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Evidence for a positive cosmological constant from flows of galaxies and distant supernovae

Nature volume 401, pages 252–254 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Recent observations1,2 of high-redshift supernovae seem to suggest that the global geometry of the Universe may be affected by a ‘cosmological constant’, which acts to accelerate the expansion rate with time. But these data by themselves still permit an open universe of low mass density and no cosmological constant. Here we derive an independent constraint on the lower bound to the mass density, based on deviations of galaxy velocities from a smooth universal expansion3,4,5,6,7. This constraint rules out a low-density open universe with a vanishing cosmological constant, and together the two favour a nearly flat universe in which the contributions from mass density and the cosmological constant are comparable. This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with ‘common wisdom’.

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Figure 1: Constraints in the Ωm–ΩΛ plane, showing relative confidence limits of 68, 90 and 99%.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Mark III and SFI teams, including D. Burstein, S. Courteau, L. N. daCosta, A. Eldar, S. M. Faber, W. Freudling, R. Giovanelli, M. P. Haynes, T. Kolatt, J. J. Salzer, M. A. Strauss, G. Wagner, J. A. Willick, A. Yahil and S. Zaroubi. We thank G. R. Blumenthal and O. Lahav for discussions. This research was supported by US–Israel Binational Science Foundation and Israel Science Foundation grants at the Hebrew University and by DOE and NASA grants at Fermilab.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Racah Institute for Physics, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel

    Idit Zehavi & Avishai Dekel

  2. NASA/Fermilab Astrophysics Group, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 60510-0500, Box 500, Batavia, Illinois, USA

    Idit Zehavi

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Correspondence to Idit Zehavi or Avishai Dekel.

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Zehavi, I., Dekel, A. Evidence for a positive cosmological constant from flows of galaxies and distant supernovae. Nature 401, 252–254 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/45748

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