The First Constraint from SDSS Galaxy–Galaxy Weak Lensing Measurements on Interacting Dark Energy Models

We combine constraints from linear and nonlinear scales, for the first time, to study the interaction between dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE). We devise a novel N-body simulation pipeline for cosmological models beyond ΛCDM. This pipeline is fully self-consistent and opens a new window to study the nonlinear structure formation in general phenomenological interacting DE models. By comparing our simulation results with the SDSS galaxy–galaxy weak lensing measurements, we are able to constrain the strength of interaction between DE and DM. Compared with the previous studies using linear examinations, we point to plausible improvements on the constraints of interaction strength by using small-scale information from weak lensing. This improvement is mostly due to the sensitivity of weak lensing measurements on nonlinear structure formation at low redshift. With this new pipeline, it is possible to look for smoking gun signatures of DM–DE interaction.