Abstract: Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa) used as standardizable candles have been instrumental in the discovery of cosmic acceleration, usually attributed to some form of dark energy (DE). Recent studies have raised the issue of whether intrinsic SNeIa luminosities might evolve with redshift. While the evidence for cosmic acceleration is robust to this possible systematic, the question remains of how much the latter can affect the inferred properties of the DE component responsible for cosmic acceleration. This is the question we address in this work. We use SNeIa distance moduli measurements from the Pantheon and JLA samples. We consider models where the DE equation of state is a free parameter, either constant or time-varying, as well as models where DE and dark matter interact, and finally a model-agnostic parametrization of effects due to modified gravity (MG). When SNeIa data are combined with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropy measurements, we find strong degeneracies between parameters governing the SNeIa systematics, the DE parameters, and the Hubble constant H-0. These degeneracies significantly broaden the DE parameter uncertainties, in some cases leading to O(sigma) shifts in the central values. However, including low-redshift Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and Cosmic Chronometer measurements, as well as CMB lensing measurements, considerably improves the previous constraints, and the only remaining effect of the examined systematic is a less than or similar to 40% broadening of the uncertainties on the DE parameters. The constraints we derive on the MG parameters are instead basically unaffected by the systematic in question. We therefore confirm the overall soundness of dark energy properties.

Abstract: We present new observational constraints on inhomogenous models based on observables independent of the CMB and large-scale structure. Using Bayesian evidence we find very strong evidence for homogeneous LCDM model, thus disfavouring inhomogeneous models. Our new constraints are based on quantities independent of the growth of perturbations and rely on cosmic clocks based on atomic physics and on the local density of matter.

Abstract: We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 (DR11) sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance A cold dark matter (ACDM) cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc(3) and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density- field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7s in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, r(d), which has a value of r(d,fid) = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find D-V = (1264 +/- 25 Mpc)(r(d)/r(d,fid)) at z = 0.32 and D-V = (2056 +/- 20 Mpc)(r(d)/r(d,fid)) at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of D-A = (1421 +/- 20 Mpc)(r(d)/r(d,fid)) and H = (96.8 +/- 3.4 kms(-1) Mpc(-1))(r(d),(fid)/r(d)). Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant.

Abstract: Geometrical tests such as the combination of the Hubble parameter H(z) and the angular diameter distance d(A)(z) can, in principle, break the degeneracy between the dark energy equation of state parameter w(z), and the spatial curvature Omega(k) in a direct, model-independent way. In practice, constraints on these quantities achievable from realistic experiments, such as those to be provided by Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) galaxy surveys in combination with CMB data, can resolve the cosmic confusion between the dark energy equation of state parameter and curvature only statistically and within a parameterized model for w(z). Combining measurements of both H(z) and d(A)(z) up to sufficiently high redshifts z similar to 2 and employing a parameterization of the redshift evolution of the dark energy equation of state are the keys to resolve the w(z) – Omega(k) degeneracy.