Dark Energy Survey: Implications for cosmological expansion models from the final DES baryon acoustic oscillation and supernova data

DES Collaboration; T. M. C. Abbott; M. Acevedo; M. Adamow; M. Aguena; A. Alarcon; S. Allam; O. Alves; F. Andrade-Oliveira; J. Annis; P. Armstrong; S. Avila; D. Bacon; K. Bechtol; J. Blazek; S. Bocquet; D. Brooks; D. Brout; D. L. Burke; H. Camacho; R. Camilleri; G. Campailla; A. Carnero Rosell; A. Carr; J. Carretero; F. J. Castander; R. Cawthon; K. C. Chan; C. Chang; R. Chen; C. Conselice; M. Costanzi; M. Crocce; L. N. da Costa; M. E. S. Pereira; T. M. Davis; J. De Vicente; N. Deiosso; S. Desai; H. T. Diehl; S. Dodelson; P. Doel; C. Doux; A. Drlica-Wagner; J. Elvin-Poole; S. Everett; I. Ferrero; A. Ferté; B. Flaugher; P. Fosalba; J. Frieman; L. Galbany; J. García-Bellido; M. Gatti; E. Gaztanaga; G. Giannini; D. Gruen; R. A. Gruendl; G. Gutierrez; W. G. Hartley; K. Herner; S. R. Hinton; D. L. Hollowood; K. Honscheid; D. Huterer; D. J. James; N. Jeffrey; T. Jeltema; R. Kessler; O. Lahav; J. Lee; S. Lee; C. Lidman; H. Lin; M. Lin; J. L. Marshall; J. Mena-Fernández; R. Miquel; J. Muir; A. Möller; R. C. Nichol; A. Palmese; M. Paterno; W. J. Percival; A. Pieres; A. A. Plazas Malagón; B. Popovic; A. Porredon; J. Prat; H. Qu; M. Raveri; M. Rodriguez-Monroy; A. K. Romer; E. S. Rykoff; M. Sako; S. Samuroff; E. Sanchez; D. Sanchez Cid; D. Scolnic; I. Sevilla-Noarbe; P. Shah; E. Sheldon; M. Smith; E. Suchyta; M. Sullivan; M. E. C. Swanson; B. O. Sánchez; G. Tarle; G. Taylor; D. Thomas; C. To; L. Toribio San Cipriano; M. Toy; M. A. Troxel; D. L. Tucker; V. Vikram; M. Vincenzi; A. R. Walker; N. Weaverdyck; J. Weller; P. Wiseman; M. Yamamoto; B. Yanny

doi:10.1103/z2q4-qcdq

Dark Energy Survey: Implications for cosmological expansion models from the final DES baryon acoustic oscillation and supernova data

T. M. C. Abbott¹, M. Acevedo², M. Adamow³, M. Aguena⁴, A. Alarcon⁵, S. Allam⁶, O. Alves⁷, F. Andrade-Oliveira⁸, J. Annis⁶ et al. (DES Collaboration^*)

