A comprehensive comparison of cosmological models from latest observational data

Abstract

We investigate in detail some popular cosmological models in light of the latest observational data, including the Union2.1 supernovae compilation, the baryon acoustic oscillation measurements from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey, the cosmic microwave background information from the WMAP 7-year observations along with the observational Hubble parameter data. Based on the model selection statistics such as the Akaike and the Bayesian information criterias, we compare different models to assess the worth of them. We do not assume a flat universe in the fitting. Our results show that the concordance $\Lambda$CDM model remains the best one to explain the data, while the DGP model is clearly disfavored by the data. Among these models, those whose parameters can reduce themselves to the $\Lambda$CDM model provide good fits to the data. These results indicate that for the current data, there is no obvious evidence supporting any more complex models over the simplest $\Lambda$CDM model.