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At least 829 records · Page 46

Local gravitational redshifts can bias cosmological measurements

Measurements of cosmological parameters via the distance-redshift relation usually rely on models that assume a homogenous universe. It is commonly presumed that the large-scale structure evident in our Universe has a negligible impact on the measurement if distances probed in observations are sufficiently large (compared to the scale of inhomogeneities) and are averaged over different directions on the sky. This presumption does not hold when considering the effect of the gravitational redshift caused by our local gravitational potential, which alters light coming from all distances and directions in the same way. Despite its small magnitude, this local gravitational redshift gives rise to noticeable effects in cosmological inference using SN Ia data. Assuming conservative prior knowledge of the local potential given by sampling a range of gravitational potentials at locations of Milky-Way-like galaxies identified in cosmological simulations, we show that ignoring the gravitational redshift effect in a standard data analysis leads to an additional systematic error of ∼1% in the determination of density parameters and the dark energy equation of state. We conclude that our local gravitational field affects our cosmological inference at a level that is important in future observations aiming to achieve percent-level accuracy.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DEMNUni: the clustering of large-scale structures in the presence of massive neutrinos

We analyse the clustering features of Large Scale Structures (LSS) in the presence of massive neutrinos, employing a set of large-volume, high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations, where neutrinos are treated as separate collisionless particles. The volume of 8 h{sup -3} Gpc{sup 3}, combined with a resolution of about 8×10{sup 10}h{sup -1}M{sub ⊚} for the cold dark matter (CDM) component, represents a significant improvement over previous N-body simulations in massive neutrino cosmologies. In this work we focus, in the first place, on the analysis of nonlinear effects in CDM and neutrinos perturbations contributing to the total matter power spectrum. We show that most of the nonlinear evolution is generated exclusively by the CDM component. We therefore compare mildly nonlinear predictions from Eulerian Perturbation Theory (PT), and fully nonlinear prescriptions (HALOFIT) with the measurements obtained from the simulations. We find that accounting only for the nonlinear evolution of the CDM power spectrum allows to recover the total matter power spectrum with the same accuracy as the massless case. Indeed, we show that, the most recent version of the (HALOFIT) formula calibrated on ΛCDM simulations can be applied directly to the linear CDM power spectrum without requiring additional fitting parameters in the massive case. As a second step, we study the abundance and clustering properties of CDM halos, confirming that, in massive neutrino cosmologies, the proper definition of the halo bias should be made with respect to the cold rather than the total matter distribution, as recently shown in the literature. Here we extend these results to the redshift space, finding that, when accounting for massive neutrinos, an improper definition of the linear bias can lead to a systematic error of about 1-2 % in the determination of the linear growth rate from anisotropic clustering. This result is quite important if we consider that future spectroscopic galaxy surveys, as e.g. Euclid, are expected to measure the linear growth-rate with statistical errors less than about 3 % at z∼<1.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Two new tests to the distance duality relation with galaxy clusters

The cosmic distance duality relation is a milestone of cosmology involving the luminosity and angular diameter distances. Any departure of the relation points to new physics or systematic errors in the observations, therefore tests of the relation are extremely important to build a consistent cosmological framework. Here, two new tests are proposed based on galaxy clusters observations (angular diameter distance and gas mass fraction) and H(z) measurements. By applying Gaussian Processes, a non-parametric method, we are able to derive constraints on departures of the relation where no evidence of deviation is found in both methods, reinforcing the cosmological and astrophysical hypotheses adopted so far.

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The CTA aims at the Inert Doublet Model

We show that the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) can realistically challenge the Inert Doublet Model, one of the simplest and best known models of dark matter. Specifically, the CTA may exclude its heavy regime up to dark matter masses of 800 GeV and probe a large fraction of the remaining viable parameter space at even higher masses. Two features of the Inert Doublet Model make it particularly suitable for CTA searches. First, the dark matter mass (in the heavy regime) must be larger than 500 GeV. Second, the dark matter annihilation cross section, σ v, is always larger than the thermal one, reaching values as high as 10{sup −25} cm{sup 3}s{sup −1}. This higher value of σv is the result of the unavoidable coannihilation effects that determine the relic density via thermal freeze-out in the early Universe. We find that with 100 hours of Galactic Center exposure, CTA's expected limit widely surpasses, even after the inclusion of systematic errors, current and projected bounds from Fermi-LAT and HESS on this model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Parameter splitting in dark energy: is dark energy the same in the background and in the cosmic structures?

