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# Experimental evidence for directed percolation in spatiotemporal intermittency

## Abstract

A new experimental system showing a transition to spatiotemporal intermittency is presented. It consists of a ring of hundred oscillating ferrofluidic spikes. The measured critical exponents of the system agree with those obtained from a theoretical model of directed percolation.

PACS: 05.45-a, 47.54+r, 47.52

Spatiotemporal Intermittency (STI) is characterized by patches of ordered and disordered states fluctuating stochastically in space and time. It is often a precursor of chaos in spatially extended systems . In 1986 Pomeau  suggested that the onset of chaos via STI might be analogous to directed percolation (DP) . Such processes are modeled as a probabilistic cellular automaton with two states per site, associated with the laminar and chaotic patches in the case of STI, and predict some universal properties of STI. In particular, the fraction of chaotic domains is expected to grow with a power law $`ϵ^\beta `$, where $`ϵ`$ measures the distance from threshold. The mean laminar length decreases with $`ϵ^{\nu _s}`$, as does the mean laminar time with $`ϵ^{\nu _t}`$, and the critical distribution is determined by $`l^{\mu _s}`$ .

Some experimental tests of the conjecture  in quasi one-dimensional systems have been made  -. A short summary of these and the relevant exponents for the comparison with the DP-model are given in Table I. However the statement ”…there is still no experiment where the critical behaviour of DP was seen” by Grassberger  still seems to be true. Thus in this paper a new experimental approach to this old problem is presented. Motivated by the fact that a single peak of ferrofluid shows chaotic oscillations under external driving of a magnetic field , we introduce here a system where about $`100`$ of these oscillating peaks are coupled by magnetic and hydrodynamic interaction. They exhibit changes in peak height of about $`10`$% and variations in wavelength $`\lambda `$ of about $`50`$%. This system is advantageous because of its short response times and the easy control of the excitation.

The setup of the experiment consists of a cylindrical electromagnet with a sharp edge (Fig. 1). The magnetic fluid is trapped by the inhomogenous magnetic field at this edge of the magnetically soft iron core. In that way the $`40\mathrm{mm}`$ diameter of the pole shoe supports a ring of up to $`110`$ spikes of magnetic fluid as indicated by the picture in Fig. 1. The ring of spikes is recorded with a CCD-camera mounted above the pole shoe. The electromagnet contains a bias coil and an excitation coil. The bias coil is provided with a direct current of $`I=1.0\mathrm{A}`$ to keep the magnetic fluid in its place. This excitation coil is driven by an alternating current, phase-locked with the camera frequency, providing a stroboscopic jitter free recording on long timescales. The fluid is temperature controlled to $`12.5\pm 0.03^{}\mathrm{C}`$ by cooling the pole shoe, and encapsulated in a glass container to provide longterm stability.

The spatiotemporal behaviour is investigated by observing the ring with the CCD-camera. To extract the wavelength and amplitude of the spikes as a function of space, we define a ring of interest around the center of the pole shoe which is covering the ring of spikes. It is divided into $`1024`$ segments. The average of the greyvalues within each segment represents the amplitude. This reduction of the $`2D`$ image to a single line scan can be done in real time with a frequency of $`12.5\mathrm{Hz}`$.

In Fig. 2 $`500`$ of such scans are shown in a space time plot, where dark regions correspond to high amplitudes. The driving frequency of the excitation field is $`f_{ex}=12.5\mathrm{Hz}`$, which is the same as the recording frequency. The period $`\tau =1/f_{ex}`$ is used to scale the time. Due to this stroboscopic recording the regular oscillations of the spikes cannot be seen. At low excitation amplitudes $`I_{ex}3.0\mathrm{A}`$ the system is completely regular (Fig. 2 (a)) showing $`108`$ spikes. Slight spatial variations of the wavelength $`\lambda `$ remain constant in time. In Fig. 2 (b) at $`I_{ex}=3.0\mathrm{A}`$ irregular fluctuations are apparent.

A fairly clear distinction between regular and irregular domains can be made in this image even by naked eye, which we consider as a manifestation of STI. Further increase of $`I_{ex}`$ leads to spreading of the irregular domains engulfing the regular regions until finally the whole system is chaotic (Fig. 2 (c)).

For a clearer distinction between regular and irregular domains (Fig. 3 (a)) we measure the local wavelength $`\lambda (x,t)`$ , which is displayed using a grey scale plot in Fig. 3 (b). For the binarization the relative change $`\delta \lambda =|\lambda _{t+1}\lambda _t|/\lambda _t`$ of the local wavelength is used: Changes in $`\delta \lambda `$ which are larger than $`0.01`$ are counted as irregular, smaller changes belong to regular domains. In Fig. 3 (c) the binarized values of $`\delta \lambda `$ are indicated. The quantitave analysis of STI described below is based on these binarized information.

As an order parameter for STI we take the time-averaged chaotic fraction $`\gamma `$, which is the ratio of chaotic regions to the whole area of the system. Its variation with the control parameter $`I_{ex}`$ is shown in Fig. 4. Here the excitation amplitude is switched from $`I_{ex}=4.05\mathrm{A}`$ to the value displayed on the x-axis. $`\gamma `$ is determined after a waiting time of $`1800\tau `$, when the transients have died out. Each data point represents a mean value of six independent runs, which include six refills of the apparatus with fresh fluid.

Close to the onset of STI the mean chaotic fraction is expected to grow with a powerlaw $`\gamma (I_{ex}I_c)^\beta `$. The solid line in Fig. 4 is a fit to our data, using $`I_c`$, $`\beta `$, and an offset representing background noise as adjustable parameters. The threshold value determined in this way is $`I_c=3.0\pm 0.03\mathrm{A}`$ and the exponent $`\beta =0.3\pm 0.05`$ is in agreement with the theoretical expectation $`\beta =0.276486(8)`$ .

An alternative representation of the same data is presented in Fig. 5 (a) in a log-log plot. Here the normalized control parameter $`ϵ=I_{ex}/I_c1`$ serves to define the x-axis. In Fig. 5 (b) the mean laminar length $`\mathrm{}`$, which is the average of the spatial expansion of all regular domains at a given $`ϵ`$, is presented. It is expected to grow with a power law $`\mathrm{}ϵ^{\nu _s}`$ and the fit yields an exponent $`\nu _s=1.2\pm 0.1`$, which is represented by the solid line. Only data in the range of $`0.03<ϵ<0.1`$ are taken into account. For smaller $`ϵ`$ a finite size effect is obvious: $`\mathrm{}`$ must be smaller than the system size $`1`$. For larger $`ϵ`$ the system is no longer intermittent, but rather chaotic. The same argument holds for the mean laminar time $`T`$, which is the average of the life time of all regular domains (Fig. 5 (b)). A similar power law behaviour can be seen with an exponent $`\nu _t=0.7\pm 0.05`$. The exponent $`\nu _s`$ is in good comparison to theoretical expectations of $`\nu _s=1.096854(4)`$, while $`\nu _t`$ differs from the theoretical value $`\nu _t=1.733847(6)`$.

In Fig. 6 the distribution of the laminar domain length $`l`$ for $`ϵ=0`$ is presented. The solid line represents a fit $`p(l)l^{\mu _s}`$ with $`\mu _s=1.7\pm 0.05`$, in agreement with the theoretical value $`\mu _s=1.734`$. Within the experimental errors, the theoretically predicted relation

$$\mu _s=2\frac{\beta }{\nu _s}$$
(1)
is thus fulfilled.

The distribution for $`ϵ>0`$ as shown in Fig. 7 cannot be described by a simple power law. A more complicated distribution function has been suggested

$$p(l)=(Al^\mu +B)e^{l/l_{decay}}$$
(2)
in Ref. . The solid line is a fit to this empirical distribution function for $`ϵ=0.019`$ with $`l_{decay}=0.17`$. It shows clearly that the power law is now replaced by a function more reminiscent of an exponential decay.

