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DOE OSTI2026

Precision Kinematic Sunyaev--Zel'dovich Measurements Across Halo Mass and Redshift with DESI DR2 and ACT DR6: Part I. Luminous Red Galaxies

We present the most precise measurements of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect around luminous red galaxies to date, detecting the signal at $18σ$ significance in both harmonic and configuration space. Our analysis cross-correlates 2.4 million spectroscopic LRGs from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) DR2 sample with Data Release 6 (DR6) of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). We develop a novel harmonic-space cross-correlation approach using momentum-weighted kSZ templates, yielding nearly uncorrelated bandpowers within a framework consistent with other large-scale structure analyses. By incorporating the LRG halo occupation distribution (HOD) and its uncertainty, we convert measured galaxy gas profiles into halo gas profiles and provide generalized Navarro-Frenk-White (GNFW) fitting profiles, providing empirical targets for tuning feedback efficiency in hydrodynamical simulations and for baryonic modeling in large-scale structure analyses. We find strong evidence that gas profiles do not trace dark matter, providing direct evidence for gas redistribution beyond gravitational collapse. Comparing to hydrodynamical simulations, our measurements favor feedback efficiencies exceeding those in the Battaglia profile, suggesting more efficient gas ejection in group-scale halos than previously predicted. Splitting by redshift, we detect the kSZ signal at SNR $\approx 5$--$10$ in each of four bins and find amplitude evolution consistent with the expected decline in mean halo mass at fixed comoving number density. Splitting by stellar mass, we study the scaling of kSZ amplitude with galaxy properties. Together with BGS and ELG measurements in Paper II, these results span $0.1 \lesssim z \lesssim 1.6$ across three galaxy populations, demonstrating the potential of spectroscopic kSZ to map circumgalactic gas and constrain baryonic feedback.

Qu, F. J. [KIPAC, Menlo Park; Stanford U., HEPL; S↗

DOE OSTI2020

Biased tracers in redshift space in the EFTofLSS with exact time dependence

We study the effect of the Einstein-de Sitter (EdS) approximation on the one-loop power spectrum of galaxies in redshift space in the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure. The dark matter density perturbations and velocity divergence are treated with exact time dependence. Splitting the density perturbation into its different temporal evolutions naturally gives rise to an irreducible basis of biases. While, as in the EdS approximation, at each time this basis spans a seven-dimensional space, this space is a slightly different one, and the difference is captured by a single calculable time- and vec k-dependent function. We then compute the redshift-space galaxy one-loop power spectrum with the EdS approximation (P EdS-approx ) and without (P Exact ). For the monopole we find P 0 Exact /P 0 Ed S-approx ~ 1.003 and for the quadrupole P 2 Exact /P 2 EdS-approx ~ 1.007 at z=0.57, and sharply increasing at lower redshifts. Finally, we show that a substantial fraction of the effect remains even after allowing the bias coefficients to shift within a physically allowed range. This suggests that the EdS approximation can only fit the data to a level of precision that is roughly comparable to the precision of the next generation of cosmological surveys. Furthermore, we find that implementing the exact time dependence formalism is not demanding and is easily applicable to data. Both of these points motivate a direct study of this effect on the cosmological parameters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Collective neutrino oscillations on a quantum computer with hybrid quantum-classical algorithm

We simulate the time evolution of collective neutrino oscillations in two-flavor settings on a quantum computer. We explore the generalization of Trotter-Suzuki approximation to time-dependent Hamiltonian dynamics. The trotterization steps are further optimized using the Cartan decomposition of two-qubit unitary gates U ϵ SU(4) in the minimum number of controlled-NOT (CNOT) gates making the algorithm more resilient to the hardware noise. As a result, a more efficient hybrid quantum-classical algorithm is also explored to solve the problem on noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Hickson-like compact groups inhabiting different environments

