Converging towards a cosmological model?

BEFORE 11FEb 2003: Joint constraints from large scale structure, Cosmic microwave background, and supernovae. Boomerang data from de Bernardis et al. 2000 Supernovae data from the Supernova Cosmology Project (Perlmutter et al 1999), 2dF data from the bispectrum analysis of Verde et al. 2001.

The three independent datasets agree to better than one sigma.

AFTER: now the orange likelihood surface is WMAP+CBI+ACBAR+HST constraints -1 and 2 sigma joint confidence levels (Spergel et al. 2003). The blue constraint is always the 2dF constraint of Verde et al 2002, only I have changed some numbers (e.g. \beta after seeing the results from the full catalog (Hawkings et al 2002). This figure will appear in some proceedings.

Status in 2004

2004: The New Supernovae constraints from Riess et al. 2004. The orange likelihood surface is WMAP+CBI+ACBAR (no prior on the Hubble constant)

2004: Same as above but with superimposed the CMB constraints+ HST key project constraint on the Hubble parameter.

So what's dark energy? How do we know that it is a cosmological constant? (we do not know...)

Omega matter versus equation of state parameter for dark energy. Likelihood contors for the 2004 SN data are green, WMAP(1st year)+CBI+ACBAR is orange, WMAP+CBI+ACBAR+2dFGRS dark turquoise.