We study the dynamical properties of dark energy based on a large family of Padé parameterizations for which the dark energy density evolves as the ratio between two poly- nomials in the scale factor of the universe. Using the latest cosmological data we perform a standard likelihood analysis in order to place constraints on the main cosmological param- eters of different Padé models. We find that the basic cosmo- logical parameters, namely (Ω m0 , h, σ 8 ) are practically the same for all Padé parametrizations explored here. Concern- ing the free parameters which are related to dark energy we show that the best-fit values indicate that the equation of state parameter at the present time is in the phantom regime (w < −1); however, we cannot exclude the possibility of w > −1 at 1σ level. Finally, for the current family of Padé parametrizations we test their ability, via AIC, BIC and Jef- freys’ scale, to deviate from ΛCDM cosmology. Among the current Padé parametrizations, the model which contains two dark energy parameters is the one for which a small but non- zero deviation from ΛCDM cosmology is slightly allowed by the AIC test. Moreover, based on Jeffreys’ scale we show that a deviation from ΛCDM cosmology is also allowed and thus the possibility of having a dynamical dark energy in the form of Padé parametrization cannot be excluded.
