Quintessential Cosmological Tensions

Understand

Several cosmological tensions have emerged in light of recent data, most notably in the inferences of the parameters $H_0$ and $\sigma_8$.

• We explore the possibility of alleviating both these tensions {\it simultaneously} by means of the Albrecht-Skordis ``quintessence'' potential.
• The field can reduce the size of the sound horizon $r_s^*$ while concurrently suppressing the power in matter density fluctuations before it comes to dominate the energy density budget today.
• Interestingly, this rich set of dynamics is governed entirely by one free parameter that is of $\mathcal{O}(10)$ in Planck units.