Evidence for interacting dark energy from BOSS

[wolram]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.2777.pdf

I have always thought that Dark matter and Dark energy do not interact, but this paper says otherwise.
Just because both are called Dark as a' place name for them' people think they must be akin to one another,
I have always been told this is incorrect

One of the biggest challenges in cosmology and astrophysics nowadays is to understand the nature of the two most abundant components of the Universe: dark energy and dark matter. These are usually described as two independent components where dark matter is responsible for most of the nonrelativistic matter in the Universe and where dark energy is responsible for the late time acceleration of our Universe, which is described by a cosmological constant in the Λ-cold-dark-matter (ΛCDM) model. This standard model is widely used to describe the cosmological evolution of the Universe [1], and it fits very well the current observational data. However, this model has some theoretical and observational challenges (see, e.g., Ref. [2]) that open the way for alternative models of dark energy.

 

[kimbyd]

I'll be curious to see follow-ups, but this sentence in the introduction immediately makes me feel extra suspicious:

We point out that BOSS is not optimized to observe quasars at such high redshifts.

This makes it sound like they're including data that is at the limits of detection of the survey. That's always risky. It's also just barely above a 2-sigma result. Most of those turn out to be wrong.

Will have to see what follow-ups have to say. Did you manage to examine any papers that cite this one? It's been a couple of years, so there's at least a chance that this paper has received some substantial replies in the mean time. Looks like it picked up 7 citations, which honestly isn't great. I haven't looked into any of those citations, though.

 

[wolram]

Thanks for the reply kimbyd, I will certainly look up these papers, but as you say 2 sigma is very vague.