2003/02/10 by Ignacio Ferreras, Alessandro Melchiorri, A. Melchiorri +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark energy #Dark matter #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Globular cluster #Physics #Redshift #Supernova #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06843.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 344 (2003) 257 · 5 pages, 4 figures, uses mn2e.cls
arxiv created 2003/02/10 · openalex publication_date 2003/09/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The age of the Universe has been increasingly constrained by different techniques, such as the observations of type Ia supernovae (SNIa) at high redshift or dating the stellar populations of globular clusters. In this paper, we present a complementary approach using the colours of the brightest elliptical galaxies in clusters over a wide redshift range (z≲ 1). We put new and independent bounds on the dark energy equation of state parametrized by a constant pressure-to-density ratio wQ and by a parameter (ξ) which determines the scaling between the matter and dark energy densities. We find that accurate estimates of the metallicities of the stellar populations in moderate and high-redshift cluster galaxies can pose stringent constraints on the parameters that describe dark energy. Our results are in good agreement with the analysis of dark energy models using SNIa data as a constraint. Accurate estimates of the metallicities of stellar populations in cluster galaxies at z≲ 2 will make this approach a powerful complement to studies of cosmological parameters using high-redshift SNIa.