ABSTRACT Although compact groups (CGs) of galaxies have been envisioned as isolated extremely dense structures in the Universe, it is accepted today that many of them could be not as isolated as thought. In this work, we study Hickson-like CGs identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16 to analyse these systems and their galaxies when embedded in different cosmological structures. To achieve this goal, we identify several cosmological structures where CGs can reside: nodes of filaments, loose groups, filaments, and cosmic voids. Our results indicate that 45 per cent of CGs do not reside in any of these structures, i.e. they can be considered non-embedded or isolated systems. Most of the embedded CGs are found inhabiting loose groups and nodes, while there are almost no CGs residing well inside cosmic voids. Some physical properties of CGs vary depending on the environment they inhabit. CGs in nodes show the largest velocity dispersions, the brightest absolute magnitude of the first-ranked galaxy, and the smallest crossing times, while the opposite occurs in non-embedded CGs. When comparing galaxies in all the environments and galaxies in CGs, CGs show the highest fractions of red/early-type galaxy members in most of the absolute magnitudes ranges. The variation between galaxies in CGs inhabiting one or another environment is not as significant as the differences caused by belonging or not to a CG. Our results suggest a plausible scenario for galaxy evolution in CGs in which both large-scale and local environments play essential roles.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

DOE OSTI2021

Field moment expansion method for interacting bosonic systems

In this work, we introduce a numerical method and python package, https://github.com/andillio/CHiMES, that simulates quantum systems initially well approximated by mean field theory using a second order extension of the classical field approach. We call this the field moment expansion method. In this way, we can accurately approximate the evolution of first and second field moments beyond where the mean field theory breaks down. This allows us to estimate the quantum breaktime of a classical approximation without any calculations external to the theory. We investigate the accuracy of the field moment expansion using a number of well studied quantum test problems. Interacting Bosonic systems similar to scalar field dark matter are chosen as test problems. We find that successful application of this method depends on two conditions: the quantum system must initially be well described by the classical theory, and that the growth of the higher order moments be hierarchical.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

NASA NTRS2016

A Broadband X-Ray Imaging Spectroscopy with High-Angular Resolution: the FORCE Mission

We are proposing FORCE (Focusing On Relativistic universe and Cosmic Evolution) as a future Japan-lead X-ray observatory to be launched in the mid 2020s. Hitomi (ASTRO-H) possesses a suite of sensitive instruments enabling the highest energy-resolution spectroscopy in soft X-ray band, a broadband X-ray imaging spectroscopy in soft and hard X-ray bands, and further high energy coverage up to soft gamma-ray band. FORCE is the direct successor to the broadband X-ray imaging spectroscopy aspect of Hitomi (ASTRO-H) with significantly higher angular resolution. The current design of FORCE defines energy band pass of 1-80 keV with angular resolution of <15" in half-power diameter, achieving a 10 times higher sensitivity above 10 keV compared to any previous missions with simultaneous soft X-ray coverage. Our primary scientific objective is to trace the cosmic formation history by searching for "missing black holes" in various mass-scales: "buried supermassive black holes (SMBHs)" (> 10(exp 4) Stellar Mass) residing in the center of galaxies in a cosmological distance, "intermediate-mass black holes" (10(exp 2)-(10(exp 4) Stellar Mass) acting as the possible seeds from which SMBHs grow, and "orphan stellar-mass black holes" (< 10(exp 2) Stellar Mass) without companion in our Galaxy. In addition to these missing BHs, hunting for the nature of relativistic particles at various astrophysical shocks is also in our scope, utilizing the broadband X-ray coverage with high angular-resolution. FORCE are going to open a new era in these fields. The satellite is proposed to be launched with the Epsilon vehicle that is a Japanese current solid-fuel rocket. FORCE carries three identical pairs of Super-mirror and wide-band X-ray detector. The focal length is currently planned to be 10 m. The silicon mirror with multi-layer coating is our primary choice to achieve lightweight, good angular optics. The detector is a descendant of hard X-ray imager onboard Hitomi (ASTRO-H) replacing its silicon strip detector with SOI-CMOS silicon pixel detector, allowing an extension of the low energy threshold down to 1 keV or even less.

Hard X-ray↗

DOE OSTI2021

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Probing the baryon content of SDSS DR15 galaxies with the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effects

