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Equation 4 · Part 1 · Comparing the Main Approaches to Precision Cosmology

Symbol w

w(a)=w0+wa(1−a)w(a) = w_0 + w_a (1 - a)
ww

What this part means

w is part of the quantity the equation computes from the expression on the right.

Its job in the formula

w is part of the quantity the equation computes from the expression on the right.

The passage around this formula

Evolving dark energy , in the w0-wa parametrization, keeps the sound horizon alone and instead lets dark energy’s equation of state change with cosmic time: w(a)=w0+wa(1−a)w(a) = w_0 + w_a (1 - a). where a is the cosmic scale factor (a = 1 today) and w = -1 recovers a plain cosmological constant. This is the family DESI’s DR2 BAO release put back on the table: fit jointly to DESI BAO, Planck CMB, and supernovae, a w0-wa model is preferred over flat LambdaCDM at up to several sigma, with the preferred trajectory suggesting dark energy was somewhat more negative than -1 in the past and is evolving toward less negative values now [ 3 , 4 ] .

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Learn the underlying idea

A function assigns an output to each allowed input. The expression f(x) means “apply f to x”.

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Sources cited in the article section

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