We perform an empirical consistency test of General Relativity/dark energy by disentangling expansion history and growth of structure constraints. We replace each late-universe parameter that describes the behavior of dark energy with two meta-parameters: one describing geometrical information in cosmological probes, and the other controlling the growth of structure. If the underlying model (a standard wCDM cosmology with General Relativity) is correct, that is under the null hypothesis, the two meta-parameters coincide. If they do not, it could indicate a failure of the model or systematics in the data. We present a global analysis using state-of-the-art cosmological data sets which points in the direction that cosmic structures prefer a weaker growth than that inferred by background probes. This result could signify inconsistencies of the model, the necessity of extensions to it or the presence of systematic errors in the data. We examine all these possibilities. The fact that the result is mostly driven by a specific sub-set of galaxy clusters abundance data, points to the need of a better understanding of this probe.

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A 6% measurement of the Hubble parameter at z ∼0.45: direct evidence of the epoch of cosmic re-acceleration

Deriving the expansion history of the Universe is a major goal of modern cosmology. To date, the most accurate measurements have been obtained with Type Ia Supernovae (SNe) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), providing evidence for the existence of a transition epoch at which the expansion rate changes from decelerated to accelerated. However, these results have been obtained within the framework of specific cosmological models that must be implicitly or explicitly assumed in the measurement. It is therefore crucial to obtain measurements of the accelerated expansion of the Universe independently of assumptions on cosmological models. Here we exploit the unprecedented statistics provided by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS, [1-3]) Data Release 9 to provide new constraints on the Hubble parameter H ( z ) using the cosmic chronometers approach. We extract a sample of more than 130000 of the most massive and passively evolving galaxies, obtaining five new cosmology-independent H ( z ) measurements in the redshift range 0.3 < z < 0.5, with an accuracy of ∼11–16% incorporating both statistical and systematic errors. Once combined, these measurements yield a 6% accuracy constraint of H ( z = 0.4293) = 91.8 ± 5.3 km/s/Mpc. The new data are crucial to provide the first cosmology-independent determination of the transition redshift at high statistical significance, measuring z {sub t} = 0.4 ± 0.1, and to significantly disfavor the null hypothesis of no transition between decelerated and accelerated expansion at 99.9% confidence level. This analysis highlights the wide potential of the cosmic chronometers approach: it permits to derive constraints on the expansion history of the Universe with results competitive with standard probes, and most importantly, being the estimates independent of the cosmological model, it can constrain cosmologies beyond—and including—the ΛCDM model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The need for accurate redshifts in supernova cosmology

Recent papers have shown that a small systematic redshift shift (Δ z ∼ 10{sup −5}) in measurements of type Ia supernovae can cause a significant bias (∼1%) in the recovery of cosmological parameters. Such a redshift shift could be caused, for example, by a gravitational redshift due to the density of our local environment. The sensitivity of supernova data to redshift shifts means supernovae make excellent probes of inhomogeneities. We therefore invert the analysis, and try to diagnose the nature of our local gravitational environment by fitting for Δ z as an extra free parameter alongside the usual cosmological parameters. Using the Joint Light-curve SN Ia dataset we find the best fit includes a systematic redshift shift of Δ z = (2.6{sup +2.7}{sub −2.8}) × 10{sup −4}. This is a larger shift than would be expected due to gravitational redshifts in a standard Λ-Cold Dark Matter universe (though still consistent with zero), and would correspond to a monopole Doppler shift of about 100 km s{sup −1} moving away from the Milky-Way. However, since most supernova measurements are made to a redshift precision of no better than 10{sup −3}, it is possible that a systematic error smaller than the statistical error remains in the data and is responsible for the shift; or that it is an insignificant statistical fluctuation. We find that when Δ z is included as a free parameter while fitting to the JLA SN Ia data, the constraints on the matter density shifts to Ω {sub m} = 0.313{sup +0.042}{sub −0.040}, bringing it into better agreement with the CMB cosmological parameter constraints from Planck. A positive Δ z ∼ 2.6×10{sup −4} would also cause us to overestimate the supernova measurement of Hubble's constant by Δ H {sub 0} ∼ 1 kms{sup −1}Mpc{sup −1}. However this overestimation should diminish as one increases the low-redshift cutoff, and this is not seen in the most recent data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Gauge-invariance and infrared divergences in the luminosity distance

