Reconciling CMB and structure growth measurements with dark energy interactions

Abstract: We study a coupled quintessence model with pure momentum exchange and present the effects of such an interaction on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and matter power spectrum. For a wide range of negative values of the coupling parameter $\beta$ structure growth is suppressed and the model can reconcile the tension between Cosmic Microwave Background observations and structure growth inferred from cluster counts. We find that this model is as good as $\Lambda$CDM for CMB and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data, while the addition of cluster data makes the model strongly preferred, improving the best-fit $\chi^2$-value by more than $16$.