Dark energy parameterizations and their effect on dark halos

Abstract

There is a plethora of dark energy parameterizations that can fit current supernovae Ia data. However, this data is only sensitive to redshifts up to order one. In fact, many of these parameterizations break down at higher redshifts. In this paper we study the effect of dark energy models on the formation of dark halos. We select a couple of dark energy parameterizations which are sensible at high redshifts and compute their effect on the evolution of density perturbations in the linear and non-linear regimes. Using the Press-Schechter formalism we show that they produce distinguishable signatures in the number counts of dark halos. Therefore, future observations of galaxy clusters can provide complementary constraints on the behavior of dark energy.