Constraints on dark energy from the Ly α forest baryon acoustic oscillations measurement of the redshift 2.3 Hubble parameter

Abstract

We use the Busca et al. (2012) [11] measurement of the Hubble parameter at redshift z=2.3 in conjunction with 21 lower z measurements, from Simon, Verde, and Jimenez (2005) [81], Gaztañaga, Cabré, and Hui (2009) [33], Stern et al. (2010) [85], and Moresco et al. (2012) [52], to place constraints on model parameters of constant and time-evolving dark energy cosmological models. The inclusion of the new Busca et al. (2012) [11] measurement results in H(z) constraints significantly more restrictive than those derived by Farooq, Mania, and Ratra (2013) [31]. These H(z) constraints are now more restrictive than those that follow from current Type Ia supernova (SNIa) apparent magnitude measurements Suzuki et al. (2012) [86]. The H(z) constraints by themselves require an accelerating cosmological expansion at about 2 σ confidence level, depending on cosmological model and Hubble constant prior used in the analysis. A joint analysis of H(z), baryon acoustic oscillation peak length scale, and SNIa data favors a spatially-flat cosmological model currently dominated by a time-independent cosmological constant but does not exclude slowly-evolving dark energy density.