In summary, we have measured the critical exponents $`\beta `$, $`\nu _s`$, $`\nu _t`$ and $`\mu _s`$ for the mean chaotic fraction $`\gamma `$, the mean laminar length $`\mathrm{}`$, the mean laminar time $`T`$ and the length distribution function. Three of these four exponents agree with the theoretical expectation derived from a DP model and thus fulfill the relation (1). When considering the fact that the theory is applicable only near $`I_c`$ and that our apparatus is influenced by finite size effects, the results support the idea that our system shows a DP like transition to STI. Further investigations will thus focus on the influence of the system size.

The authors would like to thank Hugues Chaté, Haye Hinrichsen and Victor Steinberg for helpful discussions. The experiments have been financially supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through Re588/12.


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# Probing quintessence: reconstruction and parameter estimation from supernovae

## 1 Introduction

There is now strong evidence, from observations of type Ia supernovae (Perlmutter et al., 1999; Riess et al., 1998) and CMB anisotropy (de Bernardis et al., 2002; Netterfield et al., 2002; Pryke et al., 2002), that we live in a universe that is geometrically flat and dominated by a nearly homogeneous component with negative pressure—the dark energy—which is causing the cosmic expansion to accelerate. The existence of dark energy has recently been confirmed, independently of the supernova data, by combining the latest galaxy clustering data with CMB measurements (Efstathiou et al.,, 2002; Wang, Tegmark & Zaldarriaga, 2002). The most obvious dark energy candidate is vacuum energy, represented by the cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, which has pressure $`p_\mathrm{\Lambda }=\rho _\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Other dark energy candidates, include a network of topological defects and the much-discussed possibility of quintessence (Caldwell, Dave & Steinhardt, 1998), a spatially inhomogeneous, evolving component which is usually represented by a scalar field evolving in a potential (an idea first introduced by Peebles & Ratra (1988)). In this paper we will focus on quintessence, though some of the results apply to other forms of dark energy in so far as these can be parameterised by a simple equation of state.

It is our goal to explore what could be learned about the dark energy from future observations of type Ia supernovae (SNIa), such as may be possible with the proposed SuperNova / Acceleration Probe (SNAP) satellite (Levi et al., 2000). This satellite aims to observe roughly 2000 supernovae a year for three years, with very precise magnitude measurements and negligible systematic errors, out to a redshift of $`z=1.7`$. Observations of this sort will permit a very precise measurement of the magnitude-redshift relation $`m(z)`$ and hence of the distance-redshift relation $`r(z)`$, which will probe the expansion history of the universe.

Current supernova observations already put weak constraints on the dark energy density $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ and equation of state $`w_Q`$. If the universe is assumed to be flat (*i.e.*, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_k1\mathrm{\Omega }_M\mathrm{\Omega }_Q=0`$) and $`w_Q`$ is assumed to be constant in time, we have $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.5`$ and $`w_Q0.4`$ (Perlmutter et al., 1999). These constraints improve considerably when they are combined with independent constraints from the CMB (Efstathiou, 1999) or large-scale structure (Perlmutter, Turner & White, 1999)—most importantly, such combined data sets give $`w_Q0.6`$.

Several studies have examined the improved parameter constraints that may be possible with SNAP. For example, Weller & Albrecht (2001, 2002) have found that SNAP can constrain a constant $`w_Q`$ to better than $`10\%`$ accuracy, allowing some models to be distinguished from a cosmological constant ($`w_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$). In addition, many authors have examined the possibility of using SNAP to distinguish the evolution of $`w_Q`$ with redshift (Astier, 2001; Barger & Marfatia, 2001; Goliath et al.,, 2001; Huterer & Turner, 2001; Maor, Brustein & Steinhardt, 2001; Weller & Albrecht, 2001, 2002). There is a general consensus that SNAP data alone will not be able to distinguish an evolving equation of state. Our results are in broad agreement with these studies.

It may also be possible to perform a direct reconstruction of $`w_Q(z)`$ and of the quintessence potential $`V`$ from supernova observations (Huterer & Turner, 1999; Chiba & Nakamura, 2000). Saini et al. (2000) have attempted to perform reconstruction from the current supernova data and find, unsurprisingly, that nothing definitive can be learned at present. The theoretical studies that have been done have often encountered difficulty in accurately reconstructing the properties of a given model from simulated supernova data (Huterer & Turner, 2001; Weller & Albrecht, 2002). This casts doubt upon the reliability of reconstruction. One of our main goals in the present study is to develop a reliable method for producing accurate reconstructions from supernova data that is applicable to a wide class of quintessence models. Having done this, we will also want to explore whether such reconstructions will be useful. The method we use for reconstruction demonstrates the power of using supernova observations to constrain cosmological parameters, and it highlights the usefulness of combining these observations with prior knowledge from other cosmological measurements. We therefore also undertake an exploration of the parameter constraints that will be possible with SNAP and its combination with other experiments, expanding on earlier analyses and discussing carefully what can and cannot be learned in this way.

This paper is arranged as follows. in Section 2 we summarize the cosmological effects of quintessence pertaining to supernova observations. In Section 3 we simulate SNAP-like data for a quintessence-dominated universe and discuss the problems inherent in producing reconstructions from such data. We discuss a cosmologically parameterized fitting function for $`r(z)`$ in Section 4, and we use it for reconstruction in Section 5. In Section 6 we show how more general questions about the nature of the dark energy may be addressed by constraining parameters with SNIa data, and we discuss the long-term prospects for this sort of study in Section 7. We draw conclusions about the prospects for observational tests of dark energy in Section 8

## 2 Tracker Quintessence Cosmology

We consider a scalar field (the quintessence field) $`Q`$, evolving in a potential $`V(Q)`$. The field will be nearly spatially smooth, and for the purposes of this study, we ignore any small inhomogeneities. The density and pressure of quintessence are given by

$`\rho _Q={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{Q}^2+V(Q)`$ (1)
$`p_Q={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\dot{Q}^2V(Q).`$ (2)
Quintessence is usually parameterized by its equation of state $`w_Q=p_Q/\rho _Q`$. Looking at equations (1) and (2), we see immediately that $`w_Q1`$. At late times, the coordinate distance to redshift $`z`$ is given by

$$r(z)=_0^z\frac{dz^{}}{H_0\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z^{})^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_k(1+z^{})^2+\mathrm{\Omega }_Qe^{\zeta (z^{})}\right]^{1/2}},$$
(3)
where $`\zeta (z)[3_0^z(1+w_Q(z^{}))d\mathrm{ln}(1+z^{})]`$. In this paper we will assume a flat ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_k=0`$) cosmology. The coordinate distance (3) is of fundamental importance since it fixes the magnitude-redshift relation probed by distant SNIa.

The evolution of quintessence models is governed by the equation of motion

$$\ddot{Q}+3H\dot{Q}+V^{}=0,$$
(4)
where $`V^{}dV/dQ`$. One difficulty with quintessence is that, in most cases, the initial conditions of this equation must be fine-tuned for quintessence to dominate only just at the present epoch, as is required by observations. It is possible to address this problem by using *tracker potentials* (Zlatev, Wang & Steinhardt, 1999; Steinhardt, Wang & Zlatev, 1999), which admit attractor-like solutions, thus allowing quintessence to exhibit identical behaviour at late times for a wide range of initial conditions. The energy scale of these models still requires fine-tuning to be consistent with observations, however (see Vilenkin (2001) for further discussion of these issues). The $`k`$-essence models (Armendariz, Mukhanov & Steinhardt, 2000, 2001) also address the fine-tuning of initial conditions by adding to the quintessence Lagrangian kinetic terms that require quintessence to become dominant only after matter domination. Non-minimally coupled scalar fields offer another possible explanation of why quintessence domination might be related to the epoch of radiation and matter equality (see Bean (2001) and references therein). These models introduce extra complications with little extra motivation, however, so to keep things simple we will concern ourselves with tracker models exclusively here. We note that tracker models tend to evolve very slowly at late times, making it particularly difficult to detect evolution and reconstruct potental shapes. So by focusing on tracker models here, we should be making a conservative assessment of the prospects for testing quintessence models with supernova observations.

