Standard Rulers, Candles, and Clocks from the Low-Redshift Universe

We measure the length of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature, and the expansion rate of the recent Universe, from low-redshift data only, almost model independently. We make only the following minimal assumptions: homogeneity and isotropy, a metric theory of gravity, a smooth expansion his...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Heavens, Alan F., Jiménez, Raúl (Jiménez Tellado), Verde, Licia
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/101838
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/101838
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Expansió de l'univers
Cosmologia
Expanding universe
Cosmology
Descrição
Resumo:We measure the length of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature, and the expansion rate of the recent Universe, from low-redshift data only, almost model independently. We make only the following minimal assumptions: homogeneity and isotropy, a metric theory of gravity, a smooth expansion history, and the existence of standard candles (supernovæ) and a standard BAO ruler. The rest is determined by the data, which are compilations of recent BAO and type IA supernova results. Making only these assumptions, we find for the first time that the standard ruler has a length of 103.9±2.3h−1   Mpc. The value is a measurement, in contrast to the model-dependent theoretical prediction determined with model parameters set by Planck data (99.3±2.1h−1   Mpc). The latter assumes the cold dark matter model with a cosmological constant, and that the ruler is the sound horizon at radiation drag. Adding passive galaxies as standard clocks or a local Hubble constant measurement allows the absolute BAO scale to be determined (142.8±3.7  Mpc), and in the former case the additional information makes the BAO length determination more precise (101.9±1.9h−1  Mpc). The inverse curvature radius of the Universe is weakly constrained and consistent with zero, independently of the gravity model, provided it is metric. We find the effective number of relativistic species to be Neff=3.53±0.32, independent of late-time dark energy or gravity physics.