We present high signal-to-noise measurements (up to 12$\sigma$) of the average thermal Sunyaev Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect from optically selected galaxy groups and clusters and estimate their baryon content within a 2.1$^\prime$ radius aperture. Sources from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) DR15 catalog overlap with 3,700 sq. deg. of sky observed by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) from 2008 to 2018 at 150 and 98 GHz (ACT DR5), and 2,089 sq. deg. of internal linear combination component-separated maps combining ACT and $\it{Planck}$ data (ACT DR4). The corresponding optical depths, $\bar{\tau}$, which depend on the baryon content of the halos, are estimated using results from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations assuming an AGN feedback radiative cooling model. We estimate the mean mass of the halos in multiple luminosity bins, and compare the tSZ-based $\bar{\tau}$ estimates to theoretical predictions of the baryon content for a Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We do the same for $\bar{\tau}$ estimates extracted from fits to pairwise baryon momentum measurements of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (kSZ) for the same data set obtained in a companion paper. We find that the $\bar{\tau}$ estimates from the tSZ measurements in this work and the kSZ measurements in the companion paper agree within $1\sigma$ for two out of the three disjoint luminosity bins studied, while they differ by 2-3$\sigma$ in the highest luminosity bin. The optical depth estimates account for one third to all of the theoretically predicted baryon content in the halos across luminosity bins. Potential systematic uncertainties are discussed. The tSZ and kSZ measurements provide a step towards empirical Compton-$\bar{y}$-$\bar{\tau}$ relationships to provide new tests of cluster formation and evolution models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

NASA NTRS1994

Mg II absorption in a sample of 56 steep-spectrum quasars

We present an analysis of the statistical properties of Mg II absorbers found in the spectra of 56 intrinsically faint, steep-spectrum radio quasars. We observe for the first time a significant excess of associated Mg II absorbers over the number expected from cosmologically distributed absorbers. This result is in contrast to previous Mg II surveys in which the QSOs were optically selected. This distinction is similar to the result for associated C IV absorbers, in which intrinsically faint, steep-spectrum quasars show excess associated absorption and intrinsically bright QSOs (both radio-loud and radio-quiet) do not show an excess. From our spectra a statistically complete list of absorption lines is derived, and we find 29 Mg II absorbers, 18 of which have not been previously reported. We also determine several characteristics of the quasar emission lines in our spectra. The Mg II absorber distribution as a function of redshift and equivalent width is calculated both for our sample alone and from our sample combined with spectra from other surveys. For the redshift distribution n(z) = n(1 + z)(exp gamma), we obtain, using the combined sample, the values gamma = 1.11 +/- 0.46 for W(min) = 0.6 A and gamma = 2.47 +/- 0.68 for W(min) = 1.0 A. We find that the distribution fo strong absorbers is inconsistent with no evolution at a confindence level between 2.2 and 2.9 sigma, depending on the deceleration parameter q(sub 0). The deviation from no evolution is similar to what had been previously reported.

Aldcroft, Thomas L.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Pulsar timing anomalies: a window into baryon number violation

Here, we investigate the influence of a specific class of slow Baryon Number Violation (BNV)—one that induces quasi-equilibrium evolution — on pulsar spin characteristics. This work reveals how BNV can potentially alter observable parameters, including spin-down rates, the second derivative of spin frequency, and braking indices of pulsars. Moreover, we demonstrate that BNV could lead to anomalies in pulsar timing, along with a wide array of braking indices, both positive and negative. In addition, we examine the possibility of pulsar spin-up due to BNV, which may result in a novel mechanism for the revival of “dead” pulsars. We conclude by assessing the sensitivity required for future pulsar timing efforts to detect such BNV effects, thus highlighting the potential for pulsars to serve as laboratories for testing fundamental physics.

cosmology↗

DOE OSTI2024

Primordial black holes from bubble collisions during a first-order phase transition

We study the possibility of production of primordial black holes (PBHs) from bubble collisions during a first-order phase transition. While typical colliding bubbles are small and irrelevant for PBH production, we find that those that can produce PBHs must have a macroscopically thick fluid shell and have been born much before the typical nucleation time. Particularly large uncertainties arise from an exponential sensitivity of the nucleation rate on the required duration of bubble growth which depends on the details of the collisions and the evolution of the spacetime metric toward the end of the phase transition. We introduce a few parameters to be obtained from future numerical simulation to represent those unknowns, and estimate the PBH abundance in an Abelian Higgs benchmark model and show that it can be significant. We predict an approximately monochromatic PBH mass spectrum, and find regions in the parameter space where the PBHs can constitute entire dark matter or even overclose the Universe. Our result thus shows that models with a first-order phase transition can be constrained by overabundant PBHs or null results of other PBH searches. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2026

Full calibration of the tomographic redshift distribution from the HSC PDR3 Shape Catalog with DESI

