UUITP-28/19

Revisiting a negative cosmological constant from low-redshift data

Luca Visinelli,1, 2, ∗ Sunny Vagnozzi,2, 3, 4, † and Ulf Danielsson1, ‡

1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Lägerhyddsvägen 1, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
2
Nordita, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University, Roslagstullsbacken 23, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
3
The Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, Department of Physics, Stockholm University,
AlbaNova Universitetscentrum, Roslagstullsbacken 21A, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
4
Kavli Institute for Cosmology (KICC) and Institute of Astronomy,
University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, United Kingdom
(Dated: August 14, 2019)
Persisting tensions between high-redshift and low-redshift cosmological observations suggest the
dark energy sector of the Universe might be more complex than the positive cosmological constant
arXiv:1907.07953v3 [astro-ph.CO] 13 Aug 2019

of the ΛCDM model. Motivated by string theory, wherein symmetry considerations make consistent
AdS backgrounds (i.e. maximally symmetric spacetimes with a negative cosmological constant)
ubiquitous, we explore a scenario where the dark energy sector consists of two components: a
negative cosmological constant, with a dark energy component with equation of state wφ on top.
We test the consistency of the model against low-redshift Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and Type
Ia Supernovae distance measurements, assessing two alternative choices of distance anchors: the
sound horizon at baryon drag determined by the Planck collaboration, and the Hubble constant
determined by the SH0ES program. We find no evidence for a negative cosmological constant, and
mild indications for an effective phantom dark energy component on top. A model comparison
analysis reveals the ΛCDM model is favoured over our negative cosmological constant model. While
our results are inconclusive, should low-redshift tensions persist with future data, it would be worth
reconsidering and further refining our toy negative cosmological constant model by considering
realistic string constructions.

I. INTRODUCTION The statistical significance of this discrepancy, cur-

While extremely successful at describing a wide va-
riety of high- and low-redshift observations [1–5], the
ΛCDM model has recently begun to display a num-
ber of small cracks [6, 7]. One of the most tantalizing
among these crevices is the so-called “H0 tension”, re-
ferring to the discrepancy between two independent es-
timates of the Hubble constant H0 . The first is a lo-
cal estimate from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST),
based on a distance ladder approach using Cepheids vari-
ables in the hosts of Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa), and
yielding H0 = (74.03 ± 1.42) km s−1 Mpc−1 [8]. The
second is an indirect estimate based on Cosmic Mi-
crowave Background (CMB) temperature and polariza-
tion anisotropies measurements from the Planck collab-
oration: assuming an underlying ΛCDM model, a value
of H0 = (67.36 ± 0.54) km s−1 Mpc−1 [5] is obtained. 1
∗
luca.visinelli@physics.uu.se
† θs =
sunny.vagnozzi@fysik.su.se
‡
ulf.danielsson@physics.uu.se
1
Besides this cosmological tension, the ΛCDM model also suffers
from a number of astrophysical shortcomings at small (galactic
or subgalactic scales), mostly referring to mismatches between
simulations of cold dark matter and observations. Such issues
include the core-cusp problem [9], the missing satellites prob-
lem [10] (although see for example [11, 12]), and the too-big-
to-fail problem [13]. See for instance [14–16] for recent reviews
on the subject. It has been speculated that such issues might
signal the need to move away from the collisionless cold dark
matter paradigm, and in particular that allowing for interac-
rently at a level >∼ 4σ, has steadily grown over recent
year, owing also improvements in the distance ladder ap-
proach [32–35]. Additional (re)analyses of the local dis-
tance ladder [36–46], as well as independent estimates
of H0 from strong-lensing time delays [47–49] have inde-
pendently supported the conclusion that local measure-
ments favour a higher value of H0 [8] (see, however, the
study in [50]). Given that the Planck estimate of H0 re-
lies on the assumption of an underlying ΛCDM model,
it is possible that the H0 tension might be hinting to-
wards new physics, possibly involving non-standard prop-
erties of dark matter or dark energy [51–54]. The task
is not easy to accomplish, since the simplest single-field
quintessence models cannot solve the H0 tension [55, 56],
even when a late-time transition from a matter-like equa-
tion of state (EoS) is considered [57]. For an incomplete
list of works in this direction, see Refs. [55, 57–141].
Measurements of temperature and polarization
anisotropies in the CMB exquisitely constrain θs , the
angular scale of the sound horizon at last-scattering:
rs (zdrag )
, (1)
DA (z? )
where z? ≈ 1100 is the redshift of last-scattering, zdrag ≈
z? is the redshift of the drag epoch (when baryons are
released from the Compton drag of photons), rs (z) is
tions between dark matter particles, or between dark matter and
baryons, could alleviate these issues (see e.g. [17–31] for an in-
complete list of proposed models).

