Detecting dark energy with wavelets on the sphere

Abstract

Dark energy dominates the energy density of our Universe, yet we know very little about its nature and origin. Although strong evidence in support of dark energy is provided by the cosmic microwave background, the relic radiation of the Big Bang, in conjunction with either observations of supernovae or of the large scale structure of the Universe, the verification of dark energy by independent physical phenomena is of considerable interest. We review works that, through a wavelet analysis on the sphere, independently verify the existence of dark energy by detecting the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. The effectiveness of a wavelet analysis on the sphere is demonstrated by the highly statistically significant detections of dark energy that are made. Moreover, the detection is used to constrain properties of dark energy. A coherent picture of dark energy is obtained, adding further support to the now well established cosmological concordance model that describes our Universe.