Constraining early dark energy with large-scale structure

Abstract

An axion-like field comprising ∼10% of the energy density of the Universe near matter-radiation equality is a candidate to resolve the Hubble tension; this is the "early dark energy" (EDE) model. However, as shown in Hill et al., the model fails to simultaneously resolve the Hubble tension and maintain a good fit to both cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure (LSS) data. Here, we use redshift-space galaxy clustering data to sharpen constraints on the EDE model. We perform the first EDE analysis using the full-shape power spectrum likelihood from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), based on the effective field theory (EFT) of LSS. The inclusion of this likelihood in the EDE analysis yields a 25% tighter error bar on H 0 compared to primary CMB data alone, yielding H 0 ¼ 68.54 þ0.52 −0.95 km=s=Mpc (68% C.L.). In addition, we constrain the maximum fractional energy density contribution of the EDE to f EDE < 0.072 (95% C.L.). We explicitly demonstrate that the EFT BOSS likelihood yields much stronger constraints on EDE than the standard BOSS likelihood. Including further information from photometric LSS surveys,the constraints narrow by an additional 20%, yielding H 0 ¼ 68.73 þ0.42 −0.69 km=s=Mpc (68% C.L.) and f EDE < 0.053 (95% C.L.). These bounds are obtained without including local-Universe H 0 data, which is in strong tension with the CMB and LSS, even in the EDE model. We also refute claims that Markov-chain Monte Carlo analyses of EDE that omit SH0ES from the combined dataset yield misleading posteriors. Finally, we show that upcoming Euclid/DESI-like spectroscopic galaxy surveys will greatly improve the EDE constraints. We conclude that current data preclude the EDE model as a resolution of the Hubble tension, and that future LSS surveys can close the remaining parameter space of this model.

Why reducing the cosmic sound horizon alone can not fully resolve the Hubble tension

“…One can see that, except for the model represented by the red dot at the very right of the plot, corresponding to the strongly interacting neutrino model of 18 , solutions requiring low Ω m h 2 are in tension with BAO, whereas solutions with higher Ω m h 2 are in tension with DES and KiDS. This latter tension was previously observed and extensively discussed in the context of the early dark energy models [41][42][43][44][45][46] . As we have shown in this paper, it is part of a broader problem faced by all proposals aimed at reducing the ?…”

New early dark energy is compatible with current LSS data

“…First, more LSS data, as they are provided by present and future spectroscopic galaxy surveys such as Euclid [77] and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument [78], have the potential to confirm or rule out the base NEDE model as a resolution to the Hubble tension. A similar point was made in the case of single-field EDE [25]. Second, further improvements of the current model should be guided by the aim to reduce the S 8 tension below its ΛCDM level.…”

“…Here, we ask whether this picture is adversely affected by including additional LSS data as recently claimed in the context of the old EDE proposal [25,29]. The short answer is that this is not the case.…”

“…However, to satisfy phenomenological constraints, the potential has to be relatively fine-tuned. But more seriously, recent fits including a fullshape analysis of large-scale structure (LSS) data have challenged the ability of EDE to solve the Hubble tension at all [24][25][26].…”

“…The full-shape analysis of the matter power spectrum within EDE was carried out in Refs. [25,29] using the effective field theory of large-scale structure 2 (EFTofLSS) applied to BOSS/SDSS data [26,52,53]. In particular, in Ref.…”