the comoving sound horizon at redshift z, and DA (z) is
the angular diameter distance to redshift z. Attempts
to address the H0 tension by introducing new physics
generally modify either or both rs and DA , in such a way
that an increase in H0 is required in order to keep θs fixed.
One of the simplest possibilities is to modify the dark
energy (DE) sector in order to lower the expansion rate
at late times, while leaving the early-time expansion rate
unaltered. Such a change will keep rs (zdrag ) unchanged,
but will raise DA (z? ). In order to keep θs fixed, a higher
value of H0 will be inferred.
One of the simplest modifications to the DE sector
that could be considered consists in replacing the pos-
itive cosmological constant (whose equation of state is
wcc = −1) with a quintessence field with a time-varying
EoS. A single minimally coupled quintessence field φ with
standard kinetic term possesses a positive energy den-
sity with an equation of state wφ (z) ≥ −1; it is easy
to show that, in this case, the expansion rate actually
increases at late times, going in the opposite direction
of what is required to address the H0 tension [55]. In
fact, insisting on a positive energy density for the DE
component brings one to consider phantom DE, i.e. a
DE component with equation of state wφ < −1. Phan-
tom DE components, which generically predict the Uni-
verse to end in a Big Rip [142] (although this fate can
be avoided in certain classes of modified gravity theo-
ries [143–147]), are however generically extremely chal-
lenging to construct, due to the violation of the strong
energy condition. Nonetheless, attempts to realize ef-
fectively stable phantom DE components (for instance
within modified gravity or brane-world models) exist, see
e.g. Refs. [148–162].
The situation changes if one chooses not to restrict
to the DE energy density being positive. Recent work
has in fact shown that a number of persisting low-
redshift tensions (including the H0 tension) might be
addressed if one allows for an evolving DE component
whose energy density can assume negative values (see
e.g. Refs. [53, 93, 163–165]). In particular, Ref. [165]
considered a very interesting case, where the DE sector
consists of a slowly-rolling quintessence field (whose en-
ergy density is positive) on top of a negative cosmological
constant. Such a scenario is extremely interesting from
a string theory perspective. In fact, constructing meta-
stable de Sitter (dS) vacua (i.e. with a positive cosmo-
logical constant) has notoriously been a daunting task in
string theory (see e.g. Refs. [166–175]). These difficulties
have led to the suggestion that string theory might not
have any dS vacua at all [176–180], an observation which,
if correct, would have interesting consequences for cos-
mology [181–190] (see however also the important work
of [191], which appears to provide a possible counterex-
ample to these swampland conjectures). In contrast, a
negative cosmological constant (providing an AdS back-
ground, i.e. a maximally symmetric spacetime with a
negative cosmological constant) is very natural from sym-
metry considerations in string theory, as can be argued
2
using the AdS/CFT correspondence [192]. Contrary to
the case of dS, there does seem to exist a large number of
consistent AdS backgrounds that can be obtained from
string theory (it has even been suggested that AdS vacua
can lead to an accelerating Universe [193]).
Another rather generic prediction of string theory is
the plethora of light bosons known as the “axiverse”.
These correspond to moduli determining the size and
shape of the extra dimensions, and could give rise to
important observable consequences that might alter the
evolution of the Universe between recombination and to-
day [194–208]. It is therefore interesting to try matching
cosmological data using quintessence (possibly with an
effective phantom equation of state, given that one is
anyhow not dealing with a single quintessence field) in
combination with a negative cosmological constant, both
of which are natural from the point of view of string the-
ory. This is an important motivation for our paper.
At any rate, determining the sign of a possible cos-
mological constant is crucial in order to understand the
structure and fabric of space-time itself. In this work, we
revisit the possibility that a negative cosmological con-
stant might be allowed by current cosmological data, and
more generally explore whether the H0 tension might be
relaxed within such a scenario. We first consider the
standard ΛCDM model (featuring a positive cosmologi-
cal constant with equation of state w = −1). We then
move on to one of the simplest extension of the ΛCDM
model, i.e. the wCDM model, wherein the DE EoS w
is treated as a free parameter. Finally, we consider a
scenario in which the present accelerated expansion rate
is driven by a combination of a cosmological constant
whose density parameter Ωcc is strictly negative, on top
of which we allow for a second DE component with EoS
wφ (which can take on values wφ < −1) and a posi-
tive density parameter Ωφ . While the case for a nega-
tive cosmological constant is clearly inspired by a string
scenario, the present accelerated expansion rate requires
that Ωcc + Ωφ > 0. We refer to this last model as cCDM.
Notice that the requirement Ωcc + Ωφ > 0, necessary in
order for the Universe to accelerate, prevents us from
considering a model where the dark energy sector con-
sists solely of a negative cosmological constant, without
the quintessence field on top.
In this work, we perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo
(MCMC) analysis to compare the three models (in order
of increasing complexity ΛCDM, wCDM, and cCDM)
in light of recent low-redshift (z <∼ 2.5) distance mea-
surements from a selection of Baryon Acoustic Oscilla-
tion (BAO) surveys [3, 209–213] and Type Ia Supernovae
(SNeIa) from the Pantheon catalogue [214]. The interpre-
tation of BAO measurements requires “anchoring” them
to either the cosmic distance ladder through independent
measurements of H0 , or to the inverse distance ladder
through independent measurements of rdrag , the sound
horizon at baryon drag [51]. To show the impact of the
H0 tension, we choose two different anchors to interpret
our BAO data: we first use the local distance ladder mea-

