On (non-)dynamical dark energy

Abstract: The current Universe is composed by a mixture of relativistic species, baryonic matter, dark matter and dark energy which evolve in a non-trivial way at perturbative level. An advanced description of the cosmological dynamics should include non-standard features beyond the simplistic approach idealized by the standard cosmology in which cosmic components do not interact, are adiabatic and dissipationless. We promote a full perturbative analysis of linear scalar perturbations of a non-interacting cosmological model containing baryons, dark matter (both pressureless) and a scalar field allowing for the presence of relative entropic perturbations between the three fluids. Assuming an effective scalar-field sound speed equal to one and neglecting anisotropic stresses we establish a new set of equations for the scalar cosmological perturbations. As a consequence of this new approach, we show that tiny departures from a constant scalar field equation of state $w_S=-1$ damage structure formation in a non-acceptable manner. Hence, by strongly constraining $w_S$ our results provide compelling evidence in favor of the standard cosmological model and rule out a large class of dynamical dark energy models