Degeneracy, Effective Descriptions, and the Possibility of Refuting the Hypothesis by Observations in Contemporary Cosmology
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Preprint. This manuscript is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed. It is currently under consideration for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Modern cosmology operates in a regime where observational precision has reached an unprecedented level, while the physical interpretation of inferred cosmological parameters remains fundamentally ambiguous. This situation has led to a proliferation of frameworks that either extend thestandard cosmological model or reinterpret the effective status of its parameters. In this work, wedevelop a methodological analysis of degeneracy, testability, and physical interpretation in cosmology, focusing on effective descriptions rather than proposals of new fundamental dynamics. Weargue that observational degeneracy with the standard ΛCDM paradigm is not a deficiency but ageneric and expected property of any viable effective framework constrained by finite data qualityand integrated observables. Particular emphasis is placed on the distinction between statisticalpreference and physical causation, as well as on the formulation of meaningful criteria for the possibility of refuting the hypothesis by observations in effective cosmology. The scope of the workis explicitly limited to conceptual, interpretative, and consistency-based aspects of cosmologicalmodeling; no new dynamical equations, parameter fits, or statistical analyses are introduced. Theanalysis is intended to clarify how effective cosmological frameworks should be evaluated withintheir proper domain of applicability and to provide methodological guidance relevant to current andfuture high-precision observational programs Degeneracy in cosmology, effective cosmological frameworks, observational testability, interpretation of cosmological parameters, ΛCDM paradigm, statistical inference, physical causation, observational constraints, model comparison, high-precision cosmology
Author: Kolesnyak, Serge
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7124212707
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