surement of H0 from the “Supernovae and H0 for the
Dark Energy Equation of State” (SH0ES) program [8],
before comparing our results to those obtained anchor-
ing to the most recent measurement of rdrag from the
Planck collaboration [5]. More details on the datasets
chosen and the choice of anchoring are given in Sec. II.
Our treatment of the effective DE component on top of
the negative cosmological constant is purely phenomeno-
logical, we remain agnostic as to the underlying La-
grangian for such a component (see e.g. [215, 216] for
early works discussing a fundamental origin for this type
of composite dark energy). While we envisage such a
component being a quintessence field slowly rolling along
a potential on top of the negative cosmological constant,
we allow the effective equation of state wφ to enter the
phantom regime, where wφ < −1. The rationale is that
string constructions generically predict a large number of
light bosons on top of the stable AdS vacua: therefore,
one can in general be faced with a multi-field quintessence
scenario, whose effective behaviour might be phantom
(see e.g. Refs. [217–221]). 2 In the cCDM model, the
quintessence field (whose effective EoS wφ we allow to
be phantom, again from a purely effective perspective) is
treated as an additional contribution to the total energy
density along with the (possibly negative) cosmological
constant and the usual components of matter and radi-
ation. Our results are interesting from a model-building
perspective, as we find that from the low-redshift data
side a negative cosmological constant is a valid alterna-
tive to a phantom dark energy component.
The rest of the paper is then organized as follows. In
Sec. II we describe the datasets we use. In Sec. III, we
describe in detail the models considered along with their
parameter spaces. The MCMC analysis performed in
order to constrain the models, and the obtained results,
are described in Sec. IV. We provide concluding remarks
in Sec. V.
II. OVERVIEW OF THE DATASETS USED
The evolution of the Hubble expansion rate on the red-
shift z, H(z), is usually factored out as H(z) = H0 E(z),
where H0 is the Hubble constant and the normalized ex-
pansion rate E(z) is a dimensionless function describing
the evolution of the expansion rate with the redshift. Let
us introduce the angular diameter distance to redshift z,
DA (z), given by the following:
Z z
1 c dz 0
DA (z) ≡ . (2)
1 + z H0 0 E(z 0 )
2 Z zeff
Other possibilities for obtaining an effective phantom component
from an underlying scalar field model involve considering modifi-
cations to gravity [222–231], couplings between dark energy and
dark matter [232–246], particle creation mechanisms [247–256],
or invoking scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity or with
a kinetic term which is non-canonical [257–261].
3
The angular diameter distance in Eq. (2) is related to
the comoving angular diameter distance to redshift z,
DM (z), by DA (z) = DM (z)/(1 + z). Let us further de-
fine the sound horizon at redshift z, rs (z), as the dis-
tance travelled by an acoustic wave in the baryon-photon
plasma from a very early time, given by:
Z ∞
cs (z 0 ) 0
rs (z) = dz , (3)
z H(z 0 )
where cs (z) is the sound speed of the baryon-photon
plasma at redshift z.
We consider two classes of observational datasets. A
first class consists of distance measurements from Baryon
Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) surveys as well as
from Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa). A second class con-
sists of two different types of anchors used to interpret the
BAO measurements. Specifically, we consider two differ-
ent anchors: direct measurements of the Hubble constant
based on the local Cepheids-Supernovae distance ladder,
and CMB measurements of the comoving sound horizon
at baryon drag, further defined in Eq. (4) below. We
describe these four datasets in more detail below
• BAO. In the early Universe, the interplay between
gravity and radiation pressure sets up acoustic os-
cillations which produce a sharp feature in the two-
point correlation function of luminous matter at a
scale equal to the comoving size of the sound hori-
zon at the drag epoch [262–266]:
rdrag ≡ rs (zdrag ) , (4)
where the drag epoch is the time when the baryons
are released from the Compton drag of the photons,
and occurs at a redshift zdrag . Measurements of
the BAO feature, first reported in Refs. [265, 267],
are usually performed at an effective redshift zeff .
These measurements can in principle independently
constrain the angular diameter distance DA (zeff )
in units of rdrag (for modes in the transverse
direction with respect to the line of sight) and
H(zeff )rdrag (for modes along the line of sight),
whereas isotropic BAO measurements constrain a
combination of these quantities known as the vol-
ume distance DV (zeff ). Here, we consider various
types of BAO measurements, which constrain the
following quantities:
Z zeff
DM (zeff ) c dz 0
≡ , (5)
rdrag H0 rdrag 0 E(z 0 )
DH (zeff ) c 1
≡ , (6)
rdrag H0 rdrag E(zeff )
s 2
DV (zeff ) c 3 zeff dz 0
≡ , (7)
rdrag H0 rdrag E(zeff ) 0 E(z 0 )
See Appendix B of Ref. [268] for a more detailed
discussion of BAO measurements.

