REVIEW
Constraints on the equation of state of dark energy and the Hubble constant from stellar ages and the CMB
Astrophysics · Submitted 27 Feb 2003 · 38 references
Pith's verdict: A genuinely independent w bound and an independent H0 from cosmic chronometry; the headline number is premise-dependent in a way the paper half-admits, and footnote 8 contradicts their own z = 6 result.
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Referee report
The paper
The paper claims
Using only the ages of the oldest stars and the position of the CMB's first acoustic peak, the authors bound the dark-energy equation of state to $w < -0.8$ at 68% confidence, and separately read a Hubble constant of $69$ from how galaxy st
The reading
What carries the argument
The engine is the age-peak degeneracy: in a flat universe the age integral $t_0 = H_0^{-1} int_0^infty (1+z)^{-1} [Omega_rad (1+z)^4 + Omega_m (1+z)^3 + Omega_Lambda (1+z)^{3(1+w)}]^{-1/2} dz$ and the acoustic angular scale $theta_A = r_s(a_dec)/d_A(a_dec)$ respond to $w$ in a way that cannot be cancelled by adjusting $Omega_m$ and $h$ simultaneously, so an independent absolute age plus a measured peak position isolates $w$. The second engine is the cosmic chronometer: for a flat universe $H_0^{-1} dz/dt = -(1+z)^{5/2} [Omega_m + Omega_Lambda exp{3 int_0^z w(z')/(1+z') dz'}]^{1/2}$, so the slope of the old envelope of the age-redshift relation is a direct handle on $H(z)$ and hence on $w(z)$, with no need for standard candles.
Extended reading notes
Core claim
Two results, one method. First, the authors combine a published probability distribution for the age of the oldest Galactic globular clusters with the WMAP measurement of the first acoustic peak's multipole, sampling flat models over $0.5 < h < 0.9$, $0.05 < Omega_m < 0.45$ and $0.01 < Omega_b h^2 < 0.03$ with CMBFAST. Because fixing the peak position and the age leaves little room for $w$ to vary, they obtain $w < -0.8$ at 68% confidence and $w < -0.67$ at 90%, tightening to about $w < -0.5$ at 90% if the clusters are only required to have formed by $z = 6$ instead of before reionization at $z$ about 17. Second, they assemble spectra of early-type galaxies from SDSS luminous red galaxies, a field early-type sample, cluster galaxies at $z = 0.83$, and the radio galaxies 53W091 and 53W069, fit single-burst stellar population models, and find that the old envelope of the age-redshift plane is a recognizable, monotonic feature. Binning the $z < 0.2$ SDSS galaxies and locating the edge of the age distribution in each bin yields a slope $dt/dz$, which converts to $H_0 = 69 pm 12$ km/s/Mpc at effective redshift 0.09, independent of distance-ladder methods. The age-redshift envelope is consistent with a flat $Lambda$CDM model with $Omega_m = 0.27$, $h = 0.71$ and $w = -1$, and the authors argue that an extreme alternative, $w(z) = -2$ at $z > 1$ growing to $w = 0$ today, would require local galaxies to have formed their stars several Gyr later than high-redshift ones, which they consider unlikely.
Load-bearing premise
The bound depends on treating the age of the oldest globular clusters plus 0.3 Gyr as the age of the universe, which requires those clusters to have formed before reionization; the authors themselves show the bound weakens to about $w < -0.5$ at 90% confidence if clusters need only have formed by redshift 6.
Editorial extensions
If this is right
- A bound on $w$ derived without any Type Ia supernova data provides an independent cross-check on the cosmological-constant interpretation of the accelerating universe.
- The same age-peak logic becomes a sharper $w$ measurement as globular cluster ages improve, since the constraint is limited by the age distribution rather than by the CMB peak position.
- The age-redshift envelope of early-type galaxies is established as a usable chronometer at $z < 0.2$, giving $H_0 = 69 pm 12$ km/s/Mpc from a method independent of the distance ladder.
- Extending the sample of high signal-to-noise spectra of old galaxies beyond $z = 0.2$ would convert the envelope slope into a measurement of $w(z)$ at the few-tens-of-percent level.
- Simulations in the paper show that a 10% mass contribution from late star formation does not shift the edge of the age distribution, so the chronometer survives realistic contamination.