Measurements of the luminosity distance have played a key role in discovering the late-time cosmic acceleration. However, when accounting for inhomogeneities in the Universe, its interpretation has been plagued with infrared divergences in its theoretical predictions, which are in some cases used to explain the cosmic acceleration without dark energy. The infrared divergences in most calculations are artificially removed by imposing an infrared cut-off scale. We show that a gauge-invariant calculation of the luminosity distance is devoid of such divergences and consistent with the equivalence principle, eliminating the need to impose a cut-off scale. We present proper numerical calculations of the luminosity distance using the gauge-invariant expression and demonstrate that the numerical results with an ad hoc cut-off scale in previous calculations have negligible systematic errors as long as the cut-off scale is larger than the horizon scale. We discuss the origin of infrared divergences and their cancellation in the luminosity distance.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Using Gaia DR2 to constrain local dark matter density and thin dark disk

We use stellar kinematics from the latest Gaia data release (DR2) to measure the local dark matter (DM) density ρ DM in a heliocentric cylinder of radius R= 150 pc and half-height z= 200 pc. We also explore the prospect of using our analysis to estimate the DM density in local substructure by setting constraints on the surface density and scale height of a thin dark disk aligned with the baryonic disk and formed due to dissipative dark matter self-interactions. Performing the statistical analysis within a Bayesian framework for three types of tracers, we obtain ρDM = 0.016 ± 0.010 M ⊙ /pc 3 for A stars; early G stars give a similar result, while F stars yield a significantly higher value. For a thin dark disk, A stars set the strongest constraint: excluding surface densities (5–12) M ⊙ /pc 2 for scale heights below 100 pc with 95% confidence. The upper bound of this constraint implies ≲ 1% of the Milky Way DM mass is present in a dissipative dark sector. Comparing our results with those derived using Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) data, we find that the uncertainty in our measurements of the local DM content is dominated by systematic errors that arise from assumptions of our dynamical analysis in the low z region. Furthermore, there will only be a marginal reduction in these uncertainties with more data in the Gaia era. We comment on the robustness of our method and discuss potential improvements for future work.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The cross correlation of the ABS and ACT maps

One of the most important checks for systematic errors in CMB studies is the cross correlation of maps made by independent experiments. In this study we report on the cross correlation between maps from the Atacama B-mode Search (ABS) and Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) experiments in both temperature and polarization. These completely different measurements have a clear correlation with each other and with the Planck satellite in both the EE and TE spectra at ℓ<400 over the roughly 0110 deg 2 common to all three. The TB, EB, and BB cross spectra are consistent with noise. Exploiting such cross-correlations will be important for future experiments operating in Chile that aim to probe the 30<ℓ<8,000 range.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: a measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background power spectra at 98 and 150 GHz

We present the temperature and polarization angular power spectra of the CMB measured by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) from 5400 deg2 of the 2013–2016 survey, which covers >15000 deg2 at 98 and 150 GHz. For this analysis we adopt a blinding strategy to help avoid confirmation bias and, related to this, show numerous checks for systematic error done before unblinding. Using the likelihood for the cosmological analysis we constrain secondary sources of anisotropy and foreground emission, and derive a “CMB-only” spectrum that extends to ℓ=4000. At large angular scales, foreground emission at 150 GHz is ∼1% of TT and EE within our selected regions and consistent with that found by Planck. Using the same likelihood, we obtain the cosmological parameters for ΛCDM for the ACT data alone with a prior on the optical depth of τ=0.065±0.015. ΛCDM is a good fit. The best-fit model has a reduced χ2 of 1.07 (PTE=0.07) with H0=67.9±1.5 km/s/Mpc. We show that the lensing BB signal is consistent with ΛCDM and limit the celestial EB polarization angle to ψP =−0.07ˆ±0.09ˆ. We directly cross correlate ACT with Planck and observe generally good agreement but with some discrepancies in TE. All data on which this analysis is based will be publicly released.