In our analysis, we consider anisotropic BAO mea-
surements from the Baryon Oscillation Spectro-
scopic Survey (BOSS) collaboration [3] Data Re-
lease 12 (DR12) at the effective redshifts zeff =
0.38 , 0.51 , 0.61 and from Lyman-α forest sam-
ples at zeff = 2.40 [211, 212]. We also include
isotropic BAO measurements from the Six-degree
Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) at zeff = 0.106 [209],
from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data (SDSS)
Main Galaxy Sample (MGS) release at zeff =
0.15 [210], and from the quasar sample of the
extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
(eBOSS) at zeff = 1.52 [213]. For completeness, we
have collected the BAO measurements used in this
work in Table I. We construct the likelihood for the
BAO data, LBAO , using the data described and the
correlation matrices provided by the collaborations.
• SNeIa. SNeIa catalogues report the corrected ap-
parent magnitude of the i-th supernova, which is
given by the following:
µi = M + 5 Log10 DA i


(z)/Mpc + 25 , (8)
where M is the absolute magnitude of the ith su-
pernova, which fixes the scale for the global fit. For
practical purposes we rewrite the relation as
c(1 + z) z dz 0
 Z 
i
µ = 5.7 + 5 Log10 , (9)
H0 `SN 0 E(z 0 )
where the absolute magnitude has been reabsorbed
into a parameter `SN = 10−(M +19)/5 Mpc which we
fit to data. We construct the likelihood
 
1 T −1
LSN = exp − (µ − µobs) CSN (µ − µobs ) , (10)
2 rdrag = (147.05 ± 0.30) Mpc at 68% confi-
where the vector of apparent magnitude measure-
ments µobs and the corresponding covariance ma-
−1
trix CSN are taken from the Pantheon SNeIA
dataset [214]. This catalogue provides luminosity
distances DA (z) for 1048 SNeIa within the range
0.01 < z ≤ 2.3 of Type 1a supernovae. Al-
though the Pantheon analysis is marginally model-
dependent, as biases in light-curve parameters are
corrected assuming a ΛCDM cosmology, indepen-
dent analyses run using the JLA SN dataset [269]
find that the model-dependence of the light-curve
parameters is weak.
• Anchors The cosmic distance ladder technique re-
lies on measuring distances of extra-galactic ob-
jects, at distances beyond ∼ 100 Mpc, to map the
Hubble flow. The expansion history of the universe
is mapped through Type 1a supernovae (SNeIa)
datasets [214, 269–275] and BAO [265, 267]. These
distance scales need to be calibrated through an-
chors either at the high-redshift end (through rdrag )
or at the low-redshift end (through H0 ) [276].
4
For instance, BAO measurements constrain the
combination H0 rdrag . In fact, the tension between
measurements at low and high redshifts of H0 can
be eased by modifying the value of rdrag , which is
the standard ruler providing the BAO length scale.
The sole measurements of either H0 or rdrag are re-
spectively interpreted as anchoring the cosmic dis-
tance ladder or the inverse cosmic distance ladder.
In any case, in order to interpret the BAO measure-
ments we have to anchor either H0 or rdrag to an
independent evaluation [51]. Here we consider inde-
pendent approaches, namely calibrating the cosmic
distance ladder by means of the recent measure-
ments of H0 in Ref. [8], or calibrating the inverse
distance ladder by using the CMB measurement of
rdrag in [5]. It is worth remarking that a lot (but
not all) of the information contained in the CMB
temperature and anisotropy spectra resides in the
position and height of the first acoustic peak, which
accurately constrains θs given in Eq. (1), and pro-
vides valuable information about the geometry and
the content of the Universe. The position of the
first peak is sensitive to early-time modifications
through a change in rdrag , as well as to late-time
modifications through a change in DA (z? ).
Here, we consider two scenarios using two different
anchors, given by the following:
1. Sound horizon at drag epoch (Scenario
I). The anchor at the CMB epoch is ex-
pressed by the comoving sound horizon at the
end of the baryon drag epoch rdrag . Mea-
surements of CMB temperature and polar-
ization anisotropies by the Planck collabo-
ration (PlanckTTTEEE +lowP dataset) give
dence level (C.L.). When anchoring data to
the sound horizon rdrag , we construct the like-
lihood function LAnchor = Ldrag as a Gaussian
in rdrag using this measurement.
2. Hubble constant H0 (Scenario II).
When anchoring data to the present value
of the Hubble rate, we use the lat-
est result from the SH0ES program [8]
which reports the local measurement H0 =
(74.03 ± 1.42) km s−1 Mpc−1 . This measure-
ment is used to construct the likelihood func-
tion LAnchor = LCeph as a Gaussian in H0 .
Since one of our main interests is to compare the re-
sults obtained using different anchors, we have not used
other available datasets such as direct determinations of
the Hubble rate H(z) at redshifts 0.1 < <
∼ z ∼ 2 [277, 278],
or “compressed” CMB likelihoods [228, 279, 280]. For
ease of comparison to related works, we choose to re-
strict our use of low-redshift data solely to BAO and SNe
data, which are the two most robust low-redshift datasets
widely used by the community. We do not include other
 5

