Resolving the cosmological missing energy problem

Some form of missing energy may account for the difference between the observed cosmic matter density and the critical density. Two leading candidates are a cosmological constant and quintessence (a time-varying, inhomogeneous component with negative pressure). We show that an ideal, full-sky cosmic background anisotropy experiment may not be able to distinguish the two, even when non-linear effects due to gravitational lensing are included. Because of this ambiguity, microwave background experiments alone may not determine the matter density or Hubble constant very precisely. We further show that degeneracy may remain even after considering classical cosmological tests and measurements of large scale structure.