Determining the equation of state of dark energy from angular size of compact radio sources and X-ray gas mass fraction of galaxy clusters

Abstract

Using recent measurements of angular size of high-z milliarcsecond compact radio sources compiled by Gurvits, Kellermann and Frey (1999) and X-ray gas mass fraction of galaxy clusters published by Allen et al. (2002,2003), we explore their bounds on the equation of state, omega_x = p_x/rho_x, of the dark energy, whose existence has been congruously suggested by various cosmological observations. We relaxe the usual constraint omega_x >= -1, and find that combining the two databases yields a nontrivial lower bound on omega_x. Under the assumption of a flat universe, we obtain a bound -2.22 < omega_x < -0.62 at 95.4% confidence level. The 95.4% confidence bound goes to -1 =< omega_x < -0.60 when the constraint omega_x >= -1 is imposed.

Comments: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A