Hongwei Yu

Examining the cosmic acceleration with the latest Union2 supernova data

Abstract In this Letter, by reconstructing the Om diagnostic and the deceleration parameter q from the latest Union2 Type Ia Supernova sample with and without the systematic error along with the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) and the cosmic microwave background (CMB), we study the cosmic expanding history, using the Chevallier–Polarski–Linder (CPL) parametrization. We obtain that Union2 + BAO favor an expansion with a decreasing of the acceleration at z 0.3 . However, once the CMB data is added in the analysis, the cosmic acceleration is found to be still increasing, indicating a tension between low redshift data and high redshift. In order to reduce this tension significantly, two different methods are considered and thus two different subsamples of Union2 are selected. We then find that two different subsamples + BAO + CMB give completely different results on the cosmic expanding history when the systematic error is ignored, with one suggesting a decreasing cosmic acceleration, the other just the opposite, although both of them alone with BAO support that the cosmic acceleration is slowing down. However, once the systematic error is considered, two different subsamples of Union2 along with BAO and CMB all favor an increasing of the present cosmic acceleration. Therefore a clear-cut answer on whether the cosmic acceleration is slowing down calls for more consistent data and more reliable methods to analyze them.

Testing Nonstandard Cosmological Models with SNLS3 Supernova Data and Other Cosmological Probes

We investigate the implications for some nonstandard cosmological models using data from the first three years of the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS3), assuming a spatially flat universe. A comparison between the constraints from the SNLS3 and those from other SN Ia samples, such as the ESSENCE, Union2, SDSS-II, and Constitution samples, is given and the effects of different light-curve fitters are considered. We find that analyzing SNe Ia with SALT2 or SALT or SiFTO can give consistent results and the tensions between different data sets and different light-curve fitters are obvious for fewer-free-parameters models. At the same time, we also study the constraints from SNLS3 along with data from the cosmic microwave background and the baryonic acoustic oscillations (CMB/BAO), and the latest Hubble parameter versus redshift (H(z)). Using model selection criteria such as χ2/dof, goodness of fit, Akaike information criterion, and Bayesian information criterion, we find that, among all the cosmological models considered here (ΛCDM, constant w, varying w, Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP), modified polytropic Cardassian, and the generalized Chaplygin gas), the flat DGP is favored by SNLS3 alone. However, when additional CMB/BAO or H(z) constraints are included, this is no longer the case, and the flat ΛCDM becomes preferred.

Probing the course of cosmic expansion with a combination of observational data

We study the cosmic expansion history by reconstructing the deceleration parameter q(z) from the SDSS-II type Ia supernova sample (SNIa) with two different light curve fits (MLCS2k2 and SALT-II), the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) distance ratio, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) shift parameter, and the lookback time-redshift (LT) from the age of old passive galaxies. Three parametrization forms for the equation of state of dark energy (CPL, JBP, and UIS) are considered. Our results show that, for the CPL and the UIS forms, MLCS2k2 SDSS-II SNIa+BAO+CMB and MLCS2k2 SDSS-II SNIa+BAO+CMB+LT favor a currently slowing-down cosmic acceleration, but this does not occur for all other cases, where an increasing cosmic acceleration is still favored. Thus, the reconstructed evolutionary behaviors of dark energy and the course of the cosmic acceleration are highly dependent both on the light curve fitting method for the SNIa and the parametrization form for the equation of state of dark energy.

Spherical collapse in the extended quintessence cosmological models

We use the spherical collapse method to investigate the non-linear density perturbations of pressureless matter in the cosmological models with the extended quintessence as dark energy in the metric and Palatini formalisms. We find that for both formalisms, when the coupling constant is negative, the deviation from the

A new extended quintessence

\Lambda

Emergent universe in spatially flat cosmological model

CDM model is the least according to the evolutionary curves of the linear density contrast

Determining H 0 using a model-independent method

\delta_{c}

Quantum correction to classical gravitational interaction between two polarizable objects

and virial overdensity

Is the cosmic transparency spatially homogeneous

\Delta_{v}

Gravitational Casimir-Polder effect

, and it is less than one percent. And this indicates that, in the extended quintessence cosmological models in which the coupling constant is negative, all quantities dependent on