Inverse power-law potentials $`VQ^P`$ provide the simplest tracker quintessence models, but such models are inconsistent with the current observational constraint $`w_Q0.6`$ (Perlmutter, Turner & White, 1999; Efstathiou, 1999) for $`P>2`$. To keep things both simple and realistic, then, we shall use a potential $`VQ^2`$ as our standard test potential in this study. \[Recently it has been suggested that current observations may actually rule out all inverse-power-law models (Corasanti & Copeland, 2002; Bean & Melchiorri, 2002), but they nevertheless provide a useful theoretical test model.\] We shall see next how a supernova measurement of $`r(z)`$ can be used to probe the properties of the dark energy.

## 3 Reconstructing the quintessence potential

Various authors (Starobinsky, 1998; Huterer & Turner, 1999; Nakamura & Chiba, 1999) have derived equations for reconstructing the quintessence potential $`V(Q)`$ and equation of state $`w_Q(z)`$ from $`r(z)`$. The equation of state of the quintessence component is given by

$`1+w_Q(z)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1+z)}{3}}`$ (5)
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z)^2+2(d^2\stackrel{~}{r}/dz^2)/c^2(d\stackrel{~}{r}/dz)^3}{\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z)^3(cd\stackrel{~}{r}/dz)^2}},`$
and the quintessence potential is given parametrically by

$`\omega [\stackrel{~}{Q}(z)]`$ $`=`$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(d\stackrel{~}{r}/dz)^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{(1+z)}{3}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\stackrel{~}{r}/dz^2}{(d\stackrel{~}{r}/dz)^3}}\right]`$ (6)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z)^3,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{Q}}{dz}}`$ $`=`$ $`\pm {\displaystyle \frac{d\stackrel{~}{r}/dz}{(1+z)}}`$ (7)
$`\times `$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+z)d^2\stackrel{~}{r}/dz^2}{(d\stackrel{~}{r}/dz)^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{8\pi }}\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z)^3\right]^{1/2}.`$
Here we follow Huterer & Turner (1999) in using the dimensionless quantities $`\stackrel{~}{r}=H_0r`$, $`\stackrel{~}{Q}=Q/M_{Pl}`$, and $`\omega (\stackrel{~}{Q})=V(Q)/\rho _{crit}=V(\stackrel{~}{Q}M_{Pl})/(3H_0^2/8\pi G)`$. Thus, in principle, a measurement of $`r(z)`$ will allow us to reconstruct the basic properties of quintessence.

To test reconstruction, we choose a tracker potential $`V(Q)`$, evolve equation (4) to obtain $`w_Q(z)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$, and compute the Hubble-constant-free luminosity distance $`𝒟_L(z)=(1+z)\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$ from equation (3). The magnitude-redshift relation is then given by

$$m(z)=+5\mathrm{log}𝒟_L(z),$$
(8)
where $`=M5\mathrm{log}H_0+25`$ is the Hubble-constant-free absolute magnitude, which we take to be $`=3.45`$, the best-fit value from Efstathiou (1999). From this, we draw a Monte-Carlo sample of supernova magnitude-redshift datapoints similar to what would be expected from the proposed SNAP satellite (Levi et al., 2000). Our simulated sample consists of roughly 2000 high-redshift supernovae from SNAP, in the range $`0.1z1.7`$, plus 200 low-redshift points from ground-based searches, in the range $`0<z0.2`$. The points have a measurement error of 0.01 magnitude, plus an intrinsic scatter (Efstathiou et al., 1999) of 0.018 magnitude after correction for the decline rate-luminosity correlation. The error in the redshift is negligible, and the redshift distribution we use, (Fig. 1), is similar to the one used by Huterer & Turner (2001). We neglect systematic errors in this analysis.

Given our set of N datapoints, we next choose a fitting function $`\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)`$. For a grid of points in the parameter space of $`\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)`$ we compute the likelihood function

$$=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi \sigma _i^2}}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(m_im^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z_i))^2}{2\sigma _i^2}\right],$$
(9)
where $`m_i`$ is the magnitude of datapoint $`i`$, $`z_i`$ is its redshift, and $`\sigma _i`$ is the error. The magnitude predicted by the fitting function is given by $`m^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)=+5\mathrm{log}𝒟_L^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)`$. For the points in parameter space that fall within the $`68\%`$, $`95\%`$ and $`99\%`$ confidence regions, we use $`\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)`$ to reconstruct $`w_Q(z)`$ and $`V(Q)`$ from equations (57). We then draw confidence contours around the outermost reconstructed curves from each confidence region.

It is important to note here a basic mathematical difficulty with reconstruction. Looking at equation (7), we see that reconstruction of $`V(Q)`$ is impossible when the expression in square brackets crosses zero. When this occurs at a given confidence level, we terminate the corresponding reconstruction contour for $`V(Q)`$. Also, we note that the present-day value of the quintessence field $`Q`$ is not fixed by equation (7). But since this value has no cosmological effect, we may arbitrarily set $`Q=1`$ at the present day.

Various functional forms for $`\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)`$ have been recommended in the literature for use in reconstruction (Huterer & Turner, 2001; Weller & Albrecht, 2002; Chiba & Nakamura, 2000; Saini et al., 2000). To show the difficulties inherent in reconstruction, we attempt reconstructions using two of them—a third order polynomial

$$\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)=a_3z^3+a_2z^2+a_1z,$$
(10)
and a Padé approximate

$$\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)=\frac{z(1+az)}{1+bz+cz^2},$$
(11)
both of which have been suggested by Huterer & Turner (1999, 2001). Reconstructions resulting from fitting SNAP-like data with these fitting functions are shown in Fig 2. In applying the reconstruction equations here, we have assumed that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ is known exactly. Evidently, the precision of the reconstructions will diminish if we allow for some uncertainty in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$.

The reconstructions we obtain are inaccurate. For the polynomial fit, the actual value of $`w_Q`$ lies outside the $`99\%`$ confidence contour at low redshift, where the reconstruction is most precise, and the actual value of $`V(Q)`$ lies outside the $`68\%`$ contour at high values of $`Q`$. The Padé fit does significantly better, but the reconstruction of $`w_Q(z)`$ is still slightly inaccurate at low $`z`$. Reconstructions based on these fitting functions thus appear to be unreliable. Since our reconstruction contours rule out the *correct* model, we cannot seriously claim that they rule out *any* specific model: they are too inaccurate to be useful. (Similar difficulties with the 3rd-order polynomial fit were noted by Weller & Albrecht (2002) in a preprint which appeared as this work was being completed.)

This difficulty arises because the reconstruction equations (57) depend on the derivatives of $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$, rather than on $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$ itself, but the derivatives of the fitting functions do not necessarily resemble the derivatives of $`\stackrel{~}{r(z)}`$. (This problem has also been noted by Huterer & Turner (2001) and Weller & Albrecht (2002).) The problem with the fitting functions suggested in the literature is that, with the exception of the one in Saini et al. (2000), they are all arbitrary functions that have been chosen because they give good fits to $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$. However, we have no *a priori* reason to believe that their derivatives will resemble $`d\stackrel{~}{r}/dz`$ and $`d^2\stackrel{~}{r}/dz^2`$. Indeed, as Fig. 3 shows, the best fitting polynomial and Padé approximate do not provide particularly accurate fits to the derivatives of $`r(z)`$. Therefore we should not expect to obtain accurate reconstructions from these functions. To perform reconstructions reliably, we must first find a fitting function that we believe will provide not only a good fit to $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$, but also a good approximation to its derivatives. In essence, we want to fit our data with some physically motivated approximation to $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$.

