Cosmographic view on the $H_0$ and $σ_8$ tensions

Abstract: Measurements of the $H_0$ and $\sigma_8$ parameters within the standard cosmological model recently highlighted significant statistical tensions between the cosmic microwave background and low-redshift probes, such as local distance ladder, weak lensing and galaxy clustering surveys. In this work, we frame geometrical distances in a model-independent way by means of cosmographic approximations in the range $z \in (0, 2.3)$ to take into account a robust dataset composed of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), type Ia Supernovae (SN), Cosmic Chronometer (CC) data, and measurements from Redshift Space Distortions (RSD). From the joint analysis BAO\,+\,SN\,+\,CC\,+\,RSD, we find an accuracy of $\sim$1.4\% and $\sim$3.7\% on $H_0$ and $\sigma_8$, respectively. Our result for $H_0$ is at 2$\sigma$ tension with local measurements by the SH0ES team, while our $\sigma_8$ estimate is at 2.6$\sigma$ tension with Planck-CMB analysis. This inference shows a tension statistically smaller when compared to those estimated via the $\Lambda$CDM model. We also find that the jerk parameter can deviate more than 3$\sigma$ from the $\Lambda$CDM prediction. Under the same cosmographic setup, we also present results by considering a SH0ES Gaussian prior on $H_0$ that allows for improved accuracy of the parameter space of the models. The present work brings observational constraints on $H_0$ and $\sigma_8$ into a new model-independent perspective, which differs from the predictions obtained within the $\Lambda$CDM paradigm.