Dataset z Measurement Reference

BOSS DR12 0.38 H (rdrag /rfid ) = (81.2 ± 2.2 ± 1.0) km/(s Mpc) [3]
BOSS DR12 0.51 H (rdrag /rfid ) = (90.9 ± 2.1 ± 1.1) km/(s Mpc) [3]
BOSS DR12 0.61 H (rdrag /rfid ) = (99.0 ± 2.2 ± 1.2) km/(s Mpc) [3]
BOSS DR12 0.38 DM /rdrag = (1512 ± 22 ± 11) Mpc/rfid [3]
BOSS DR12 0.51 DM /rdrag = (1975 ± 27 ± 14) Mpc/rfid [3]
BOSS DR12 0.61 DM /rdrag = (2307 ± 33 ± 17) Mpc/rfid [3]
BOSS DR12+Lyα 2.40 DM /rdrag = 36.6 ± 1.2 [211]
BOSS DR12+Lyα 2.40 DH /rdrag = 8.94 ± 0.22 [211]
6dFGS 0.106 DV /rdrag = 2.98 ± 0.13 [209]
SDSS-MGS 0.15 DV /rdrag = 4.47 ± 0.17 [210]
eBOSS quasars 1.52 DV /rdrag = 26.1 ± 1.1 [213]

TABLE I. BAO scale measurements used in this work. For BOSS DR12, we set the fiducial scale rfid = 147.78 Mpc [3].

late-time measurements of the expansion history, such is modelled as follows:

as cosmic chronometers or distance measurements from
Gamma-ray bursts. However, it would be interesting to
further include these datasets, which could perhaps im-
prove our constraints on a possible negative cosmological
constants, and we leave this exercise for future work.
III. OVERVIEW OF MODELS AND MODEL
COMPARISON
As described in the Introduction, we consider three
models with increasing level of complexity to fit the data.
For each model, ρi represents the energy density in the
2
species i, ρcrit = 3MPL H02 , where MPL is the reduced
Planck mass, and we introduce the density parameter
Ωi = ρi /ρcrit . The present energy density in radia-
tion Ωr = 5 × 10−5 is obtained from the CMB tem-
perature measured from the 4-Year COBE-DMR CMB
mission [281] as T0 = (2.728 ± 0.004) K at 95% C.L..
The fractional energy density in neutrinos Ων (z) assumes
three active neutrinos of which two are massless and the
third has a mass mν3 = 0.06 eV, as done in the baseline
Planck analyses. 3 We refer to the combination of invis-
ible components as Ωinv (z) ≡ Ωr (1 + z)4 + Ων (z). We
treat baryons and CDM equivalently, both contributing
to a total energy share ΩM . The remaining parameters
are model-dependent and are discussed in the following.
1. ΛCDM model. Here, the normalized expansion rate
3
The value 0.06 eV is the minimal neutrino mass sum allowed
within the normal ordering [282], which is mildly favoured by
current data [283–286]. Leaving the neutrino mass as a free
parameter would not change our analysis substantially, given
the current very tight upper limits on the sum of the neutrino
masses [5, 283, 287–293].
1/2
EΛCDM (z) = ΩΛ + ΩM (1 + z)3 + Ωinv (z)

