Denys Wilkinson Building, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH
Brodie Popovic, University of Southampton
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 ∼1600 likely Type Ia SNe from DES and ∼200 low-redshift SNe from other surveys. With DES-Dovekie, we obtain Ωm=0.330±0.015 in Flat ΛCDM which changes Ωm by −0.022 compared to DES-SN5YR. Combining DES-Dovekie with CMB data from Planck, ACT and SPT and the DESI DR2 measurements in a Flat w0waCDM cosmology, we find w0=−0.803±0.054, wa=−0.72±0.21. Our results hold a significance of 3.2σ, reduced from 4.2σ 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 w0waCDM model. Using generally accepted thresholds for model preference, our updated data exhibits only a weak preference for evolving dark energy.