CaltechAUTHORS
Published June 15, 2022 | Version Accepted Version + Published
Journal Article Open

Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Constraints on prerecombination early dark energy

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Columbia University
  • 2. ROR icon Cardiff University
  • 3. ROR icon Cornell University
  • 4. ROR icon University of Pennsylvania
  • 5. ROR icon Princeton University
  • 6. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 7. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 8. ROR icon University of Chicago
  • 9. ROR icon University of Southern California
  • 10. ROR icon University of KwaZulu-Natal
  • 11. ROR icon University of Toronto
  • 12. ROR icon Yale University
  • 13. ROR icon University of Pittsburgh
  • 14. ROR icon Laboratoire de Physique des 2 Infinis Irène Joliot-Curie
  • 15. ROR icon Perimeter Institute
  • 16. ROR icon University of Milano-Bicocca
  • 17. ROR icon Haverford College
  • 18. ROR icon University of Cambridge
  • 19. ROR icon Stanford University
  • 20. ROR icon Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
  • 21. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 22. ROR icon Stony Brook University
  • 23. ROR icon Pontificial Catholic University of Valparaiso
  • 24. ROR icon Arizona State University
  • 25. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 26. ROR icon Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract

The early dark energy (EDE) scenario aims to increase the value of the Hubble constant (H₀) inferred from cosmic microwave background (CMB) data over that found in the standard cosmological model (Λ CDM), via the introduction of a new form of energy density in the early Universe. The EDE component briefly accelerates cosmic expansion just prior to recombination, which reduces the physical size of the sound horizon imprinted in the CMB. Previous work has found that nonzero EDE is not preferred by Planck CMB power spectrum data alone, which yield a 95% confidence level (C.L.) upper limit f_(EDE) < 0.087 on the maximal fractional contribution of the EDE field to the cosmic energy budget. In this paper, we fit the EDE model to CMB data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data release 4. We find that a combination of ACT, large-scale Planck TT (similar to WMAP), Planck CMB lensing, and BAO data prefers the existence of EDE at > 99.7% C.L.: f_(EDE) = 0.091^(+0.020)_(−0.036), with H₀ = 70.9^(+1.0)_(−2.0) km/s/Mpc (both 68% C.L.). From a model-selection standpoint, we find that EDE is favored over Λ CDM by these data at roughly 3σ significance. In contrast, a joint analysis of the full Planck and ACT data yields no evidence for EDE, as previously found for Planck alone. We show that the preference for EDE in ACT alone is driven by its TE and EE power spectrum data. The tight constraint on EDE from Planck alone is driven by its high-ℓ TT power spectrum data. Understanding whether these differing constraints are physical in nature, due to systematics, or simply a rare statistical fluctuation is of high priority. The best-fit EDE models to ACT and Planck exhibit coherent differences across a wide range of multipoles in TE and EE, indicating that a powerful test of this scenario is anticipated with near-future data from ACT and other ground-based experiments.

Additional Information

© 2022 American Physical Society. (Received 14 September 2021; accepted 14 June 2022; published 30 June 2022) We are grateful to Evan McDonough and Michael Toomey for their contributions to the development of class_ede and for useful conversations, and we thank the Scientific Computing Core staff at the Flatiron Institute for computational support. The Flatiron Institute is supported by the Simons Foundation. E. C. acknowledges support from the STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship No. ST/M004856/2 and STFC Consolidated Grant No. ST/S00033X/1. EC and U. N. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No. 849169). J. D. and E. S. acknowledge support from NSF Grant No. AST-1814971. N. S. acknowledges support from NSF Grant No. AST-1907657. M. Hi. and K. M. acknowledge support from the National Research Foundation of South Africa. V. G. is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-2013951. Z. X. is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science, and Industry Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. A. D. H. acknowledges support from the Sutton Family Chair in Science, Christianity, and Cultures and from the Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Toronto. S. K. C. acknowledges support from NSF Grant No. AST-2001866. E. V. acknowledges support from the NSF GRFP via Grant No. DGE-1650441. C. S. acknowledges support from the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID) under FONDECYT Grant No. 11191125. This work was completed at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. PHY-1607611. Support for ACT was through the U.S. National Science Foundation through Grants No. AST-0408698, No. AST-0965625, and No. AST-1440226 for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) project, as well as Grants No. PHY-0355328, No. PHY-0855887, and No. PHY-1214379. Funding was also provided by Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and a Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) award to UBC. ACT operates in the Parque Astronómico Atacama in northern Chile under the auspices of the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID). The development of multichroic detectors and lenses was supported by NASA Grants No. NNX13AE56G and No. NNX14AB58G. Detector research at NIST was supported by the NIST Innovations in Measurement Science program. We acknowledge use of the matplotlib [97], numpy [98], getdist [82], cobaya [74], and cosmomc [75] packages and use of the Boltzmann codes camb [85] and class [84].

Attached Files

Published - PhysRevD.105.123536.pdf

Accepted Version - 2109.04451.pdf

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2109.04451.pdf

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Additional details

Additional titles

Alternative title
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Constraints on Pre-Recombination Early Dark Energy

Identifiers

Eprint ID
115634
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20220715-332590000

Related works

Describes
10.1103/PhysRevD.105.123536 (DOI)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.04451 (URL)

Funding

Simons Foundation
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
ST/M004856/2
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
ST/S00033X/1
European Research Council (ERC)
849169
NSF
AST-1814971
NSF
AST-1907657
National Research Foundation (South Africa)
NSF
PHY-2013951
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Department of Innovation, Science, and Industry Canada
Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities
Sutton Family Chair in Science, Christianity, and Cultures
University of Toronto
NSF
AST-2001866
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
DGE-1650441
Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (ANID)
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT)
11191125
NSF
PHY-1607611
NSF
AST-0408698
NSF
AST-0965625
NSF
AST-1440226
NSF
PHY-0355328
NSF
PHY-0855887
NSF
PHY-1214379
Princeton University
Canada Foundation for Innovation
University of Pennsylvania
NASA
NNX13AE56G
NASA
NNX14AB58G
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Dates

Created
2022-07-18
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2022-07-26
Created from EPrint's last_modified field