The calibration of tomographic redshift distributionsis essential for cosmological analysis of weak lensing data.In this work, we calibrate all four tomographic bins of the Hyper Suprime Camera (HSC) weak lensing catalog with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Data Release 1 and 2 using the clustering redshifts technique. We include z > 1.2 redshift sources such as emission line galaxies (ELG) and quasars (QSO) sources in our calibration, which were not available in the previous HSC calibration (Rau et al. (2022), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 524 (2023) 5109), allowing a complete calibration of all the redshift bins. We find the first tomographic bin exhibits a small shift towards low redshifts. The second bin is in good agreement with the photometric calibration, while third and fourth bin exhibit a shift towards higher redshifts. However, these shifts are considerably smaller than the shifts obtained in the HSC Year 3 cosmic shear analyses. We evaluate the impact of galaxy bias and magnification effects from all the samples on the measurements, finding them to be small, and we propose corrections to reduce them further. Specifically, we relax the assumption of linear bias and only assume no redshift evolution of the cross-correlation coefficient, allowing us to leverage smaller clustering scales. We model the redshift distributions with splines and compare our results to previous analyses as well as to other parameterizations found in literature. For the two high-redshift tomographic bins, we find the shifts to higher redshifts with respect to the measurements performed in Rau+2022 to be Δz$_{3}$ =-0.039$^{+0.020}$$_{-0.021}$ and Δz$_{4}$ = -0.048$^{+0.012}$$_{-0.012}$.

Choppin de Janvry, J. [LBL, Berkeley; UC, Berkeley↗

DOE OSTI2023

Photometric Objects Around Cosmic Webs (PAC) Delineated in a Spectroscopic Survey. IV. High-precision Constraints on the Evolution of the Stellar–Halo Mass Relation at Redshift z < 0.7

Taking advantage of the Photometric objects Around Cosmic webs method developed in Paper I, we measure the excess surface density $\overline{n}$ 2 w p of the photometric objects around spectroscopic objects down to stellar masses 10 8.0 M ⊙ , 10 9.2 M ⊙ , and 10 9.8 M ⊙ in the redshift ranges of z s < 0.2, 0.2 < z s < 0.4, and 0.5 < z s < 0.7, respectively, using data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and spectroscopic samples from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (i.e., the Main, LOWZ, and CMASS samples). We model the measured in an N-body simulation, using the abundance matching method, and we constrain the stellar–halo mass relations (SHMRs) in the three redshift ranges to percent levels. With the accurate modeling, we demonstrate that the stellar mass scatter for a given halo mass is nearly a constant, and that the empirical form of Behroozi et al. describes the SHMR better than the double-power-law form at low mass. Our SHMR accurately captures the downsizing of massive galaxies from z s = 0.7, while it also indicates that small galaxies are still growing faster than their host halos. The galaxy stellar mass functions (GSMFs) from our modeling are in perfect agreement with the model-independent measurements in Paper III, although the current work extends the GSMFs to a much smaller stellar mass. Based on the GSMFs and the SHMRs, we derive the stellar mass completeness and halo occupation distributions for the LOWZ and CMASS samples, which are useful for correctly interpreting their cosmological measurements, such as galaxy–galaxy lensing and redshift space distortion.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2021

Simulations of axion minihalos

The axion, motivated as a solution to the strong CP problem, is also a viable dark matter candidate. The axion field takes random values in causally disconnected regions if the symmetry breaking that establishes the particle occurs after inflation, leading to white-noise density fluctuations at low wave numbers and forming dense minihalos with sub-planetary masses subsequently. There have been two recent proposals that appear capable of testing this scenario, namely using pulsar timing arrays and studying cosmological microlensing caustics. Motivated by these proposals, we use N-body simulations to study the formation of substructures from white-noise density fluctuations. The density profiles of our relaxed axion minihalos can be described by the Navarro–Frenk–White profile, and the minihalos’ concentration number agrees well with a simple, physically-motivated model. We develop a semi-analytic formula to fit the mass function from our simulation, which agrees broadly at different redshifts and only differs at factor of two level from classic halo mass functions. This analytic mass function allows us to consider uncertainties in the post-inflation axion scenario, as well as extrapolate our high-redshift simulations results to the present. Our work estimates the present-day abundance of axion substructures, as is necessary for predicting their effect on cosmological microlensing caustics and pulsar timing. Our calculations suggest that if pulsar timing and microlensing probes can reach recent sensitivity forecasts, they may be sensitive to the post-inflation axion dark matter scenario, even when accounting for uncertainties pertaining to axion strings. For pulsar timing, the most significant caveat is whether axion minihalos are disrupted by stars, which our estimates show is mildly important at the most relevant masses. In conclusion, as our gravitational simulations are scale invariant, the results can be extended to models where the dark matter is comprised of other axion-like particles and even clusters of primordial black holes.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Shaping dark photon spectral distortions