## 4 A physically motivated fitting function

We can construct a physically motivated fitting function by noting that, for low $`z`$, the quintessence equation of state is often well approximated by

$$w_Q^{app}=w_Q(a_0)+\alpha \mathrm{ln}(a/a_0)=w_Q(z=0)\alpha \mathrm{ln}(1+z),$$
(12)
where $`\alpha dw_Q/d\mathrm{ln}a`$ (Efstathiou, 1999). Combining this with equation (3), we arrive an at approximate expression for the coordinate distance, which we can use as a fitting function for reconstruction:

$$\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)=_0^z\frac{dz^{}}{\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z^{})^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_Q^{app}(z^{})\right]^{1/2}},$$
(13)
where the approximate energy density contribution of the quintessence component is

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_Q^{app}(z)=\mathrm{\Omega }_Q(1+z)^{3(1+w_Q(0))}\mathrm{exp}\{(3/2)\alpha [\mathrm{ln}(1+z)]^2\}.$$
(14)
Also, by assumption, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ (present-day values). Equation (13) is readily twice differentiable with respect to $`z`$; hence it can be used to reconstruct $`V(Q)`$ and $`w_Q(z)`$. A similar fitting function \[with a linear, rather than logarithmic, approximation to $`w_Q(z)`$\] has been found to provide the best fits to $`r(z)`$ of any of the fitting functions previously considered in the literature (Weller & Albrecht, 2001). Fig. 3 shows that equation (13) also produces better fits to $`d\stackrel{~}{r}/dz`$ and $`d^2\stackrel{~}{r}/dz^2`$ than the polynomial or Padé approximate, suggesting that it may produce reliable reconstructions. This is entirely to be expected, since the fitting function is a direct approximation to the coordinate distance in terms of real physical parameters. Of course this function will produce reliable reconstructions only to the extent that it is a good approximation to $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$, but we expect that it will approximate $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$ reasonably well, for a wide range of quintessence models, out to at least the redshifts to be probed by SNAP (Efstathiou, 1999). It is worth noting that some models will not be well approximated by equation (13)—for example, the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson potentials considered by Weller & Albrecht (2002) (which can produce an oscillatory equation of state) would generally require a more complicated fitting function. Nevertheless, the analysis presented here is self-consistent: as long as equation (13) provides an acceptable fit to the data (reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of order unity), we are unlikely to learn anything more by introducing more complicated fitting functions. If there are significant residuals about the best fit, however, it may be fruitful to consider more complicated functions.

It is also important to note that the use of equation (13) as a fitting function effectively reduces the problem of reconstruction to one of constraining the cosmological parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$, $`w_Q(0)`$ and $`\alpha `$ by likelihood analysis. Parameter estimation and reconstruction are separately interesting: the former can tell us about the basic properties of dark energy in a model-independent way, whereas the latter can tell us more specifically about the potential of a scalar-field quintessence. Since we are constraining some cosmological parameters in the reconstructions discussed here, it may be possible to combine supernova observations with other observations to better constrain the fit parameters and simultaneously to improve our reconstructions. For example, in a flat universe (which we assume), measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ from, *e.g.*, galaxy clustering and the CMB fix $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ via the constraint equation $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q=1\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. If there are degeneracies between the parameters, then combining such measurements with supernova data will serve to tighten the constraints on all the parameters, improving the precision of our reconstructions. Because we have used physical quantities to parameterize our fitting function for the coordinate distance, we can learn about $`\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)`$ indirectly from data other than the SN1a observations. In this way, a physically motivated fitting function allows reconstructions that are not only more accurate but also possibly more precise than reconstructions from more arbitrary fitting functions.

Fig. 4 shows the sort of constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$, $`w_Q(0)`$ and $`\alpha `$ that might be expected from one year of SNAP data (2200 SN). Clearly, strong and complicated degeneracies between the parameters make precise constraints impossible when we use the supernova data alone for estimation. It may be possible to reduce these degeneracies significantly if we combine the supernova data with other measurements of the cosmological parameters. For example, galaxy clustering measurements from the 2dF galaxy redshift survey, combined with measurements of CMB anisotropies, constrain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ to within roughly $`\pm 0.1`$ ($`2\sigma `$ errors) in the case of a flat universe (Efstathiou et al., 2002). To show the effect that such other measurements can have, we impose a Gaussian prior probability distribution on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$. Its effect on the contours, for various values of the standard deviation $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}`$, is shown in Fig. 4. Clearly the use of such a prior is significant: if we impose $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.05`$, it is possible to constrain $`w_Q(0)1`$ with $`99\%`$ confidence, indicating that the dark energy is not a cosmological constant. Other authors (Astier, 2001; Barger & Marfatia, 2001; Goliath et al., 2001; Huterer & Turner, 2001; Maor et al., 2001; Weller & Albrecht, 2001, 2002) have attempted to constrain a similar set of parameters using a SNAP-like dataset (using $`w_1dw_Q/dz`$ where we have used $`\alpha d\mathrm{ln}w_Q/d\mathrm{ln}a`$). They also find that strong degeneracies between parameters make precise estimation impossible, unless prior knowledge of one of the parameters is assumed. Our results are in good agreement with these analyses.<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Recently, other authors (Wang & Garnavich, 2001; Wang & Lovelace, 2001) have suggested, interestingly, that better information about dark energy may be obtained by constraining the function $`f(z)=e^{\zeta (z)}`$ (where $`\zeta (z)`$ is as defined after equation (3)) at various values of $`z`$, rather than by attempting to parameterize and constrain $`w(z)`$.

But is our Gaussian prior with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.05`$ realistic? The prior assumes that we will be able to measure $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ to this accuracy independent of the equation of state, that is, that the measurement of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ does not suffer from degeneracies with $`w_Q`$. In fact, measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Mh`$ from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), combined with measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Mh^2`$ from the MAP satellite’s CMB measurements will be able to constrain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ to nearly $`\pm 0.05`$, with no dependence on $`w_Q`$ (Eisenstein et al., 1998). Moreover, if flatness is assumed and this measurement is combined with measurements of the angular diameter distance to last scattering from the the MAP or Planck satellites, the uncertainty in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ decreases to $`0.01`$$`0.03`$, with an additional strong constraint on $`w_Q`$ and no degeneracy between the parameters (Hu et al., 1998). In addition, proposed X-ray or Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect surveys of galaxy clusters can constrain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ to within an error of $`0.05`$ or better, with only a very slight dependence on $`w_Q`$ (Haiman, Mohr & Holder, 2001; Weller, Battye & Kneissl, 2001). A proposed gravitational lensing survey could constrain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ to within $`0.015`$ with minimal $`w_Q`$ dependence (van Waerbecke, Bernardeau & Mellier, 1999).

The uncertainty $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.05`$ thus appears to be a conservative estimate of the precision that may be obtained in the future. More optimistically, we could use a prior with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.015`$. Fig. 4 shows the constraints that are possible in this case: with improved knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ we can also obtain much tighter constraints on $`w_Q(0)`$ and $`\alpha `$. In no case is it possible to show that $`\alpha 0`$, however, even if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ is known exactly. Nevertheless, it is clear that combining SNAP parameter constraints with other measurements will be a powerful probe of the dark energy. We shall explore this in more detail below.

## 5 Reconstruction from Cosmologically Motivated Fitting Functions

Prior knowledge of the parameters is also necessary if we are to use equation (13) successfully for reconstruction. If we impose no prior probability distribution on our likelihood analysis (the “no prior” case in Fig. 4), then reconstruction of $`V(Q)`$ fails for nearly all $`Q`$ at all confidence levels, and $`w_Q(z)`$ is only very weakly constrained. If, on the other hand, we impose a Gaussian prior with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.05`$, we obtain the potentially useful reconstructions shown in Fig. 5. (Note that because we are explicitly constraining $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$—and hence $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, which appears explicitly in the reconstruction equations—we have allowed $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ to vary over its allowed range in applying the reconstruction equations.) In particular, $`V(Q)`$ is constrained to be non-constant at the $`68\%`$ confidence level. More importantly,the reconstructions are accurate: both the actual $`V(Q)`$ and the actual $`w_Q(z)`$ curves are contained within the $`68\%`$ confidence contours. This is very promising: it should be possible, by combining SNAP data with expected measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, to reconstruct the potential of an inverse-power-law quintessence model in an accurate and reliable way.

Fig. 6 shows a reconstruction using the more optimistic prior $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.015`$. In this case, we are able to constrain $`V(Q)`$ to be non-constant at greater than $`99\%`$ confidence with good accuracy, and we achieve impressive constraints on $`w_Q(z)`$, although it is not possible to show that $`w_Q(z)`$ is evolving. Because the reconstructions we obtain are accurate, it appears that equation (13) is a better fitting function for reconstruction than the arbitrary fitting functions we tried previously. But we cannot be entirely sure of this yet: when we attempted reconstructions with the polynomial and Padé approximate, we assumed exact knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. It is possible that our allowing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ to vary here might be obscuring inaccuracies. To test this, in Fig. 7 we perform a reconstruction from equation (13), in which we hold $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ (and thus $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$) constant at its true value throughout. The reconstructions are entirely acceptable: no obvious inaccuracies creep in when we fix $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. As hoped, the use of a physically motivated fitting function has given us a method for reconstructing the properties of quintessence in an accurate and reliable way.