. (11)
We fix the value of ΩΛ by demanding that
EΛCDM (0) = 1, so that the parameter space asso-
ciated to this model SΛCDM = {ΩM , H0 , rdrag , `SN }
is 4-dimensional.
2. wCDM model. Here, the normalized expansion
rate is modelled as follows:
h i1/2
EwCDM (z) = Ωφ (1+z)3(1+wφ ) +ΩM (1+z)3 +Ωinv (z) ,
(12)
where wφ is a constant. We fix the value of
Ωφ is fixed by demanding that EwCDM (0) = 1,
so that the parameter space associated to this
model SwCDM = {ΩM , wφ , H0 , rdrag , `SN } is 5-
dimensional. Note that we allow wφ to enter the
phantom regime, where wφ < −1, since we are not
restricting our attention to the case where the dark
energy component is decribed by a single minimally
coupled quintessence field with a canonical kinetic
term.
3. cCDM model. Here, the normalized expansion rate
is modelled as follows:
 1/2
3(1+wφ ) 3
EcCDM (z) = Ωcc + Ωφ (1 + z) + ΩM (1 + z) + Ωinv (z) (13).
We fix the value of Ωφ by demanding
that EwCDM (0) = 1, so that the pa-
rameter space associated to this model
ScCDM = {Ωcc , ΩM , wφ , H0 , rdrag , `SN } is 6-
dimensional. We demand that Ωcc be strictly
negative by exploring the region of the parameter
space Ωcc < 0 when fitting the parameters in
ScCDM against the data described in Sec. II.

To sample the posterior distribution of the parameters,
we perform a Markov Chain Montecarlo (MCMC) anal-
ysis using the open-source Python package emcee [294].
For each model M described in Sec. III, we explore the
associated parameter space SM by performing the anal-
ysis with a Metropolis-Hasting algorithm and assuming
flat priors for all variables, except for the anchor for which
we assume a Gaussian prior with mean and standard
deviation given by the corresponding measurement. In
more detail, we assume a flat prior for ΩM ∈ [0, 1] and
`SN ∈ [0.9, 1.2] Mpc for all models discussed, in addition
to the DE EoS wφ ∈ [−2, −0.5] for the wCDM and cCDM
models, and the cosmological constant Ωcc ∈ [−30, 0] for
the cCDM model. When anchoring the distance ladder
to the comoving sound horizon at the drag epoch (Sce-
nario I), we choose the flat prior H0 ∈ [60, 80] km/s/Mpc
and a Gaussian prior for rdrag based on the measurement
by the Planck collaboration. When the present Hubble
rate is used as the anchor (Scenario II), we choose the
flat prior rdrag ∈ [120, 160] Mpc and a Gaussian prior for
H0 given by the SH0eS measurements [8]. We use the
expression for the likelihood:
L = LBAO + LSN + LAnchor . (14)
It is worth noting that the ΛCDM and wCDM models
are nested models, i.e. the former is a particular case
of the latter, recovered when setting w = −1. As such,
we expect that the fit to data (quantified e.g. through
the χ2 ) should not worsen when moving from the ΛCDM
to the wCDM model. However, the same is not true for
the cCDM model. In fact, within the cCDM model we
require Ωcc < 0, i.e. that the cosmological constant be
strictly negative. Therefore, it is not possible to recover
neither the ΛCDM nor the wCDM model as a particular
limit of cCDM. As a result, the fit to data will not neces-
sarily improve when considering a negative cosmological
constant.
At any rate, given that the wCDM and cCDM models
possess respectively 1 and 2 extra parameters compared
to the baseline ΛCDM model, it is important to assess
whether the increased model complexity is warranted by
a substantially better fit (if any) to the data. We perform
a simple model comparison adopting the Akaike informa-
tion criterion (AIC) to compare the competing models.
The AIC of a given model is defined as [295]:
AIC = 2k + min(χ2 ) , (15)
where k is the number of parameters of the model, and
min(χ2 ) is the χ2 calculated at the best-fit point of the
model. Therefore, k = 4 , 5 , 6 for the ΛCDM, wCDM,
and cCDM models respectively.
Assume we have two competing models i and j, with
AIC values AICi and AICj respectively, and assume that
AICi < AICj . Then, model i is to be preferred since it
has a lower AIC. From Eq. (15), we see that one needs
an improvement in fit of at least ∆χ2 ≥ 2∆k in order
to justify the increased number of parameters (for in-
stance, ∆χ2 = 2 when moving from ΛCDM to wCDM,
6
or ∆χ2 = 4 when moving to cCDM). Moreover, the quan-
tity exp [(AICi − AICj )/2] gives the relative likelihood of
model i with respect to model j.
IV. RESULTS
We now discuss the results obtained analysing the
datasets described in Sec. II within the context of the
three models described in Sec. III, which we then com-
pare using the AIC described in the same Section. In
Tab. II, we show corner plots visualizing the 1D marginal-
ized and 2D joint posterior distributions for the pa-
rameters of the models considered: ΛCDM model (up-
per panels), wCDM (middle panels), and cCDM model
(lower panels), anchoring the BAO measurements either
to rdrag as measured by Planck (left column) or to H0
as measured by SH0ES (right column). Constraints on
the parameters of the three models are also presented in
Tab. III.
As we see from Tab. III, our analysis does not reveal
any evidence for a non-zero negative cosmological con-
stant. In fact, when analysing our datasets within the
cCDM model, we only obtain a lower limit of Ωcc > ∼ −14
regardless of whether we use rdrag as measured by Planck
or H0 as measured by SH0ES as anchor. Moreover,
within both the wCDM and cCDM models, we see a 1σ
preference for a phantom DE component (wφ < −1),
indicating that data prefers a late-time expansion rate
lower than the one obtained when DE is entirely in the
form of a (positive) cosmological constant. We also see
that when moving from the wCDM model to the cCDM
model the central value of wφ , although still phantom,
moves upwards towards w = −1. The reason is that, as
discussed in Sec. I, introducing a negative cosmological
constant lowers the expansion rate even more drastically
than when considering a phantom DE component, lessen-
ing the need for the latter and explaining why wφ moves
towards −1.
It is also worth noting that within the wCDM and
cCDM model we infer a higher matter density than
within ΛCDM (although with uncertainty about twice as
large). The reason is again that a phantom dark energy
component (with the addition of a negative cosmological
constant) lowers the expansion rate at late times, which
can be compensated by increasing the matter density.
This result is analogous to the one found in [55], where
it was shown that in models with w > −1 one infers
a lower matter density, because the late-time expansion
rate in this case is higher, leaving less room for matter
components.
We also notice that when anchoring BAO measure-
ments to rdrag as measured by Planck, we recover a value
of H0 which is essentially H0 ≈ 68.5 km s−1 Mpc−1 for
all three models, which indicates that the cCDM model
has not been able to alleviate the H0 tension. Finally, we
note that anchoring BAO measurements to H0 as mea-
sured by SH0ES, we infer a value for rdrag which is about
 7