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum is an extraordinary tool for exploring physics beyond the Standard Model. The exquisite precision of its measurement makes it particularly sensitive to small effects caused by hidden sector interactions. In particular, CMB spectral distortions can unveil the existence of dark photons which are kinetically coupled to the standard photon. In this work, we use the COBE-FIRAS dataset to derive accurate and robust limits on photon-to-dark-photon oscillations for a large range of dark photon masses, from 10$^{−10}$ to 10$^{−4}$ eV. We consider in detail the redshift dependence of the bounds, computing CMB distortions due to photon injection/removal using a Green’s function method. Our treatment improves on previous results, which had set limits studying energy injection/removal into baryons rather than photon injection/removal, or ignoring the redshift evolution of distortions. The difference between our treatment and previous ones is particularly noticeable in the predicted spectral shape of the distortions, a smoking gun signature for photon-to-dark-photon oscillations. The characterization of the spectral shape is crucial for future CMB missions, which could improve the present sensitivity by orders of magnitude, exploring regions of the dark photon parameter space that are otherwise difficult to access [inline-graphic not available: see fulltext].

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

NASA NTRS2012

The 4 Ms CHANDRA Deep Field-South Number Counts Apportioned by Source Class: Pervasive Active Galactic Nuclei and the Ascent of Normal Galaxies

We present 0.5-2 keV, 2-8 keV, 4-8 keV, and 0.5-8 keV (hereafter soft, hard, ultra-hard, and full bands, respectively) cumulative and differential number-count (log N-log S ) measurements for the recently completed approx. equal to 4 Ms Chandra Deep Field-South (CDF-S) survey, the deepest X-ray survey to date. We implement a new Bayesian approach, which allows reliable calculation of number counts down to flux limits that are factors of approx. equal to 1.9-4.3 times fainter than the previously deepest number-count investigations. In the soft band (SB), the most sensitive bandpass in our analysis, the approx. equal to 4 Ms CDF-S reaches a maximum source density of approx. equal to 27,800 deg(sup -2). By virtue of the exquisite X-ray and multiwavelength data available in the CDF-S, we are able to measure the number counts from a variety of source populations (active galactic nuclei (AGNs), normal galaxies, and Galactic stars) and subpopulations (as a function of redshift, AGN absorption, luminosity, and galaxy morphology) and test models that describe their evolution. We find that AGNs still dominate the X-ray number counts down to the faintest flux levels for all bands and reach a limiting SB source density of approx. equal to 14,900 deg(sup -2), the highest reliable AGN source density measured at any wavelength. We find that the normal-galaxy counts rise rapidly near the flux limits and, at the limiting SB flux, reach source densities of approx. equal to 12,700 deg(sup -2) and make up 46% plus or minus 5% of the total number counts. The rapid rise of the galaxy counts toward faint fluxes, as well as significant normal-galaxy contributions to the overall number counts, indicates that normal galaxies will overtake AGNs just below the approx. equal to 4 Ms SB flux limit and will provide a numerically significant new X-ray source population in future surveys that reach below the approx. equal to 4 Ms sensitivity limit. We show that a future approx. equal to 10 Ms CDF-S would allow for a significant increase in X-ray-detected sources, with many of the new sources being cosmologically distant (z greater than or approx. equal to 0.6) normal galaxies.