We note that Huterer & Turner (2001) (HT00) have previously attempted to constrain $`w_Q(z)`$ using a fitting function based on $`w_Q^{app}(z)`$. Our work differs in several important respects from their analysis. First, we show here that equation (13) produces good reconstructions of $`V(Q)`$ as well as $`w_Q(z)`$. Second, whereas HT00 hold $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ fixed in their analysis, we show that good reconstructions are still possible when there is some uncertainty in $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. Third, HT00 use the Fisher matrix to draw their confidence contours, while we use an exact likelihood analysis. Most importantly, HT00 draw their simulated data from a model with $`w_Q`$ exactly equal to $`w_Q^{app}`$, which guarantees an accurate reconstruction (since the fitting function is the same as the original model). We show here that accurate reconstructions can be done even when $`w_Q^{app}`$ is only an approximation to the actual equation of state. Weller & Albrecht (2002) have recently had some success in reconstructing $`w_Q(z)`$ using a polynomial expansion of $`w_Q(z)`$ to produce a fitting function, although they have also held $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ fixed. Also, since the equation of state is not usually well approximated by a linear function of $`z`$, they must expand $`w_Q`$ to second order to obtain accurate reconstructions, which requires one more fit parameter than our fitting function. We expect that this will lead to worse degeneracies in parameter space and that it may be difficult to obtain a useful reconstruction if $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ is allowed to vary.

So it appears that, by fitting our data to equation (13), we have found a way to reconstruct $`V(Q)`$ and $`w_Q(z)`$ in a reliable, accurate and fairly precise way. Recall, however, that, in deriving equation (13), our basic approximation was to write the equation of state in the form $`w_Q^{app}(z)=w_Q(0)\alpha \mathrm{ln}(1+z)`$. So what we are actually reconstructing when we use equation (13) as a fitting function is the $`w_Q(z)`$ that *would be* most likely to produce the data if $`w_Q(z)`$ had the form of $`w_Q^{app}(z)`$. Likewise, the $`V(Q)`$ that we reconstruct is the potential that *would have* produced this most likely $`w_Q^{app}(z)`$. If we are careful to take these issues into account, it will be possible to make use of our reconstructions to distinguish between different quintessence models. As long as $`w_Q(z)`$ is well approximated by $`w_Q^{app}(z)`$ over the redshifts we are measuring (*i.e.*, as long as it is not dominated by nonlinear terms in $`\mathrm{ln}[1+z]`$), we expect that our reconstructions will be accurate. Clearly models with rapidly varying $`w_Q(z)`$ (*e.g.*, the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson models discussed by Weller & Albrecht (2002)) will not be accurately reconstructed using equation (13), but in these cases we also would not expect an acceptable fit to the data.

If we want to compare a given potential $`V(Q)`$ to our reconstructions, we must first determine whether the $`w_Q(z)`$ arising from it is well approximated by $`w_Q^{app}(z)`$. If it is not well approximated, we can say nothing useful about that particular potential using our reconstructions, since we cannot be sure that reconstructions of it would be accurate. If, on the other hand, the model in question is well approximated by $`w_Q^{app}(z)`$, we can determine whether it is allowed by the data. First, we vary the parameters of the potential $`V(Q)`$, including the present-day value of the field $`Q_0`$, since this is not fixed by the reconstruction equations. If we do not find any parameterization that falls entirely within the reconstruction contours, then the model under consideration is disallowed by the data. If, on the other hand, we do find a satisfactory parameterization, we must then additionally check whether or not the resulting equation of state falls within the reconstruction contours for $`w_Q(z)`$ for the redshift range of the data. If it does not, then the model is ruled out. Any model that passes both of these tests is consistent with the data.

As an example, we test an inverse-power-law model with $`VQ^3`$ against the contours shown in Fig. 6 (recall that these arose from a quintessence model with $`VQ^2`$). We vary the parameters $`M`$ and $`Q_0`$ for the potential $`V(Q)=M^7/[Q(1Q_0)]^3`$ and identify a range of $`M`$ and $`Q_0`$ for which the potential falls within the $`68\%`$ confidence contours. This gives us a minimum and maximum allowed value for $`M`$. We then evolve the quintessence field in the potential $`V(Q)=M^7/Q^3`$, to get $`w_Q(z)`$ curves for both of these values. (The transformation $`QQ(1Q_0)`$ has no cosmological effect.) For inverse-power-law models $`w_Q`$ decreases monotonically with increasing $`M`$; therefore, all allowed potentials will have $`w_Q(z)`$ values that fall between these two limiting curves. As Fig. 8 shows, $`w_Q(z)`$ falls outside the $`99\%`$ confidence contours for all allowed values of $`M`$, and so models with $`VQ^3`$ are ruled out by the data. The reason that the allowed potentials do not lead to allowed $`w_Q(z)`$ curves here is that the calculation is not self-consistent. Each allowed parameterization of $`V(Q)`$ includes a specific value for both $`M`$ and $`Q_0`$, but only $`M`$ has any effect on the evolution of the quintessence field. For each allowed value of $`M`$, if the quintessence field does not evolve to the associated $`Q_0`$ at the present epoch, the resulting $`w_Q(z)`$ may still be disallowed.

Reconstructions using the fitting function equation (13) are thus clearly more useful than reconstructions using arbitrary fitting functions. Using this equation, it is possible to determine, in a consistent way, whether or not a particular model is ruled out by the data—so long as $`w_Q^{app}(z)`$ is a good approximation to $`w_Q(z)`$ for that model. With the polynomial and Padé approximate fitting functions we tried before, we would have no reliable way of ruling out specific models, since we would have no good way of determining whether the fitting function accurately approximates the derivatives of $`\stackrel{~}{r}`$. Any apparent conclusion from arbitrary fitting functions like these could be spurious, the result of unaccounted-for inaccuracies in the fitting function or its derivatives. If we wish to produce useful reconstructions, it will be necessary to use a fitting function similar to equation (13).

Testing individual models as described above could be useful, but because we lack any good theoretical motivation for model-building at present, testing the large numbers of possible models will be very time-consuming. For this reason, it may be more worthwhile to consider more general questions about the dark energy via likelihood analysis in parameter space, rather than to test models individually via reconstruction.

## 6 Parameter estimation: determining the properties of dark energy

There are two especially important questions we would like to address concerning the properties of the dark energy. First, we would like to know whether the equation of state $`w_Q`$ differs from $`1`$—that is, whether the dark energy is the cosmological constant or not—and second, we would like to know whether $`w_Q`$ varies with redshift. In the previous section, we saw that it is possible to address these questions by performing a likelihood analysis over the parameters $`w_Q(0)`$, $`\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$. In Fig. 4, we saw that it is possible, for an inverse-power-law quintessence model, to constrain $`w_Q(0)1`$ at $`95\%`$ confidence using SNAP data alone. If we also include prior knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$, then it is possible to rule out $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ models at even higher confidence. Even with exact knowledge of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$, though, it is not possible to rule out $`\alpha =0`$ for this model; it is not possible in this case to say whether $`w_Q`$ is changing with redshift. This result is in agreement with several previous studies (Astier, 2001; Barger & Marfatia, 2001; Goliath et al., 2001; Huterer & Turner, 2001; Maor et al., 2001; Weller & Albrecht, 2001, 2002).

