Model Selection Using Cosmic Chronometers with Gaussian Processes

Abstract

The use of Gaussian Processes with a measurement of the cosmic expansion rate based solely on the observation of cosmic chronometers provides a completely cosmology-independent reconstruction of the Hubble constant H(z) suitable for testing different models. The corresponding dispersion sigma_H is smaller than ~9% over the entire redshift range (0 < z < 2) of the observations, rivaling many kinds of cosmological measurements available today. We use the reconstructed H(z) function to test six different cosmologies, and show that it favours the R_h=ct universe, which has only one free parameter (i.e., H_0) over other models, including Planck LCDM. The parameters of the standard model may be re-optimized to improve the fits to the reconstructed H(z) function, but the results have smaller p-values than one finds with R_h=ct.

20 pages, 24 figures, 3 tables. Matches final published version in JCAP