the evolutions of jerk parameter j(z). Also, it is shown that the constraint on jerk parameter j(z) is weak by the current geometrical observed data.

As is known above 90% of the energy content in Universe is made of unknown dark component. Usually this dark fluid is separated into two parts: dark matter and dark energy. However, it may be a mixture of these two energy components, or just one exotic unknown fluid. This property is dubbed as dark degeneracy. With this motivation, in this paper, a unified dark fluid having constant adiabatic sound speed c 2 s = α, which is in the range [0, 1], is studied. At first, via the energy conservation equation, its energy density, ρ d /ρ d0 = (1 − Bs) + Bsa −3(1+α) where Bs is related to integration constant from energy conservation equation as another model parameter, is presented. Then by using Markov Chain Monte Carlo method with currently available cosmic observational data sets which include type Ia supernova Union 2, baryon acoustic oscillation and WMAP 7-year data of cosmic background radiation, we show that small values of α are favored in this unified dark fluid model. Furthermore, we show that smaller values of α < 10 −5 are required to match matter (baryon) power spectrum from SDSS DR7. *

We present improved constraints on an interacting vacuum model using updated astronomical observations including the first data release from Planck. We consider a model with one dimensionless parameter, α, describing the interaction between dark matter and vacuum energy (with fixed equation of state w = −1). The background dynamics correspond to a generalised Chaplygin gas cosmology, but the perturbations have a zero sound speed. The tension between the value of the Hubble constant, H0, determined by Planck data plus WMAP polarisation (Planck+WP) and that determined by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) can be alleviated by energy transfer from dark matter to vacuum (α > 0). A positive α increases the allowed values of H0 due to parameter degeneracy within the model using only CMB data. Combining with additional datasets of including supernova type Ia (SN Ia) and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), we can significantly tighten the bounds on α. Redshift-space distortions (RSD), which constrain the linear growth of structure, provide the tightest constraints on vacuum interaction when combined with Planck+WP, and prefer energy transfer from vacuum to dark matter (α < 0) which suppresses the growth of structure. Using the combined datasets of Planck+WP+Union2.1+BAO+RSD, we obtain the constraint on α to be −0.083 < α < −0.006 (95% C.L.), allowing low H0 consistent with the measurement from 6dF Galaxy survey. This interacting vacuum model can alleviate the tension between RSD and Planck+WP in the ΛCDM model for α < 0, or between HST measurements of H0 and Planck+WP for α > 0, but not both at the same time. PACS numbers: 98.80. -k, 98.80.Es

A modified Chaplygin gas model (MCG), ρMCG/ρMCG0 = [Bs + (1 − Bs)a −3(1+B)(1+α) ] 1/(1+α) , as a unified dark matter model and dark energy model is constrained by using current available cosmic observational data points which include type Ia supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillation and the seventh year full WMAP data points. As a contrast to the consideration in the literatures, we do not separate the MCG into two components, i.e. dark mater and dark energy component, but we take it as a whole energy component-a unified dark sector. By using Markov Chain Monte Carlo method, a tight constraint is obtained: α = 0.000727 +0.00142+0.00391 −0.00140−0.00234 , B = 0.000777 +0.000201+0.000915 −0.000302−0.000697 and Bs = 0.782 +0.0163+0.0307 −0.0162−0.0329 .

We study a novel interacting dark energy − dark matter scenario where the anisotropic stress of the large scale inhomogeneities is considered. The dark energy has a constant equation of state and the interaction model produces stable perturbations. The resulting picture is constrained using different astronomical data aiming to measure the impact of the anisotropic stress on the cosmological parameters. Our analyses show that a non-zero interaction in the dark sector is allowed while a non-interaction scenario is recovered within 68% CL. The anisotropic stress is also constrained to be small, and its zero value is permitted within 68% CL. The dark energy equation of state, wx, is also found to be close to '−1' boundary. However, from the ratio of the CMB TT spectra, we see that the model has a mild deviation from the ΛCDM cosmology while such deviation is almost forbidden from the CMB TT spectra alone. Although the deviation is not much significant, but from the present data, we cannot exclude such deviation. Overall, at the background level, the model is close to the ΛCDM cosmology while at the level of perturbations, a non-zero but a very small interaction in the dark sector is permitted. Perhaps, a more accurate conclusion can be made with the next generation of surveys. We also found that the region wx < −1, is found to be effective to release the tension on H0. Finally, from the Bayesian analysis, we find that ΛCDM remains in still preferred over the interacting scenarios.PACS numbers: 95.36.+x, 95.35.+d, 98.80.Es