Reading between the lines
- Because the $w$ bound moves from $-0.8$ to roughly $-0.5$ when the globular cluster formation redshift is relaxed from 17 to 6, the two halves of this paper are coupled: better constraints on when clusters formed would tighten the dark-energy number more than better CMB peak measurements would.
- The $H_0$ value extracted from the local age gradient sits between the Hubble Key Project value and the lower values from lensing time delays and Sunyaev-Zeldovich work; a future sample large enough to push the edge fit past $z = 0.2$ would test whether that spread is systematic or statistical.
- The old-envelope method implicitly assumes that the oldest galaxies at every redshift are drawn from one population with a common formation epoch; a direct spectroscopic confirmation that the most massive high-redshift ellipticals are as old as the local ones would be the cleanest test of that premise.
- The paper restricts itself to $w geq -1$ on theoretical grounds; the same age-plus-peak data could in principle be inverted to ask how far below $-1$ the data would still tolerate, which is a question the authors leave open.
Original abstract
We place tight constraints on the redshift-averaged, effective value of the equation of state of dark energy, w, using only the absolute ages of Galactic stars and the observed position of the first peak in the angular power spectrum of the CMB. We find w<-0.8 at the 68% confidence level. If we further consider that w > -1, this finding suggests that within our uncertainties, dark energy is indistinguishable from a classical vacuum energy term. We detect a correlation between the ages of the oldest galaxies and their redshift. This opens up the possibility of measuring w(z) by computing the relative ages of the oldest galaxies in the universe as a function of redshift, dz/dt. We show that this is a realistic possibility by computing dz/dt at z~0 from SDSS galaxies and obtain an independent estimate for the Hubble constant, H_0 = 69 \pm 12 km s-1 Mpc-1. The small number of galaxies considered at z>0.2 does not yield, currently, a precise determination of w(z), but shows that the age--redshift relation is consistent with a Standard LCDM universe with $w=-1$.
The compiled record
The paper's own sentences, arranged, kept beside the review and separate from it. Each label is drawn from a closed vocabulary; the number beside it is the probability the classifier gave that label. Numbers in the tables are the authors', checked by code. No sentence in this record was written by a model.
The abstract, sentence by sentence
We place tight constraints on the redshift-averaged, effective value of the equation of state of dark energy, w, using only the absolute ages of Galactic stars and the observed position of the first peak in the angular power spectrum of the CMB. We find w<-0.8 at the 68% confidence level. If we further consider that w > -1, this finding suggests that within our uncertainties, dark energy is indistinguishable from a classical vacuum energy term. We detect a correlation between the ages of the oldest galaxies and their redshift. This opens up the possibility of measuring w(z) by computing the relative ages of the oldest galaxies in the universe as a function of redshift, dz/dt. We show that this is a realistic possibility by computing dz/dt at z~0 from SDSS galaxies and obtain an independent estimate for the Hubble constant, H_0 = 69 \pm 12 km s-1 Mpc-1. The small number of galaxies considered at z>0.2 does not yield, currently, a precise determination of w(z), but shows that the age--redshift relation is consistent with a Standard LCDM universe with $w=-1$.
background contribution method result interpretation main claim
| # | sentence | role | the authors' own work | states the main conclusion | strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s0 | We place tight constraints on the redshift-averaged, effective value of the equation of state of dark energy, w, using only the absolute ages of Galactic stars and the observed position of the first peak in the angular power spectrum of the CMB. | contribution 0.93 | 0.96 | 0.24 | asserted 1.00 |
| s1 | We find w<-0.8 at the 68% confidence level. | result 1.00 | 0.97 | 0.65 | asserted 1.00 |
| s2 | If we further consider that w > -1, this finding suggests that within our uncertainties, dark energy is indistinguishable from a classical vacuum energy term. | interpretation 1.00 | 0.86 | 0.31 | hedged possibility 1.00 |
| s3 | We detect a correlation between the ages of the oldest galaxies and their redshift. | result 0.99 | 0.92 | 0.05 | asserted 1.00 |
| s4 | This opens up the possibility of measuring w(z) by computing the relative ages of the oldest galaxies in the universe as a function of redshift, dz/dt. | interpretation 0.41 | 0.28 | 0.07 | hedged possibility 0.99 |
| s5 | We show that this is a realistic possibility by computing dz/dt at z~0 from SDSS galaxies and obtain an independent estimate for the Hubble constant, H_0 = 69 \pm 12 km s-1 Mpc-1. | result 0.95 | 0.96 | 0.12 | asserted 1.00 |
| s6 | The small number of galaxies considered at z>0.2 does not yield, currently, a precise determination of w(z), but shows that the age--redshift relation is consistent with a Standard LCDM universe with $w=-1$. | limitation 0.95 | 0.93 | 0.11 | hedged possibility 0.86 |
What was examined, and what was not
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Figures
Figures reproduced from arXiv:astro-ph/0302560 by the authors.
