What is the Dark Energy?

David Spergel

Princeton University

1
 One of the most challenging
problems in Physics
 Several cosmological observations demonstrated
that the expansion of the universe is accelerating

 What is causing this acceleration?

 How can we learn more about this acceleration,

the Dark Energy it implies, and the questions it
raises?

2
 Outline
 A brief summary on the contents of the universe

 Evidence for the acceleration and the implied Dark Energy

 Supernovae type Ia observations (SNe Ia)
 Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB)
 Large-scale structure (LSS) (clusters of galaxies)

 What is the Dark Energy?

 Future Measurements

3
Contents of the universe
(from current observations)

Baryons (4%)
Dark matter (23%)
Dark energy: 73%
Massive neutrinos: 0.1%
Spatial curvature: very close to 0

4
 A note on cosmological
parameters
 The properties of the standard cosmological
model are expressed in terms of various
cosmological parameters, for example:
 H0 is the Hubble expansion parameter today


Ω M ≡ρ M / ρ c is the fraction of the matter
2
energy density in the critical densityρ ≡ 3H
c
(G=c=1 units) 8π

 Ω Λ ≡ρ Λ / ρ c is the fraction of the Dark

Energy density (here a cosmological constant) in
the critical density 5
Evidence for cosmic acceleration:
Supernovae type Ia

6
 Evidence for cosmic acceleration:
Supernovae type Ia
 Standard candles
 Their intrinsic luminosity is know
 Their apparent luminosity can be measured
 The ratio of the two can provide the luminosity-
distance (dL) of the supernova
 The red shift z can be measured independently
from spectroscopy
 Finally, one can obtain dL (z) or equivalently the
magnitude(z) and draw a Hubble diagram
7
Evidence for cosmic acceleration:
Supernovae type Ia

8
9
 Evidence from Cosmic Microwave
Background Radiation (CMB)
 CMB is an almost isotropic relic radiation of
T=2.725±0.002 K
 CMB is a strong pillar of the Big Bang
cosmology
 It is a powerful tool to use in order to
constrain several cosmological parameters
 The CMB power spectrum is sensitive to
several cosmological parameters
10
 This is how the Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) sees the CMB

11
ADIABATIC DENSITY FLUCTUATIONS
12
ISOCURVATURE ENTROPY FLUCTUATIONS
13
 Determining Basic Parameters

Baryon Density
bh2 = 0.015,0.017..0.031
also measured through D/H

14
 Determining Basic Parameters

Matter Density
mh2 = 0.16,..,0.33

15
 Determining Basic Parameters
Angular Diameter
Distance
w = -1.8,..,-0.2
When combined with
measurement of matter
density constrains data to a
line in m-w space

16
Simple Model Fits CMB data

Readhead et al. astro/ph 0402359

17
 Evolution
WMAP team from Initial Conditions I
assembled
WMAP completes
2 year of
observations!

DA leave
Princeton

WMAP at Cape 18
 Evidence from large-scale structure
in the universe (clusters of galaxies)

 Counting clusters of galaxies can infer the matter energy

density in the universe

 The matter energy density found is usually around ~0.3

the critical density

 CMB best fit model has a total energy density of ~1, so

another ~0.7 is required but with a different EOS

 The same ~0.7 with a the same different EOS is required

from combining supernovae data and CMB constraints
19
 Cosmic
complementarity:
Supernovae,
CMB,
and Clusters

20
What is Dark Energy ?
“ ‘Most embarrassing observation
in physics’ – that’s the only quick
thing I can say about dark energy
that’s also true.”
Edward Witten

21
What is the Dark Energy?
 Cosmological Constant
 Failure of General Relativity
 Quintessence
 Novel Property of Matter
 Simon Dedeo astro-ph/0411283

22
 COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT??
 Why is the total value measured from cosmology so
small compared to quantum field theory calculations of
vacuum energy?
 From cosmology: 0.7 critical density ~ 10- 48 GeV4

 From QFT estimation at the Electro-Weak (EW) scales:

(100 GeV)4
 At EW scales ~56 orders difference, at Planck scales

~120 orders

 Is it a fantastic cancellation of a puzzling smallness?