rdrag as anchor (Scenario I) H0 as anchor (Scenario II)

TABLE II. Left column: corner plots showing the 1D marginalized and 2D joint posterior distributions for the parameters of
the ΛCDM (top panel), wCDM (middle panel), and cCDM models (bottom panel), when the anchoring BAO measurements
to rdrag as measured Planck [5]. Right column: same as the left column, but anchoring BAO measurements to H0 as measured
by the SH0ES program [8].
 8

Anchor Model Ωc wφ ΩM H0 rs `SN ∆AIC

km/s/Mpc [Mpc] [Mpc]
rdrag ΛCDM 0.31 ± 0.02 68.53+0.79
−0.78 147.05+0.22
−0.21 1.04 ± 0.01 0
rdrag wCDM −1.17+0.17 +0.04
−0.19 0.36−0.05 68.82+0.86
−0.86 147.06+0.21
−0.21 1.04 ± 0.01 1.9
rdrag cCDM > −13.88 −1.02+0.02
−0.09 0.36+0.05
−0.05 68.83+0.86
−0.85 147.05+0.30
−0.31 1.04 ± 0.01 3.6
H0 ΛCDM 0.31 ± 0.02 74.03+1.03
−1.01 136.16+2.43
−2.42 0.97 ± 0.01 0
H0 wCDM −1.18+0.17 +0.04
−0.19 0.36−0.05 74.04+0.99
−1.01 136.72+2.52
−2.43 0.97 ± 0.01 1.3
H0 cCDM > −14.48 −1.02+0.02
−0.09 0.36+0.05
−0.05 73.96+1.41
−1.45 136.86+3.22
−3.04 0.97 ± 0.02 4.8

TABLE III. Constraints on the parameters of the three models considered in this work, obtained using the two different choices
of anchor (specified in the first column). We report 68% C.L. intervals on all parameters, except for Ωc for which we do not have
a detection and hence report the 95% C.L. lower bound. The last column reports ∆AIC, defined in Eq. (15), and calculated
with respect to the ΛCDM model. A positive value of ∆AIC indicates a preference for ΛCDM.

