Testing Quintessence models with large-scale structure growth

Abstract

We explore the possibility of putting constraints on quintessence models with large-scale structure observations. In particular we compute the linear and second order growth rate of the fluctuations in different flavors of quintessence scenarios. We show that effective models of quintessence (e.g. with a constant equation of state) do not account of the results found in more realistic scenarios. The impact of these results on observational quantities such as the shape of the non-linear power spectrum in weak lensing surveys or the skewness of the convergence field are investigated. It appears that the observational signature of quintessence models are specific and rather large. They clearly cannot be mistaken with a change of (\Omega_{0}).