Open Cold Dark Matter Models

Motivated by recent developments in inflationary cosmology indicating the possibility of obtaining genuinely open universes in some models, we compare the predictions of cold dark matter (CDM) models in open universes with a variety of observational information. The spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbation is taken to be scale invariant (spectral index $n=1$), corresponding to a flat inflationary potential. We allow arbitrary variation of the density parameter Ω₀ and the Hubble parameter h, and take full account of the baryon content assuming standard nucleosynthesis. We normalize the power spectrum using the recent analysis of the two year { COBE} DMR data by Górski et al. We then consider a variety of observations, namely the galaxy correlation function, bulk flows, the abundance of galaxy clusters and the abundance of damped Lyman alpha systems. For the last two of these, we provide a new treatment appropriate to open universes. We find that, if one allows an arbitrary h, then a good fit is available for any Ω₀ greater than 0.35, though for Ω₀ close to 1 the required h is alarmingly low. Models with Ω₀ < 0.35 seem unable to fit observations while keeping the universe over $10$ Gyr old; this limit is somewhat higher than that appearing in the literature thus far. If one assumes a value of $h > 0.6$, as favoured by recent measurements, concordance with the data is only possible for the narrow range 0.35 < Ω₀ < 0.55. We have also investigated n ≠ 1; the extra freedom naturally widens the allowed parameter region. Assuming a range $0.9 0.6$ is at most 0.30 < Ω₀ < 0.60.