8% lower than that obtained when anchoring to rdrag as
measured by Planck, in full agreement with earlier re-
sults [51, 108, 296].
One further interesting point worth noting from
Tab. III is that the values we infer for certain param-
eters (such as ΩM , H0 , rs , and lSN ) are essentially the
same across different models (particularly for the wCDM
and cCDM models) and for different choices of anchors.
One particularly striking case, for example, is ΩM , for
which we basically infer ΩM = 0.36 ± 0.05 for both the
wCDM and cCDM models, regardless of the choice of
anchor. On the other hand, for the ΛCDM model we in-
ferred ΩM = 0.31 ± 0.02. This is consistent with the fact
that we do not have a detection of non-zero negative cos-
mological constant, and therefore from the point of view
of the data we used there is not much different between
the wCDM and cCDM models. On the other hand, pa-
rameters such as ΩM are extremely well determined by
BAO data, independently of the choice of anchor. Sim-
ilar considerations hold for the other parameters whose
values inferred within the wCDM and cCDM models are
very similar to one another regardless of the choice of
anchor.
We now compare the three models using the Akaike in-
formation criterion introduced in Sec. III, beginning with
the case when BAO measurements are anchored to rdrag .
In this case, we find minimal improvements in the best-fit
χ2 when moving away from the ΛCDM model. In partic-
ular, we find ∆χ2 = −0.1 and ∆χ2 = −0.4 for the wCDM
and cCDM models respectively. According to Eq. (15),
these values correspond to ∆AIC = 1.9 and ∆AIC = 3.6
for the wCDM and cCDM models respectively. In both
cases ∆AIC > 0, indicating that the tiny improvement
in fit does not warrant the addition of extra parameters
(1 extra parameter and 2 extra parameters for wCDM
and cCDM respectively), and therefore that the baseline
ΛCDM model is preferred from a statistical point of view.
In fact, we find that the relative likelihoods of the wCDM
and cCDM models over ΛCDM are ≈ 0.38 and ≈ 0.16
respectively.
We find completely analogous, if not less optimistic
results, when anchoring BAO measurements to H0 . In
this case, we find ∆χ2 = −0.7 and ∆χ2 = +0.8 for
the wCDM and cCDM models respectively. We see that
within the cCDM model the quality of the fit has actu-
ally worsened. According to Eq. (15), these values cor-
respond to ∆AIC = 1.3 and ∆AIC = 4.8 for the wCDM
and cCDM models respectively. Again, in both cases
∆AIC > 0, with relative likelihoods for the wCDM and
cCDM models over the ΛCDM model being ≈ 0.52 and
≈ 0.09 respectively.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this work we have revisited the possibility that the
dark energy sector might feature two components: a neg-
ative cosmological constant, and a component with posi-
tive energy density (such as a quintessence field, but with
the possibility that is equation of state might be phan-
tom) on top. While such a model (which we referred
to as cCDM model) is certainly a toy model, it can be
seen as a proxy for more realistic string-inspired mod-
els [176–180], where it is rather natural to have an AdS
background with on top a large number of light bosons
corresponding to moduli determining the size and shape
of the extra dimensions. We have tested our toy cCDM
model against low-redshift distance measurements from a
collection of recent BAO surveys and the Pantheon SNeIa
catalogue. To interpret our BAO measurements, we re-
quire either an anchor either at high or low redshift. We
have experimented with two different choices of anchor:
a high-redshift anchor based on the sound horizon at the
drag epoch rdrag as determined by the Planck collabo-
ration [5], or a low-redshift anchor based on the local
distance ladder measurement of the Hubble constant H0
measured by the SH0ES program [8].
Our results are summarized in Tab. II and Tab. III.
We have found no evidence for a negative cosmological
constant, but only obtained the very loose lower bound
Ωc >∼ −14. Moreover, we find a mild preference for a

phantom equation of state (wφ < −1) for the dark energy
component on top of the negative cosmological constant,
in agreement with recent works.
We have also compared the three models considered in
this work: the baseline ΛCDM model, the one-parameter
wCDM extension where we allow the DE EoS wφ to vary
freely, and finally the cCDM model with a negative cos-
mological constant in addition. We have found that for
most choices of anchor/model the increased model com-
plexity only marginally improves the quality of the fit
(which actually deteriorates when considering the cCDM
model and anchoring BAO measurements to H0 ). When
accounting for the increased model complexity by com-
paring the three models using the Akaike information cri-
terion, we find that the baseline ΛCDM model is always
statistically favoured over the extensions we considered.
The results of our work are less optimistic than ear-
lier results in e.g. Refs. [93, 164, 165], which found in-
dications for a negative dark energy density at z ≈ 2.
There are nonetheless some fundamental differences be-
tween the approaches of Refs. [93, 164, 165] and ours. We
have not attempted to non-parametrically reconstruct
the dark energy density, but rather focused on a string-
inspired toy model which we have then fitted to data.
Moreover, on top of the negative cosmological constant
we have considered a dark energy component with con-
stant equation of state, although an obvious extension
would be to consider a time-varying equation of state
(which is very natural for a quintessence model). In any
case, our results suggest that a negative cosmological con-
stant is certainly consistent with data. Should the trend
which sees low-redshift data favouring a lower expansion
rate continue (for instance in light of the persisting H0
tension), our scenario featuring a negative cosmological
constant with a quintessence component on top might
be worth reconsidering. It is worth reminding once more
that, while being a toy model, our cCDM model nonethe-
less enjoys a fundamental string-inspired motivation.
Finally, there are several avenues by which we can ex-
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Massimiliano Lattanzi for useful discussions
and suggestions that improved the manuscript. L.V.
and S.V. acknowledge support by the Vetenskapsrådet
(Swedish Research Council) through contract No. 638-
2013-8993 and the Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle
Physics. S.V. acknowledges support from the Isaac New-
ton Trust and the Kavli Foundation through a Newton-
Kavli fellowship. U.D. acknowledges support by the
Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council) under con-
tract 2015-04814. L.V. acknowledges the kind hospital-
ity of the INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati and the
Leinweber Center for Theoretical Physics, where part of
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