### 6.1 Two-parameter fits

It is also clear from Fig. 4 that strong degeneracies between $`\alpha `$ and the other parameters lead to large uncertainties in our parameter estimation. Since we have not been able to say anything particularly useful about $`\alpha `$, it might be more useful to leave $`\alpha `$ out of the analysis entirely for the sake of parameter estimation, focusing our attention on the value of $`w_Q`$ exclusively. To do this, we derive a fitting function for $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$ based on an effective *constant* equation of state $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}`$,

$$\stackrel{~}{r}^{\mathrm{𝑓𝑖𝑡}}(z)=_0^z\frac{dz^{}}{\left[\mathrm{\Omega }_M(1+z^{})^3+\mathrm{\Omega }_Q(1+z^{})^{3(1+w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}})}\right]^{1/2}}.$$
(15)
Several other authors have considered this parameterization of the coordinate distance, and current supernova observations constrain this parameter to be $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}0.4`$ (Perlmutter et al., 1999). When these observations are combined with CMB (Efstathiou, 1999) or large-scale structure (Perlmutter et al., 1999) data, the constraint becomes $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}0.6`$. Recently there has been some suggestion that CMB data slightly favors $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}>1`$ (Baccigalupi et al., 2002), although this conclusion assumes that some rather poorly constrained parameters are known exactly.

Fig. 9 shows the likelihood contours that are obtained in the parameter space of equation (15) for SNAP-like datasets drawn from a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model and a tracker model with potential $`V(Q)Q^2`$. The figure shows the confidence contours that might be expected for one year and three years of SNAP data. No priors have been imposed on either of the parameters. In the case of quintessence, with one year of data it is possible to constrain $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}1`$ with $`68\%`$ confidence, and with three years of data it is possible to do so with $`99\%`$ confidence. Since $`w_Q=1`$ for a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model, a cosmological constant is ruled out at the same confidence levels. The fact that we can use SNAP to distinguish between a cosmological constant and quintessence is very encouraging. So far, however, we have only shown this for the specific case of an inverse-power-law quintessence model. It is not too surprising that $`w_Q`$ can be distinguished from $`1`$ in this case, since this model has present-day equation of state $`w_Q(0)0.6`$, relatively far from $`1`$, when $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.7`$. It will be interesting to see if we can obtain similar results for a broader range of quintessence models—especially those with lower values of $`w_Q`$.

To test this, we consider two different tracker potentials. The first is a potential inspired by supergravity (Brax & Martin, 1999),

$$V(Q)=\frac{M^{4+P}}{Q^P}\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{Q}{M_{Pl}}\right)^2\right].$$
(16)
This potential exhibits tracker behaviour for $`P11`$. It also tends to produce lower $`w_Q`$ than the inverse-power-law potential—for example for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.7`$, we have $`w_Q(0)0.8`$. We also consider a quintessence model with a potential given by the sum of two power laws,

$$V(Q)=\frac{A}{Q^{P_1}}+\frac{B}{Q^{P_2}}$$
(17)
where $`P_2=P_1\times 10^6`$. Because the powers of the two terms differ by six orders of magnitude, this potential tends to produce values for the equation of state that are very close to $`1`$ at the present epoch—when $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.7`$, we have $`w_Q(0)0.98`$. This type of potential was introduced by Steinhardt et al. (1999) to show that a very contrived potential is necessary for a tracker model to produce values of $`w_Q(0)`$ very close to $`1`$. We use this potential here to explore the power of SNAP to distinguish quintessence from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ models in the extreme case when $`w_Q(0)1`$. Hereafter, we shall refer to simple inverse-power-law quintessence as a PL model, to the supergravity-inspired quintessence model as a SUGRA model, and to the sum-of-two-power-laws model as a 2PL model.

Fig. 10 shows the likelihood contours that we obtain from SNAP-like datasets drawn from each of these models. In neither case is it possible to constrain $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}1`$; hence it is not possible to distinguish either of these models from a cosmological constant using SNAP data alone. (Our results for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, PL, and SUGRA models are in good agreement with the results of Weller & Albrecht (2001, 2002).) Apparently SNAP data, on their own, can only be used to rule out $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ models in cases where $`w_Q`$ differs significantly from $`1`$. In section 4, though, we found that applying a prior probability distribution on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ helped to reduce the errors on all the parameters of our fitting function. Using such prior information might help us to distinguish a larger set of quintessence models from a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model. We shall explore this possibility next.

But first we note that there is a discrepancy between our quoted values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ and $`w_Q(0)`$ and the likelihood contours shown in figures 9 and 10. For example, for the SUGRA model, we get present-day parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.7`$ and $`w_Q(0)0.8`$, but the likelihood analysis gives best-fitting parameters of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.6`$ and $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}0.95`$. Similarly, for the PL model, the actual parameters are $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.7`$ and $`w_Q(0)0.6`$, but the best-fitting parameters are $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q0.6`$ and $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}=0.7`$.

It is important to keep in mind, though, that equation (15) is nothing more than a fitting function to the coordinate distance. In this context, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ and $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}`$ are merely fitting parameters, and our likelihood analysis simply finds the parameters that produce the best fit to the data. Because our fitting function is only an approximation to $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$, the best-fitting parameters may turn out to be significantly different from the actual physical parameters they represent. (In the present example, the best fit is given by reducing both $`w_Q(0)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ from their actual values.) Nevertheless, these parameters could still be used to rule out a cosmological constant. In the case of a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model, the fitting function is an *exact* representation of $`\stackrel{~}{r}(z)`$, so we would expect the best-fit parameters to match the actual parameters. Thus if we rule out $`w_Q=1`$, we can say definitively that we are *not* dealing with a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model. But it is important to recognize that we can say nothing definitive about the actual values of the parameters, since the best-fit parameters do not necessarily reproduce them.

Now we return to the idea of imposing prior probability distributions on our likelihood analysis. As in section 4, we assume that we have measured $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M=1\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ with Gaussian error $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}`$ about its true value. In view of the issues just discussed, it is important to say clearly what we are constraining here. The maximum likelihood parameters in this case are the parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ and $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}`$ that would be most likely to produce the SNAP data if $`w_Q`$ were constant, given what we already know about $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$. Because we would still expect these most likely parameters to be the correct parameters in the case of a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model, ruling out $`w_Q^{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}}=1`$ is still tantamount to ruling out the cosmological constant. As shown Figure 11, then, it is possible to rule out a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model with $`99\%`$ confidence for the case of a PL quintessence model, by combining a year of SNAP data and a measurement of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.05`$. In the case of the SUGRA model, we can rule out the cosmological constant at $`99\%`$ confidence if we have $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.015`$. This is encouraging: it appears that using SNAP in concert with other cosmological observations will provide a strong test of the basic properties of dark energy.

It is important to note, however, that the data cannot distinguish the 2PL quintessence model from a cosmological constant model, even with a very good measurement of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$. Although this model is highly contrived, it is clear that SNAP will not be able to distinguish any arbitrary quintessence model from a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model using equation (15) as a fitting function. As $`w_Q`$ approaches $`1`$, quintessence becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish from a cosmological constant model, and our only hope for distinguishing quintessence from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is to probe the evolution of $`w_Q`$ with redshift.

### 6.2 Three-parameter fits

To probe the evolution of $`w_Q`$ with redshift, we return to the three-parameter fitting function that we used previously for reconstruction, equation (13), which was based on the approximate equation of state $`w_Q^{app}(z)=w_Q(0)\alpha \mathrm{ln}(1+z)`$. As we saw in Fig. 4, to get a tight constraint on $`\alpha `$ it was necessary to impose a Gaussian prior on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ with an optimistic value for $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}`$ of something like $`0.015`$. Fig. 12 shows the likelihood contours that would be expected for one and three years of SNAP data combined with such a prior. We consider the same three quintessence models as before. Only in the case of the SUGRA model is it possible to constrain $`\alpha `$ to be nonzero—and here only at $`68\%`$ confidence, and only for a full, three-year dataset.

It is hardly surprising that $`\alpha 0`$ is more readily shown for the SUGRA model. In this model, $`w_Q`$ is evolving relatively rapidly at at late times, with $`\alpha =0.43`$, as opposed to $`0.11`$ for the PL model and $`0.01`$ for the 2PL model. Clearly, SNAP will be much less powerful for distinguishing evolving from non-evolving dark energy models than it is for distinguishing quintessence from $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ models. In most cases, then, it appears that two-parameter fitting functions will be more useful than three-parameter fitting functions for constraining cosmology with supernova data.

