Reaffirmation of Cosmological Oscillations In the Scale Factor From the Pantheon Compilation of 1048 Type Ia Supernovae

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1-2020

Department

Physics and Astronomy

School

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Abstract

We observe damped temporal oscillations in the scale factor at a dominant frequency of ∼7 cycles/Hubble-time in the Pantheon compilation of 1048 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). The residual oscillations observed in the Pantheon data closely match and reaffirm our initial observation of oscillations from earlier SNe data (primarily SNLS3 data of Conley 2011) at 2σ confidence. The nearly identical shapes in amplitude, frequency, phase, and damping constant makes it highly likely that the signal is real. Furthermore, two-thirds of the Pantheon SNe cover different portions of the sky compared with SNLS3 strengthening this conclusion. Our model describing the oscillation, presented in an earlier paper, is a simple scalar field harmonic oscillator coupled to the Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) Friedmann equation, but carried into the present epoch. The scalar field energy density plays the role of the dark matter energy density in ΛCDM cosmology, fits well as an average, and closely matches the present dark matter density parameter, suggesting the oscillation plays a role in the dark matter sector. Temporal oscillations in the scale factor and its derivative, as described in this work, would also induce temporal oscillations of the Hubble parameter.

Publication Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Volume

494

Issue

2

First Page

2158

Last Page

2165

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