References
How the literature uses it
70 arXiv papers cite this in 87 sentences
Papers citing it · 21 sentences without a confident label
Contests it 1 paper
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In addition, as noted in the appendix of [ref] , the commonly used value $H(0.09)=69±12$ km/s/Mpc from [ref] actually corresponds to the inferred $H_0$ value in that paper, and should be corrected to $H(0.09)=70.7±12.3$ km/s/Mpc.
Model-independent test of the cosmic distance duality relation with recent observational data · Cosmic Chronometers · contest 0.72
Uses its method or tool 2 papers
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For the data points taken from [ref] we follow the calculation of the covariance matrix as shown in [ref] .
The Ages of the Oldest Astrophysical Objects in an Ellipsoidal Universe · CC Hubble data · 0.92
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The same information can also be used to derive $H(z)$ [ref] since H(z) = -1/1+z dz/dt,
Two new diagnostics of dark energy · The Acceleration probe · 0.84
Uses its data or values 53 papers
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In this study we use the 24 data points on $H(z)$ from CCH in the redshift range $z∈[0.07,1.965]$ reported in [ref] .
Measuring the sound horizon and absolute magnitude of SNIa by maximizing the consistency between low-redshift data sets · Cosmic chronometers · 1.00
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We adopt a widely used compilation of 32 CC measurements spanning the redshift range $0.07 ≤z ≤1.97$ [ref] .
Model-independent late-universe measurements of $H_0$ and $\Omega_K$ with the parametrization based on cosmic age-improved inverse distance ladder · Cosmological data · 1.00
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* SNeIa: We use the Pantheon+ compilation [ref] , which consists of 1550 Type Ia supernovae covering the redshift range $z = 0.001$ to $z = 2.26$. * BAO: We use high-precision BAO measurements at various redshifts up to $z < 2.36$, including data from BOSS DR14 quasars (eBOSS) [ref] , SDSS DR12 Galaxy Consensus [ref] , Ly-$α$ DR14 cross-correlation [ref] , Ly-$α$ DR14 auto-correlation [ref] , the Six-Degree Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS) [ref] , and the SDSS Main Galaxy Sample (MGS) [ref] . * Cosmic chronometers: We use 31 cosmic chronometer measurements, which provide direct estimates of the Hubble parameter $H(z)$ from galaxies that evolve slowly [ref] .
Equivalence of Dark Energy Models: A Theoretical and Bayesian Perspective · Bayesian analysis · 0.96
Compares with it 1 paper
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An age-redshift envelope emerges from the scatter of the points in Fig. [ref], quite similar to the predictions for the so called “red envelope” in [ref] (their Fig. 5): lower redshift galaxies are older than higher redshift ones.
Cosmic Chronometers with Photometry: a new path to $H(z)$ · Age-redshift relation and the red envelope · 0.97
Cites it as background 3 papers
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With a few exceptions [ref] , OAO received less attention with the end of the “age crisis”.
Implications for the Hubble tension from the ages of the oldest astrophysical objects · Introduction · 0.83
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We should note here that there have been many articles in the literature using $H(z)$ derived from age of passively evolving galaxies through the cosmic chronometers approach [ref] .
Model-independent test of the FLRW metric, the flatness of the Universe, and non-local measurement of $H_0r_\mathrm{d}$ · Discussion and conclusion · 1.00
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As a result, over the last couple of years, modern cosmology has witnessed the appearance of many theoretical models in the context of both dark energy, modified gravity theories, and these models have been confronted with a variety of astronomical probes [ref] .
Evidence of dynamical dark energy in a non-flat universe: current and future observations · Introduction · 0.91
Discussion
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