Cosmological Constraints on Interacting Scalar-Field Dark Matter and Early Dark Energy mediated by a Kinetic Kernel
Abstract
In this work, we build a general framework for constraining interacting scalar fields with cosmological observations, applicable to a broad family of scalar--field potentials and interaction kernels. As a representative example, we derive constraints on a model in which dark matter is described by a scalar field ϕ with a quadratic potential and dark energy by a scalar field ψ with the Albrecht--Skordis potential, considering both the uncoupled case and a more general scenario in which the exchange of energy occurs through an interaction kernel proportional to the kinetic energies of the scalar fields Q ∝ ϕ̇2 ψ̇2. The scalar field parameters are constrained by using \textit{Planck} 2018 CMB data, DESI BAO measurements, Ly-α forest constraints, and SNeIa observations, and we find that the scalar field parameters are driven toward their ΛCDM-like limits; the early dark energy fraction is largely suppressed, and the SFDM mass is bounded to values for which the field behaves close to cold dark matter. In the interacting case, the results show no significant preference for the transfer of energy between dark energy and dark matter at 95\% C.L. In general, the model keeps H0 close to the Planck-ΛCDM range and provides best-fit χ2 values comparable to those of the corresponding ΛCDM fits.
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BibTeX
@misc{garciaarroyo2026cosmological,
title = {{Cosmological Constraints on Interacting Scalar-Field Dark Matter and Early Dark Energy mediated by a Kinetic Kernel}},
author = {Gabriela Garcia-Arroyo and L. Arturo Ureña-López and J. Alberto Vázquez},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.10575},
eprint = {2609.10575},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10575},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Cosmological Constraints on Interacting Scalar-Field Dark Matter and Early Dark Energy mediated by a Kinetic Kernel
AU - Gabriela Garcia-Arroyo
AU - L. Arturo Ureña-López
AU - J. Alberto Vázquez
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/03
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.10575
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.10575
AB - In this work, we build a general framework for constraining interacting scalar fields with cosmological observations, applicable to a broad family of scalar--field potentials and interaction kernels. As a representative example, we derive constraints on a model in which dark matter is described by a scalar field ϕ with a quadratic potential and dark energy by a scalar field ψ with the Albrecht--Skordis potential, considering both the uncoupled case and a more general scenario in which the exchange of energy occurs through an interaction kernel proportional to the kinetic energies of the scalar fields Q ∝ ϕ̇^2 ψ̇^2. The scalar field parameters are constrained by using \textit{Planck} 2018 CMB data, DESI BAO measurements, Ly-α forest constraints, and SNeIa observations, and we find that the scalar field parameters are driven toward their ΛCDM-like limits; the early dark energy fraction is largely suppressed, and the SFDM mass is bounded to values for which the field behaves close to cold dark matter. In the interacting case, the results show no significant preference for the transfer of energy between dark energy and dark matter at 95\% C.L. In general, the model keeps H_0 close to the Planck-ΛCDM range and provides best-fit χ^2 values comparable to those of the corresponding ΛCDM fits.
ER -