J. Annis⁶, P. Armstrong⁹, S. Avila ¹⁰, D. Bacon¹¹, K. Bechtol¹², J. Blazek¹³, S. Bocquet¹⁴, D. Brooks¹⁵, D. Brout¹⁶, D. L. Burke^17,18, H. Camacho^19,20,4, R. Camilleri²¹, G. Campailla²², A. Carnero Rosell^23,4,24, A. Carr²⁵, J. Carretero²⁶, F. J. Castander^27,5, R. Cawthon²⁸, K. C. Chan^29,30, C. Chang^31,32, R. Chen², C. Conselice^33,34, M. Costanzi^35,36,37, M. Crocce^27,5, L. N. da Costa⁴, M. E. S. Pereira³⁸, T. M. Davis²¹, J. De Vicente¹⁰, N. Deiosso¹⁰, S. Desai³⁹, H. T. Diehl⁶, S. Dodelson^31,6,32, P. Doel¹⁵, C. Doux^40,41, A. Drlica-Wagner^31,6,32, J. Elvin-Poole⁴², S. Everett⁴³, I. Ferrero⁴⁴, A. Ferté¹⁸, B. Flaugher⁶, P. Fosalba^27,5, J. Frieman^31,6,32, L. Galbany^27,5, J. García-Bellido⁴⁵, M. Gatti^40,32, E. Gaztanaga^27,11,5, G. Giannini^26,32, D. Gruen¹⁴, R. A. Gruendl^3,46, G. Gutierrez⁶, W. G. Hartley⁴⁷, K. Herner⁶, S. R. Hinton²¹, D. L. Hollowood⁴⁸, K. Honscheid^49,50, D. Huterer⁷, D. J. James¹⁶, N. Jeffrey¹⁵, T. Jeltema⁴⁸, R. Kessler^31,32, O. Lahav¹⁵, J. Lee⁴⁰, S. Lee⁵¹, C. Lidman^52,9, H. Lin⁶, M. Lin⁴⁰, J. L. Marshall⁵³, J. Mena-Fernández⁴¹, R. Miquel^54,26, J. Muir^55,56, A. Möller⁵⁷, R. C. Nichol¹¹, A. Palmese⁵⁸, M. Paterno⁶, W. J. Percival^42,56, A. Pieres^4,59, A. A. Plazas Malagón^17,18, B. Popovic², A. Porredon^10,60, J. Prat^31,61, H. Qu⁴⁰, M. Raveri²², M. Rodriguez-Monroy⁴⁵, A. K. Romer⁶², E. S. Rykoff^17,18, M. Sako⁴⁰, S. Samuroff^13,26, E. Sanchez¹⁰, D. Sanchez Cid^10,8, D. Scolnic², I. Sevilla-Noarbe¹⁰, P. Shah¹⁵, E. Sheldon¹⁹, M. Smith⁶³, E. Suchyta⁶⁴, M. Sullivan⁶⁵, M. E. C. Swanson³, B. O. Sánchez^66,2, G. Tarle⁷, G. Taylor⁹, D. Thomas¹¹, C. To³¹, L. Toribio San Cipriano¹⁰, M. Toy⁶⁵, M. A. Troxel², D. L. Tucker⁶, V. Vikram⁶⁷, M. Vincenzi⁶⁸, A. R. Walker¹, N. Weaverdyck^69,70, J. Weller^71,72, P. Wiseman⁶⁵, M. Yamamoto^73,2, and B. Yanny⁶ (DES Collaboration^*)

¹Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile
²Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA
³Center for Astrophysical Surveys, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
⁴Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia - LIneA, Avenida Pastor Martin Luther King Jr, 126 Del Castilho, Nova América Offices, Torre 3000/sala 817 CEP: 20765-000, Brazil
⁵Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC), Campus UAB, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
⁶Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, P. O. Box 500, Batavia, Illinois 60510, USA
⁷Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
⁸Physik-Institut, University of Zürich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zürich, Switzerland
⁹The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
¹⁰Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
¹¹Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, PO1 3FX, United Kingdom
¹²Physics Department, 2320 Chamberlin Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1150 University Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1390, USA
¹³Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
¹⁴University Observatory, Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Scheinerstraße 1, 81679 Munich, Germany
¹⁵Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
¹⁶Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
¹⁷Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, P. O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
¹⁸SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
¹⁹Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bldg 510, Upton, New York 11973, USA
²⁰Instituto de Física Teórica, Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil
²¹School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
²²Department of Physics, University of Genova and INFN, Via Dodecaneso 33, 16146, Genova, Italy
²³Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
²⁴Universidad de La Laguna, Departamento Astrofísica, E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
²⁵Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, 776 Daedeok-daero, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34055, South Korea
²⁶Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain
²⁷Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), 08034 Barcelona, Spain
²⁸Physics Department, William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri 64068, USA
²⁹School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-Sen University, 2 Daxue Road, Tangjia, Zhuhai 519082, China
³⁰CSST Science Center for the Guangdong-Hongkong-Macau Greater Bay Area, SYSU, Zhuhai 519082, China
³¹Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
³²Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
³³Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, United Kingdom
³⁴University of Nottingham, School of Physics and Astronomy, Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom
³⁵Astronomy Unit, Department of Physics, University of Trieste, via Tiepolo 11, I-34131 Trieste, Italy
³⁶INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, via G. B. Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy
³⁷Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, 34014 Trieste, Italy
³⁸Hamburger Sternwarte, Universität Hamburg, Gojenbergsweg 112, 21029 Hamburg, Germany
³⁹Department of Physics, IIT Hyderabad, Kandi, Telangana 502285, India
⁴⁰Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
⁴¹Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LPSC-IN2P3, 38000 Grenoble, France
⁴²Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
⁴³California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Blvd, MC 249-17, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
⁴⁴Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1029 Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway
⁴⁵Instituto de Fisica Teorica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
⁴⁶Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
⁴⁷Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, ch. d’Écogia 16, CH-1290 Versoix, Switzerland
⁴⁸Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA
⁴⁹Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
⁵⁰Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
⁵¹Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, California 91109, USA
⁵²Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics, College of Science, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
⁵³George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
⁵⁴Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, E-08010 Barcelona, Spain
⁵⁵Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221, USA
⁵⁶Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada
⁵⁷Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria 3122, Australia
⁵⁸Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15312, USA
⁵⁹Observatório Nacional, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ - 20921-400, Brazil
⁶⁰Ruhr University Bochum, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, Astronomical Institute, German Centre for Cosmological Lensing, 44780 Bochum, Germany
⁶¹Nordita, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University, Hannes Alfvéns väg 12, SE-10691 Stockholm, Sweden
⁶²Department of Physics and Astronomy, Pevensey Building, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QH, United Kingdom
⁶³Physics Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, United Kingdom
⁶⁴Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
⁶⁵School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
⁶⁶Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS/IN2P3, CPPM, Marseille, France
⁶⁷Department of Physics, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod, Kerala, India
⁶⁸Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom
⁶⁹Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, UC Berkeley, California 94720, USA
⁷⁰Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
⁷¹Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Giessenbachstrasse, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁷²Universitäts-Sternwarte, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Scheinerstraße 1, 81679 München, Germany
⁷³Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Peyton Hall, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

