New supernova measurements suggest dark energy may not be constant
Researchers reanalyzed five years of supernova data and found evidence that dark energy—the force driving cosmic expansion—may be evolving over time, challenging decades of cosmological assumptions. The finding, though weakened from previous claims, could reshape our understanding of the universe's future and influence long-term physics research priorities and funding strategies.
Originaltitel: The Dark Energy Survey supernova program: a reanalysis of cosmology results and evidence for evolving dark energy with an updated Type Ia supernova calibration
ABSTRACT We present improved cosmological constraints from a re-analysis of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) 5-year sample of Type Ia supernovae (DES-SN5YR). This re-analysis includes an improved photometric cross-calibration, recent white dwarf observations to cross-calibrate between DES and low-redshift surveys, retraining the salt3 light-curve model and fixing a numerical approximation in the host-galaxy colour law. Our fully recalibrated sample, which we call DES-Dovekie, comprises $\sim$1600 likely Type Ia SNe from DES and $\sim$200 low-redshift SNe from other surveys. With DES-Dovekie, we obtain $\Omega _{\rm m} = 0.330 \pm 0.015$ in flat Lambda-cold dark matter ($\Lambda$CDM) which changes $\Omega _{\rm m}$ by $-0.022$ compared to DES-SN5YR. Combining DES-Dovekie with cosmic microwave background data from Planck, Atacama Cosmology Telescope, and South Pole Telescope and the DESI DR2 measurements in a flat $w_0 w_a$CDM cosmology, we find $w_0 = -0.803 \pm 0.054$ and $w_a = -0.72 \pm 0.21$. Our results hold a significance of $3.2\sigma$, reduced from $4.2\sigma$ for DES-SN5YR, to reject the null hypothesis that the data are compatible with the cosmological constant. This significance is equivalent to a Bayesian model preference odds of approximately 5:1 in favour of the flat $w_0 w_a$CDM model. Using generally accepted thresholds for model preference, our updated data exhibits only a weak preference for evolving dark energy.