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Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array to a dark matter signal from the Galactic centre

We provide an updated assessment of the power of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to search for thermally produced dark matter at the TeV scale, via the associated gamma-ray signal from pair-annihilating dark matter particles in the region around the Galactic centre. We find that CTA will open a new window of discovery potential, significantly extending the range of robustly testable models given a standard cuspy profile of the dark matter density distribution. Importantly, even for a cored profile, the projected sensitivity of CTA will be sufficient to probe various well-motivated models of thermally produced dark matter at the TeV scale. This is due to CTA's unprecedented sensitivity, angular and energy resolutions, and the planned observational strategy. The survey of the inner Galaxy will cover a much larger region than corresponding previous observational campaigns with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. CTA will map with unprecedented precision the large-scale diffuse emission in high-energy gamma rays, constituting a background for dark matter searches for which we adopt state-of-the-art models based on current data. Throughout our analysis, we use up-to-date event reconstruction Monte Carlo tools developed by the CTA consortium, and pay special attention to quantifying the level of instrumental systematic uncertainties, as well as background template systematic errors, required to probe thermally produced dark matter at these energies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Analysis of BOSS galaxy data with weighted skew-spectra

We present the first application of the weighted skew-spectra to analyze non-Gaussian information in galaxy survey data. Using the tree-level galaxy skew-spectra together with the one-loop power spectrum multipoles, we analyze the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) galaxy clustering data, and target our search towards the equilateral bispectrum shape of primordial non-Gaussianity. We use the Effective Field Theory model for the galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum, and account for systematic effects, such as the survey geometry. From our likelihood analysis, we find f NL equil = -34 +296 -334 at 68% CL, consistent with previous works, while systematic errors from our treatment of the survey geometry lead to an unreliable estimation of f NL ortho . As a result, we further constrain the bias and counterterm parameters, while keeping the cosmology fixed to Planck 2018 values. As a check, we also validate our analysis pipeline using theNseries simulation suite.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A comparison of effective field theory models of redshift space galaxy power spectra for DESI 2024 and future surveys

In preparation for the next generation of galaxy redshift surveys, and in particular the year-one data release from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), we investigate the consistency of a variety of effective field theory models that describe the galaxy-galaxy power spectra in redshift space into the quasi-linear regime using 1-loop perturbation theory. These models are employed in the pipelines velocileptors, PyBird, and Folpsν. While these models have been validated independently, a detailed comparison with consistent choices has not been attempted. After briefly discussing the theoretical differences between the models we describe how to provide a more apples-to-apples comparison between them. We present the results of fitting mock spectra from the AbacusSummit suite of N-body simulations provided in three redshift bins to mimic the types of dark time tracers targeted by the DESI survey. We show that the theories behave similarly and give consistent constraints in both the forward-modeling and ShapeFit compressed fitting approaches. We additionally generate (noiseless) synthetic data from each pipeline to be fit by the others, varying the scale cuts in order to show that the models agree within the range of scales for which we expect 1-loop perturbation theory to be applicable. Finally, this work lays the foundation of Full-Shape analysis with DESI Y1 galaxy samples where in the tests we performed, we found no systematic error associated with the modeling of the galaxy redshift space power spectrum for this volume.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Full-Shape analysis of the power spectrum and bispectrum of DESI DR1 LRG and QSO samples