^*Contact author: des-publication-queries@fnal.gov

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 063530 – Published 12 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/z2q4-qcdq

Abstract

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) recently released the final results of its two principal probes of the expansion history: Type Ia supernovae (SNe) and baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO). In this paper, we explore the cosmological implications of these data in combination with external cosmic microwave background (CMB), big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), and age-of-the-Universe information. The BAO measurement, which is $\sim 2 σ$ away from Planck ’s $Λ CDM$ predictions, pushes for low values of $Ω_{m}$ compared to Planck, in contrast to SN which prefers a higher value than Planck. We identify several tensions among datasets in the $Λ CDM$ model that cannot be resolved by including either curvature ( $k Λ CDM$ ) or a constant dark energy equation of state ( $w CDM$ ). By combining $BAO + SN + CMB$ despite these mild tensions, we obtain $Ω_{k} = - {5.5}_{- 4.2}^{+ 4.6} \times 10^{- 3}$ in $k Λ CDM$ , and $w = - 0.94 8_{- 0.027}^{+ 0.028}$ in $w CDM$ . In $w CDM$ , BAO and SN push again in different directions of parameter space, favoring, respectively, $w < - 1$ and $w > - 1$ . If we open the parameter space to $w_{0} w_{a} CDM$ [where the equation of state of dark energy varies as $w (a) = w_{0} + (1 - a) w_{a}$ ], all the datasets are mutually more compatible, and we find concordance in the $[w_{0} > - 1, w_{a} < 0]$ quadrant, with BAO pushing for $w_{a} < 0$ and SN for $[w_{0} > - 1, w_{a} < 0]$ . For DES BAO and SN in combination with Planck -CMB, we find a $3.2 σ$ deviation from $Λ CDM$ , with $w_{0} = - 0.67 3_{- 0.097}^{+ 0.098}$ , $w_{a} = - 1.3 7_{- 0.50}^{+ 0.51}$ , a Hubble constant of $H_{0} = 67.8 1_{- 0.86}^{+ 0.96} km s^{- 1} {Mpc}^{- 1}$ , and an abundance of matter of $Ω_{m} = 0.310 9_{- 0.0099}^{+ 0.0086}$ . For the combination of all the background cosmological probes considered (including CMB’s angular acoustic scale $θ_{⋆}$ ), we still find a deviation of $2.8 σ$ from $Λ CDM$ in the $w_{0} - w_{a}$ plane. Assuming a minimal neutrino mass, this work provides tentative evidence for non- $Λ CDM$ physics, which is consistent with recent claims in support of evolving dark energy, or a source of unknown systematics.

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Dark Energy Survey: Implications for cosmological expansion models from the final DES baryon acoustic oscillation and supernova data

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Dark Energy Survey: Implications for cosmological expansion models from the final DES baryon acoustic oscillation and supernova data

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