English

Negentropy as Diagnostic of Cosmic Density Fields and Dynamical Dark Energy Models

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-02-03 v1

Abstract

We employ negentropy (JJ), defined as the difference between the information content of a non-Gaussian probability distribution and a Gaussian with identical variance, as an information-theoretic probe of non-Gaussianity in the cosmic density field. We quantify its sensitivity to dynamical dark energy by studying the evolution of J(a)J(a) and its derivatives Γ1(a)\Gamma_1(a) and Γ2(a)\Gamma_2(a) across three parameterisation schemes: CPL, JBP, and BA. We determine the characteristic redshift zNGz_{NG}, marking the epoch of maximal non-Gaussian structure formation, and the turnaround redshift zTAz_{TA}, when information production transitions due to dark-energy domination, finding zNG0.81z_{NG}\sim0.81 and zTA0.18z_{TA}\sim0.18 for Λ\LambdaCDM. Our diagnostics clearly discriminate between thawing and freezing quintessence models and phantom dark energy at low redshifts. Thawing models show small departures from Λ\LambdaCDM, freezing models display higher zTAz_{TA}, while phantom models exhibit lower zTAz_{TA}, reflecting late-time evolution. We provide a practical prescription for measuring negentropy from discrete galaxy distributions, establishing a framework that can be applied to simulations and observations. This information-theoretic approach offers a robust and complementary tool for probing dark energy dynamics, enabling sensitive discrimination between evolving and cosmological-constant scenarios.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.02339,
  title  = {Negentropy as Diagnostic of Cosmic Density Fields and Dynamical Dark Energy Models},
  author = {Suman Sarkar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.02339},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

25 pages (including appendix), 5 figures, 4 tables. Comments and suggestions are welcome