Charting the secrets of dark energy

This dissertation describes three research projects on the topic of dark energy. The first project is an analysis of a scalar eld model of dark energy with an exponential potential using the Dark Energy Task Force (DETF) simulated data models. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling techniques we examine the ability of each simulated datamset to constrain the parameter space of the exponential potential for data sets based on a cosmological constant and a specic exponential scalar eld model. We compare our results with the constraining power calculated by the DETF using their \w0wa" parameterization of the dark energy.