Field-South↗

DOE OSTI2022

Perturbation theory models for LSST-era galaxy clustering: Tests with subpercent mock catalog measurements in Fourier and configuration space

Here, we analyze the clustering of galaxies using the z = 1.006 snapshot of the CosmoDC2 simulation, a high-fidelity synthetic galaxy catalog designed to validate analysis methods for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). We present sub-percent measurements of the galaxy auto-correlation and galaxy-dark matter cross correlations in Fourier space and configuration space for a magnitude-limited galaxy sample. At these levels of precision, the statistical errors of the measurement are comparable to the systematic effects present in the simulation and measurement procedure; nevertheless, using a hybrid-PT model, we are able to model non-linear galaxy bias with 0.5% precision up to scales of k max = 0.5 h/Mpc and r min = 4 Mpc/h. While the linear bias parameter is measured with 0.01% precision, other bias parameters are determined with considerably weaker constraints and sometimes bimodal posterior distributions. We compare our fiducial model with lower dimensional models where the higher-order bias parameters are fixed at their co-evolution values and find that leaving these parameters free provides significant improvements in our ability to model small scale information. We also compare bias parameters for galaxy samples defined using different magnitude bands and find agreement between samples containing equal numbers of galaxies. Finally, we compare bias parameters between Fourier space and configuration space and find moderate to significant tension between the two approaches. Although our model is often unable to fit the CosmoDC2 galaxy samples within the 0.1% precision of our measurements, our results suggest that the hybrid-PT model used in this analysis is capable of modeling non-linear galaxy bias within the percent level precision needed for upcoming galaxy surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Nonperturbative and perturbative dynamics of a light QCD axion: Dark matter and the strong 𝐶⁢𝑃 problem

Considerable theoretical efforts have gone into expanding the reach of the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) axion beyond its canonical mass–decay-constant relation. The 𝑍 𝒩 QCD axion model reduces the QCD axion mass naturally, by invoking a discrete 𝑍 𝒩 symmetry through which the axion field is coupled to 𝒩 copies of the Standard Model. Before the QCD phase transition at temperature 𝑇 QCD , the 𝑍 𝒩 potential has a minimum at misalignment angle 𝜃 = 𝜋. At 𝑇 QCD , 𝜃 = 𝜋 becomes a maximum; the axion potential becomes exponentially suppressed and develops 𝒩 minima—only one of which actually solves the strong 𝐶⁢𝑃 problem. Before 𝑇 QCD , 𝜃 relaxes toward 𝜋. After 𝑇 QCD , the axion field starts from around the hilltop and may have sufficient kinetic energy to overcome the newly suppressed potential barriers. Such a field evolution leads to nonperturbative effects via the self-interactions near the hilltop, which can cause the exponential growth of fluctuations and backreaction on the coherent motion. This behavior can influence the relic density of the field and the minimum in which it settles. We conduct the first lattice simulations of the 𝑍 𝒩 QCD axion using 𝒞osmoℒattice to accurately calculate dark matter abundances and find nonperturbative dynamics reduce the abundance by up to a factor of two. We furthermore find that the probability of solving the strong 𝐶⁢𝑃 problem tends to diverge considerably from the naïve expectation of 1/𝒩.

Axions↗

DOE OSTI2024

The SAGA Survey. V. Modeling Satellite Systems around Milky Way–Mass Galaxies with Updated UniverseMachine

Abstract Environment plays a critical role in shaping the assembly of low-mass galaxies. Here, we use the U niverse M achine (UM) galaxy–halo connection framework and Data Release 3 of the Satellites Around Galactic Analogs (SAGA) Survey to place dwarf galaxy star formation and quenching into a cosmological context. UM is a data-driven forward model that flexibly parameterizes galaxy star formation rates (SFRs) using only halo mass and assembly history. We add a new quenching model to UM, tailored for galaxies with m ⋆ ≲ 10 9 M ⊙ , and constrain the model down to m ⋆ ≳ 10 7 M ⊙ using new SAGA observations of 101 satellite systems around Milky Way (MW)–mass hosts and a sample of isolated field galaxies in a similar mass range from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The new best-fit model, “UM-SAGA,” reproduces the satellite stellar mass functions, average SFRs, and quenched fractions in SAGA satellites while keeping isolated dwarfs mostly star-forming. The enhanced quenching in satellites relative to isolated field galaxies leads the model to maximally rely on halo assembly to explain the observed environmental quenching. Extrapolating the model down to m ⋆ ∼ 10 6.5 M ⊙ yields a quenched fraction of ≳30% for isolated field galaxies and ≳80% for satellites of MW-mass hosts at this stellar mass. Spectroscopic surveys can soon test this specific prediction to reveal the relative importance of internal feedback, cessation of mass and gas accretion, satellite-specific gas processes, and reionization for the evolution of faint low-mass galaxies.

Wang, Yunchong (ORCID:000000018913626X)↗