## 7 Long-term prospects for probing quintessence

So far we have seen that SNAP will be a powerful tool for determining properties of the dark energy. But even with very good prior information, it may not be possible to distinguish between two very similar-looking models, such as a 2PL model and a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model. It has been shown that supernova data do a better job of constraining some cosmological parameters when the survey is extended to higher redshifts, $`z>2`$ (Efstathiou, 1999). Although SNAP will only track supernovae out to redshifts of $`z=1.7`$, it could be possible in the long term to supplement SNAP data with higher-redshift data from powerful new telescopes like the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). To get some rough idea of the usefulness of such observations, we simulate them by adding a sample of 30 supernovae at redshift $`z=3`$ to our SNAP-like datasets.

Fig. 13 shows the improvement that can be made on a two-parameter likelihood analysis for the SUGRA model, when we supplement SNAP data with high-redshift observations. Whereas previously it was impossible to rule out a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model using SNAP data alone, as shown in Fig. 13, when we supplement a three-year SNAP dataset with high-redshift supernovae, we can rule out a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model with $`68\%`$ confidence, with no prior knowledge of the parameters. We see a similar shift in the confidence regions for the PL and 2PL models, although the 2PL model still cannot be distinguished from a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model.

In the case of a three-parameter fit, the effect of adding a high-redshift sample is smaller, but it can still be important in some cases. Fig. 14 shows the likelihood contours that would be expected in the case of the 2PL quintessence model, for a three-parameter fit to a three-year dataset, imposing a Gaussian prior on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ with $`\sigma _{\mathrm{\Omega }_M}=0.015`$. The high-redshift observations do not affect the confidence contours strongly enough to indicate a nonzero $`\alpha `$, but they do constrain $`w_Q(0)1`$ at $`68\%`$ confidence, ruling out a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model at that confidence level. Obtaining this result is somewhat surprising, since it was not possible to do so with a two-parameter fit. The reason it is possible here is that, since our three-parameter fitting function allows $`w_Q`$ to vary with $`z`$, the parameters $`w_Q(0)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_Q`$ are likely to be more accurately constrained, whereas the two-parameter fit required an offset in the best-fit parameters to make up for the $`z`$-dependence of $`w_Q`$. Three-parameter fitting functions, then, may be more useful than two-parameter fitting functions in some cases, even when they cannot be used to discern the evolution of $`w_Q`$.

Finally, we note that Fig. 14 assumes a very optimistic observational scenario. To distinguish the 2PL model from a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ model, we must have three years of SNAP data with negligible systematic errors, plus thirty high-redshift supernovae from NGST, an independent measurement of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ with $`5\%`$ errors, and extremely good evidence that the universe is flat. But although an observational programme that would lead to constraints like those in Fig. 14 is ambitious, it is certainly not impossible. The simulated SNAP dataset we used in this analysis has realistic statistical errors, and systematics are expected to be negligible in comparison (Levi et al., 2000). NGST, when launched, will almost certainly see at least some additional high-redshift supernovae. Also, as we have noted, our assumed prior constraints on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ are realistic. Furthermore, the MAP and Planck satellites should provide very precise measurements of the curvature of the universe \[to within a percent or so for Planck (Tauber et al., 2000)\]. The first steps have been taken toward observations that could lead to a measurement like Fig. 14. Although this figure represents a best-case scenario, it also represents an achievable long-term goal.

## 8 Conclusion

In this study we have investigated the prospects for probing the dark energy, particularly quintessence, with observations of type Ia supernovae. We have examined tests for individual quintessence models (reconstruction) as well as tests that address more general questions about the dark energy (parameter estimation by likelihood analysis). In both cases, we find that data from the proposed SNAP satellite will provide important information about dark energy, either alone or when combined with other cosmological observations.

In the case of reconstruction it will be important to take extreme care in choosing a function to fit SNAP’s measurement of the distance-redshift relation $`r(z)`$. By using a fitting function based on a physical approximation to the coordinate distance, it is possible to produce accurate and reliable reconstructions from SNAP data combined with independent cosmological observations. Such reconstructions might provide useful observational constraints as we construct models for the dark energy.

To answer our basic questions about the nature of the dark energy, however, cosmological parameter estimation may be more useful. If the dark energy equation of state is significantly different from $`1`$, the SNAP data alone will be able to rule out the cosmological constant. Moreover, combining the SNAP constraints with independent measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ will allow us to rule out $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ models for all but the most extreme cases of quintessence, when $`w_Q`$ is very close to $`1`$. SNIa are less likely to provide evidence that $`w_Q`$ is evolving. Even combining SNAP data with very precise measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$ will only provide evidence of an evolving $`w_Q`$ in cases of extremely strong evolution. Three-parameter fits may still be useful, however: because they allow a more accurate determination of $`w_Q(0)`$ than two-parameter fits, they may be able to rule out a cosmological constant in cases where a two-parameter fit cannot do so.

The prospects are good for probing dark energy with SNIa data. SNAP, by itself, may be able to constrain cosmological parameters with enough precision to rule out the cosmological constant as a dark energy candidate. However, it is when SNIa data are combined with other observations that their true value becomes apparent. When combined with expected future measurements of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_M`$, for example, SNAP data provide much stronger constraints on the quintessence equation of state and may be able to produce useful reconstructions of the equation of state and quintessence potential. In each of these cases, the combination of several observations tells us much more than any of the observations by itself, and in each case, the SNIa observations are an essential component. The measurements that may answer our questions about dark energy over the next decade or two constitute a difficult and impressive observational programme. Improved supernova observations are crucial to its success.

## Acknowledgments

BFG acknowledges the generous support of the Herchel Smith fellowship from Williams College, USA.


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# Fracture toughness in fibrous materials

## I Introduction

Research needs in fracture mechanics are quite varied and still pose a formidable task for engineers and scientists. When a load sufficiently large is applied on a material, it fractures in a process that depends on several factors, such as, the external conditions (temperature, traction velocity, humidity etc.). The fracture of a material can be classified in two categories, brittle and ductile . These two categories are not solely functions of the material properties but depend also on temperature and traction velocity. The brittle fracture generally occurs at low temperatures and/or high velocities, while the ductile fracture occurs at high temperatures and/or low velocities.

When a material is pulled by an uniaxial force $`F`$, it experiences a displacement $`\delta `$. The force-displacement diagram provides important information about the fracture process and can be easily obtained experimentally. In this diagram one can detect a linear region in which the force $`F`$ increases proportionally to the displacement $`\delta `$, obeying Hooke’s law. In this region, the mechanical response of a material is reversible, i.e., if the force is reset to zero the material returns to exactly the original shape. It is also observed that, if the force is increased beyond a certain critical value, the material enters the plastic region, where it does not return to the initial position when the force vanishes. If the rupture of the material occurs in the linear region it is called brittle and if the fracture occurs in the plastic region it is called ductile. Another important information obtained from the $`F`$ versus $`\delta `$ diagram is the fracture toughness, i.e., the amount of energy needed to fracture the material. The fracture toughness can be evaluated from the area below the $`F`$ versus $`\delta `$ curve. Experimental results  show that the brittle fracture consumes less energy than the ductile fracture.

The fracture properties of disordered materials is a subject of great interest because the presence of disorder is an important feature that determines the rupture process . To analyze the rupture process of disordered materials several models were proposed, among which is the well-known fiber bundle model (FBM) , created from the pioneer work of Daniels . In the FBM a set of fibers is distributed on a supporting lattice forming a fiber bundle. The fiber bundle is fixed at both extremes by two parallel plates, one of them is fixed and on the other an external load is applied. The FBM can be time independent (static FBM)  or not (dynamic FBM) . In the static model, to each fiber of the bundle is assigned a strength threshold from a probability distribution and if the applied load exceeds this threshold value the fiber breaks. In the dynamic model, each fiber is assumed to have a lifetime under a given load history, and it breaks because of fatigue. An important factor in the definition of the FBM is the load-sharing rules, which describe how the load of a broken fiber is transferred to the unbroken ones. In equal load sharing (ELS) models the load carried by a broken fiber is equally distributed among the unbroken fibers of the bundle. In local load sharing (LLS) the load of a broken fiber is transferred only to its nearest neighbors.

