Alleviating cosmological tensions with a coupled scalar fields model

In this paper, we investigate the interaction between early dark energy (EDE) and scalar field dark matter, proposing a coupled scalar fields model to address the Hubble tension and S8 tension. While the EDE model successfully alleviates the Hubble tension, it exacerbates the S8 tension. To mitigate the negative impact of EDE, we introduce the interaction between EDE and dark matter. Specifically, we replace cold dark matter with scalar field dark matter, given its capability to suppress structure growth on small scales. We constrained the new model using cosmological observations including the temperature and polarization anisotropy power spectra data of cosmic microwave background radiation from Planck 2018 results, baryon acoustic oscillations measurements extracted from 6dFGS, SDSS, and BOSS, the Pantheon sample of type Ia supernovae, the local distance-ladder data (SH0ES), and the Dark Energy Survey Year-3 data. Employing the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method, we find that this novel model yields best-fit values of H0 and S8 equal to 71.13 km/s/Mpc and 0.8256, respectively. Compared to the Lambda CDM model, the new model alleviates the Hubble tension but still fails to resolve the S8 tension. However, we obtain a smaller value of S8 compared to the result of 0.8316 obtained for EDE model, which mitigates to some extent the shortcoming of the EDE model.

Automated summary

In this paper, the interaction between early dark energy and scalar field dark matter is investigated. A coupled model is proposed to address the tension in Hubble constant and S8 parameter. It is found that while the model alleviates the tension in Hubble constant, it exacerbates the tension in S8 parameter. The introduction of interaction between early dark energy and dark matter is suggested to mitigate the negative impact.