Non-parametric reconstruction of dark energy and cosmic expansion from the Pantheon compilation of type Ia supernovae

Abstract: The equation of state (EoS) of dark energy plays an important role in the evolution of the universe and arouses great interests in recent years. With the progress on observational technique, precise constraint on the EoS of dark energy becomes possible. In this paper, we reconstruct the EoS of dark energy and cosmic expansion using Gaussian processes (GP) from the most up-to-date Pantheon compilation of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), which consists of 1048 finely calibrated SNe Ia. The reconstructed EoS of dark energy has large uncertainty due to its dependence on the second order derivative of the construction. Adding the direct measurements of Hubble parameters $H(z)$ as an additional constraint on the first order derivative can partially reduce the uncertainty, but is still not precise enough to distinguish between evolving and constant dark energy. Besides, the results heavily rely on the prior of Hubble constant $H_0$. The $H_0$ value inferred from SNe+$H(z)$ without prior is $H_0=70.5\pm 0.5~{\textrm{km}~\textrm{s}^{-1}~\textrm{Mpc}^{-1}}$. Moreover, the matter density $\Omega_M$ has an unnegligible effect on the reconstruction of dark energy. Therefore, more accurate determinations on $H_0$ and $\Omega_M$ are needed to tightly constrain the EoS of dark energy.