Dark Energy Constraints and Joint Cosmological Inference from Mutually Inconsistent Observations

Understand

Recent results regarding dark energy are mutually inconsistent under the $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, hinting at the possibility of undiscovered physics.

• However, the currently accepted cosmological parameters come from a joint inference between observational data sets, a process that is formally invalid for inconsistent observations.
• We will show that many problems can arise when using joint inference on disagreeing observations such as significantly overestimated margins of error, high dependencies on priors, and sensitivities to boundary constraints.
• Because we do not know if these inconsistencies arise due to errors in observation, poor statistical techniques, or an improper model, it is difficult to fix these problems.