Abstract: Despite the great progress of current cosmological measurements, the nature of the dominant component of the Universe, coined dark energy, is still an open question. Early dark energy is a possible candidate which may also alleviate some fine-tuning issues of the standard paradigm. Using the latest available cosmological data, we find that the 95% C.L. upper bound on the early dark energy density parameter is Tau(eDE) < 0.009. On the other hand, the dark energy component may be a stressed and inhomogeneous fluid. If this is the case, the effective sound speed and the viscosity parameters are unconstrained by current data. Future omniscopelike 21 cm surveys, combined with present cosmic microwave background data, could be able to distinguish between standard quintessence scenarios from other possible models with 2 sigma significance, assuming a non-negligible early dark energy contribution. The precision achieved on the Omega(eDE) parameter from these 21 cm probes could be below O(10%).

Abstract: The simplest models of inflation predict small non-Gaussianities and a featureless power spectrum. However, there exist a large number of well-motivated theoretical scenarios in which large non-Gaussianties could be generated. In general, in these scenarios the primordial power spectrum will deviate from its standard power law shape. We study, in a model-independent manner, the constraints from future large-scale structure surveys on the local non-Gaussianity parameter f(NL) when the standard power law assumption for the primordial power spectrum is relaxed. If the analyses are restricted to the large-scale-dependent bias induced in the linear matter power spectrum by non-Gaussianites, the errors on the f(NL) parameter could be increased by 60% when exploiting data from the future DESI survey, if dealing with only one possible dark matter tracer. In the same context, a nontrivial bias vertical bar delta f(NL)vertical bar similar to 2.5 could be induced if future data are fitted to the wrong primordial power spectrum. Combining all the possible DESI objects slightly ameliorates the problem, as the forecasted errors on f(NL) would be degraded by 40% when relaxing the assumptions concerning the primordial power spectrum shape. Also, the shift on the non-Gaussianity parameter is reduced in this case, vertical bar delta f(NL)vertical bar similar to 1.6. The addition of cosmic microwave background priors ensures robust future f(NL) bounds, as the forecasted errors obtained including these measurements are almost independent on the primordial power spectrum features, and vertical bar delta f(NL)vertical bar similar to 0.2, close to the standard single-field slow-roll paradigm prediction.

Abstract: Dark matter interactions with massless or very light standard model particles, as photons or neutrinos, may lead to a suppression of the matter power spectrum at small scales and of the number of low mass haloes. Bounds on the dark matter scattering cross section with light degrees of freedom in such interacting dark matter (IDM) scenarios have been obtained from e.g., early time cosmic microwave background physics and large scale structure observations. Here we scrutinize dark matter microphysics in light of the claimed 21 cm EDGES 78 MHz absorption signal. IDM is expected to delay the 21 cm absorption features due to collisional damping effects. We identify the astrophysical conditions under which the existing constraints on the dark matter scattering cross section could be largely improved due to the IDM imprint on the 21 cm signal, providing also an explicit comparison to the WDM scenario.