Early Quintessence and the CMB

We examine the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy for signatures of early quintessence dark energy -- a non-negligible quintessence energy density during the recombination and structure formation eras. In contrast to a $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, early quintessence leads to a larger suppression of structure growth. Because of this influence on the clustering of dark matter and the baryon-photon fluid, we may expect to find trace signals in the CMB and the mass fluctuation power spectrum. In detail, we demonstrate that suppressed clustering power on small length-scales, as suggested by the combined Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) / CMB / large scale structure data set, is characteristic of early quintessence.