 Why did it become dominant during the “present” epoch of

cosmic evolution? Any earlier, would have prevented
structures to form in the universe (cosmic coincidence)

23
 Anthropic Solution?
 Not useful to discuss creation science in
any of its forms….
Dorothy… we are not in Kansas anymore …

24
 Quintessence
 Introduced mostly to address
the “why now?” problem
 Potential determines dark matter
energy properties (w, sound
speed)  QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
 Scaling models (Wetterich; are needed to see this picture.

Peebles & Ratra)

V() = exp

Most of the tracker models Zlatev and

predicted w > -0.7 Steinhardt
(1999)
25
Current Constraints

QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

Seljak et al.
2004
26
 Looking for Quintessence
 Deviations from w = -1
 BUT HOW BIG?
 Clustering of dark energy
 Variations in coupling constants (e.g., )

FF/MPL
 Current limits constrain < 10-6

If dark energy properties are time dependent, so

are other basic physical parameters 27
 Big Bang Cosmology
Homogeneous,
isotropic universe

(flat universe)

28
 Rulers and Standard Candles

Luminosity
Distance

Angular
Diameter
Distance

29
Flat M.D. Universe

D = 1500 Mpc for z > 0.5

30
Volume

31
Techniques
 Measure H(z)
 Luminosity Distance (Supernova)
 Angular diameter distance

 Growth rate of structure

Checks Einstein equations to first order in perturbation theory

32
What if GR is wrong?
 Friedman equation (measured through
distance) and Growth rate equation are
probing different parts of the theory
 For any distance measurement, there exists a
w(z) that will fit it. However, the theory can
not fit growth rate of structure
 Upcoming measurements can distinguish
Dvali et al. DGP from GR (Ishak, Spergel,
Upadye 2005)

33
 Growth Rate of Structure
 Galaxy Surveys
 Need to measure bias
 Non-linear dynamics

 Gravitational Lensing

 Halo Models

 Bias is a function of galaxy properties,

scale, etc….

34
A powerful cosmological probe of Dark Energy:
Gravitational Lensing

Abell 2218: A Galaxy Cluster Lens, Andrew Fruchter et al. (HST) 35

The binding of light

36
Gravitational Lensing by clusters of galaxies

From MPA lensing group 37

 Weak Gravitational Lensing

Distortion of background images by foreground matter

Unlensed Lensed
Credit: SNAP WL group 38
Gravitational Lensing Refregier et al. 2002

 Advantage: directly measures mass

 Disadvantages
 Technically more difficult
 Only measures projected mass-
distribution

Tereno et al. 2004

39
 Baryon Oscillations
CMB

C()

Baryon oscillation scale


1 o

Galaxy
Limber Equation
Survey

C() (weaker effect)

Selection

function


photo-z slices
40
 Baryon Oscillations as a
Standard Ruler
 In a redshift survey, we
can measure correlations
along and across the line
of sight.
 Yields H(z) and DA(z)!
r = DA r = (c/H)z
[Alcock-Paczynski Effect]

Observer

41
 Large Galaxy Redshift Surveys
 By performing large spectroscopic surveys, we can measure the
acoustic oscillation standard ruler at a range of redshifts.
 Higher harmonics are at k~0.2h Mpc-1 (=30 Mpc).
 Measuring 1% bandpowers in the peaks and troughs requires about 1
Gpc3 of survey volume with number density ~10-3 galaxy Mpc-3. ~1
million galaxies!
 SDSS Luminous Red Galaxy Survey has done this at z=0.3!
 A number of studies of using this effect
 Blake & Glazebrook (2003), Hu & Haiman (2003), Linder (2003),
Amendola et al. (2004)
 Seo & Eisenstein (2003), ApJ 598, 720 [source of next few figures]

42
Conclusions
 Cosmology provides lots of evidence for
physics beyond the standard model.
 Upcoming observations can test ideas about
the nature of the dark energy.

43