In 1994 Bernardes and Moreira introduced an equal load sharing FBM to simulate fractures in fibrous materials that is sensitive to external conditions, traction velocity and temperature . In this work they obtained fracture energy (toughness) versus temperature diagrams for several traction velocities. Then, they concluded that the higher the traction velocity, the higher is the fracture toughness of the process. These results indicate that a brittle fracture consumes more energy than a ductile one, in marked disagreement with the experimental results. In this paper, a FBM with local load sharing is studied in order to analyze the rupture process of a fibrous material pulled by a force $`F`$ with a constant velocity $`v`$. The main goal is to obtain the force-displacement $`F(\delta )`$ diagram for several traction velocities $`v`$ and evaluate the fracture toughness involved in the rupture process. It is investigated also how the fracture toughness $`K_c`$ changes with the traction velocity $`v`$ and with the temperature $`t`$.

## II Model

The present model was inspired in the one studied by Bernardes and Moreira . It consists of a bundle of $`N_0`$ parallel fibers, all with the same elastic constant, $`k`$, distributed on a unidimensional lattice. The fiber bundle is fixed at both extremes by two parallel plates, one of them is fixed and the other pulled by an uniaxial force $`F`$ with a constant velocity $`v`$. The force $`F`$ on the fiber bundle is defined as

$$F=Nk\delta ,$$
(1)
where $`\delta `$ is the displacement and $`N`$ is the number of unbroken fibers. At each time step the bundle experience an increase $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta =v\times \tau `$ in the displacement, where in our units $`\tau =1`$. In the model presented here the fiber failure probability depends on the applied load $`\sigma `$. The load $`(\sigma =F/N)`$ is the external force $`F`$ on the bundle divided by $`N`$, the total number of unbroken fibers in the bundle, therefore, $`\sigma =k\delta `$. Since the model is of LLS type, an unbroken fiber i supports a load $`\sigma _i`$ given by

$$\sigma _i=(1+\frac{j}{2})\sigma ,$$
(2)
where $`j`$ is the number of broken fibers on both sides of the fiber i. The failure probability of a fiber $`i`$ is given by a Weibull distribution usually used in materials science

$$P_i(\sigma _i)=1\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{(\sigma _i)^\rho v}{t}\right],$$
(3)
where $`t`$ is temperature, $`\rho `$ is the Weibull modulus, which controls the degree of disorder in the system, and $`v`$ is the traction velocity. This definition of the failure probability is different from that used by Bernardes and Moreira  that computed the failure probability from the elastic energy of a fiber.

At the beginning of the simulations all fibers are entire and submitted to the same load $`\sigma `$ ($`j=0`$). At each time step fibers are randomly chosen from a set of $`N_q=qN_o`$ unbroken fibers. The number $`q`$ represents a percentage of fibers and allow us to work with any system size. Then, using Eqs. (2) and (3), the fiber failure probability $`P_i`$ is evaluated and compared with a random number $`r`$ in the interval \[0,1). If $`r<P_i`$ the fiber breaks and then the neighboring unbroken fibers are tested. This procedure describes the propagation of a crack through the fiber bundle in the direction perpendicular to the applied force. The process of propagation stops when the test of the probability does not allow rupture of any other fiber on the border of the crack or when the crack meets another already formed crack. The same cascade propagation is attempted by choosing another fiber of the set $`N_q`$. After all the $`N_q`$ fibers have been tested, the bundle is pulled to a new displacement $`\mathrm{\Delta }\delta `$ and all the rupture process is restarted. The simulation terminates when all the fibers of the bundle are broken, i.e., when the bundle is divided into two parts.

## III Results

In order to verify the influence of the temperature $`t`$ and velocity $`v`$ in the rupture process of a material, the simulations were performed considering $`N_0=1\times 10^4`$ fibers, elastic constant $`k=1`$, and Weibull modulus $`\rho =2`$. The simulations were averaged over 1000 statistically independent samples.

Initially, the force-displacement diagrams were obtained in order to verifiy the influence of temperature $`t`$ and velocity $`v`$ on the fracture process. Figure 1 shows the force-displacement diagram $`F(\delta )`$ for three velocities $`v`$ and two different temperatures $`t`$. In Fig.1 (a) the results obtained for $`t=0.5`$ are shown. Note that for $`v=0.4`$ the relation between the force $`F`$ and the displacement $`\delta `$ is purely linear. This behavior is characteristic of a brittle fracture, where the rupture occurs due to the appearance of big cracks in the material. For low and intermediate velocities the relation between the force $`F`$ and the displacement $`\delta `$ is not purely linear and in this case the fracture occurs in the brittle-ductile transition or in the ductile region. From Fig.1 (a) one can see that the lower the velocity, the greater the area below the force-displacement curve.

In Fig.1 (b) the results were obtained for a temperature $`t=4.0`$. Now, for any velocity $`v`$, the displacement diagram is not purely linear, i.e., for this temperature and these sets of velocities the fracture will not be brittle. In order to better understand the influence of the temperature $`t`$ and velocity $`v`$ on fracture process, we will discuss how the fracture toughness $`K_c`$ is influenced by the temperature $`t`$ and the velocity $`v`$.

Figure 2 shows a log-log plot of the fracture toughness $`K_c`$ as a function of the temperature $`t`$ for three different velocities, $`v=0.002`$, $`v=0.02`$, and $`v=0.05`$. Note that the fracture toughness $`K_c`$ increases linearly with the increase of the temperature $`t`$, indicating a power law

$$K_ct^\alpha ,$$
(4)
where $`\alpha `$ is an exponent that depends on the velocity. So, the higher the temperature $`t`$, the more energy will be absorbed before a catastrophic rupture occurs. Also, Fig. 2(a) shows that the higher the velocity $`v`$, the lower the fracture toughness $`K_c`$, i.e., a smaller quantity of energy will be spent in the fracture process. In Fig. 3 this fact is shown more clearly. It shows a log-log diagram of the fracture toughness $`K_c`$ versus the velocity $`v`$ for three temperatures. Note that the fracture toughness decreases with the increase of the velocity.

The results obtained agree with experimental data obtained in fracture mechanics . It is well known that the failure of materials has a strong dependence on temperature and velocity, for example, as is the case for the failure behavior of polymers. At very low temperatures they fracture brittle and consume little energy during the rupture process . When the temperature is increased above of the critical temperature $`t_c`$, the polymer undergoes a transition to rubber-like behavior in which the material can be elastically stretched over several times its initial size. In this region the fracture process is slow and consumes very much energy. Also, the rupture behavior of polymers is strongly dependent on the speed in which the elongation takes place.

## IV Conclusion

In conclusion, we studied a model for fracture on fibrous materials in (1+1) dimensions that simulates a rupture process sensitive to temperature $`t`$ and to velocity $`v`$. It is well known that the fracture toughness, i.e., the energy (work) consumed to break the material is strongly dependent on temperature and on traction velocity. At low temperatures and/or high velocities the fracture toughness is lower than that in high temperatures and/or low velocities.

In Ref.  Bernardes and Moreira, used a fiber bundle model for which the fracture toughness is sensitive to temperature $`t`$ and to velocity $`v`$. However, their results do not agree with experimental observations. In the present paper, it was studied a similar model to the one used by Bernades and Moreira  and the force-displacement diagrams for three different velocities and two temperatures were obtained. In these diagrams, one can observe two regions dependent on temperature $`t`$ and velocity $`v`$, an elastic and a plastic region. In the elastic region the force $`F`$ is proportional to displacement $`\delta `$. In the plastic region the force $`F`$ is not linearly proportional to the displacement $`\delta `$ and with the increase in $`\delta `$ it reaches a maximum value, beyond which it decreases. The area below the force-displacement curve give us the toughness $`K_c`$ and depends on the temperature and velocity. The results obtained in this work show that the fracture toughness $`K_c`$ increases with the increase of the temperature $`t`$ and decreases with the increase of the velocity $`v`$. These results are in agreement with the experimental observations.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks M. L. Martins, M. S. Couto, and J. A. Redinz for helpful criticism of the manuscript and the kind hospitality of the Departamento de Física, UFMG. This work was supported by FAPEMIG (Brazilian agency).