We present the first joint analysis of the power spectrum and bispectrum using the Data Release 1 (DR1) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), focusing on Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) and quasars (QSOs) across a redshift range of 0.4 ≤ z ≤ 2.1. By combining the two- and three-point statistics, we are able to partially break the degeneracy between the logarithmic growth rate, f(z), and the amplitude of dark matter fluctuations, σ s8 (z), which cannot be measured separately in analyses that only involve the power spectrum. In comparison with the (fiducial) Planck ΛCDM cosmology we obtain f/f fid = {0.888 -0.089 +0.186 ,0.977 -0.220 +0.182 ,1.030 -0.085 +0.368 }, σ s8 /σ fid s8 = {1.224 -0.133 +0.091 ,1.071 -0.163 +0.278 ,1.00 0 -0.223 +0.088 } respectively for the three LRG redshift bins, corresponding to a cumulative 10.1% constraint on f, and of 8.4% on σ s8 , including the systematic error budget. Additionally, we obtain constraints for the ShapeFit compressed parameters describing the isotropic scaling parameter, α iso (z), the Alcock-Paczyński parameter, α AP (z), the combined growth of structure parameter fσ s8 (z), and the combined shape parameter m(z)+n(z). Their cumulative constraints from our joint power spectrum-bispectrum analysis are respectively σ αiso = 0.9% (9% improvement with respect to our power spectrum-only analysis); σ α AP = 2.3% (no improvement with respect to power spectrum-only analysis, which is expected given that the bispectrum monopole has no significant anisotropic signal); σ fσs8 = 5.1% (9% improvement); σ m+n = 2.3% (11% improvement). These results are fully consistent with the main DESI power spectrum analysis, demonstrating the robustness of the DESI cosmological constraints, and compatible with Planck ΛCDM cosmology.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DESI 2024 V: Full-Shape galaxy clustering from galaxies and quasars

We present the measurements and cosmological implications of the galaxy two-point clustering using over 4.7 million unique galaxy and quasar redshifts in the range 0.1 < z < 2.1 divided into six redshift bins over a ∼ 7,500 square degree footprint, from the first year of observations with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI Data Release 1). By fitting the full power spectrum, we extend previous DESI DR1 baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements to include redshift-space distortions and signals from the matter-radiation equality scale. For the first time, this Full-Shape analysis is blinded at the catalogue-level to avoid confirmation bias and the systematic errors are accounted for at the two-point clustering level, which automatically propagates them into any cosmological parameter. When analyzing the data in terms of compressed model-agnostic variables, we obtain a combined precision of 4.7% on the amplitude of the redshift space distortion (RSD) signal reaching a similar precision with just one year of DESI data than with twenty years of observation from the previous generation survey. We also analyze the data to directly constrain the cosmological parameters within the ΛCDM model using perturbation theory and combine this information with the reconstructed DESI DR1 galaxy BAO. Using a Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Gaussian prior on the baryon density parameter, ω b , and a weak Gaussian prior on the spectral index, n s , we constrain the matter density is Ω m = 0.296±0.010 and the Hubble constant H 0 = (68.63 ± 0.79)[km s -1 Mpc -1 ]. Additionally, we measure the amplitude of clustering σ 8 = 0.841±0.034. The DESI DR1 galaxy clustering results are in agreement with the ΛCDM model based on general relativity with parameters consistent with those from Planck. The cosmological interpretation of these results in combination with DESI DR1 Ly-α forest data and external datasets are presented in the companion paper [1].

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Carnegie Supernova Project-II: The Near-infrared Spectroscopy Program

Shifting the focus of Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) cosmology to the near infrared (NIR) is a promising way to significantly reduce the systematic errors, as the strategy minimizes our reliance on the empirical width-luminosity relation and uncertain dust laws. Observations in the NIR are also crucial for our understanding of the origins and evolution of these events, further improving their cosmological utility. Any future experiments in the rest-frame NIR will require knowledge of the SN Ia NIR spectroscopic diversity, which is currently based on a small sample of observed spectra. Along with the accompanying paper, Phillips et al., we introduce the Carnegie Supernova Project-II (CSP-II), to follow-up nearby SNe Ia in both the optical and the NIR. In particular, this paper focuses on the CSP-II NIR spectroscopy program, describing the survey strategy, instrumental setups, data reduction, sample characteristics, and future analyses on the data set. Here, in collaboration with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) Supernova Group, we obtained 661 NIR spectra of 157 SNe Ia. Furthermore this sample, 451 NIR spectra of 90 SNe Ia have corresponding CSP-II follow-up light curves. Such a sample will allow detailed studies of the NIR spectroscopic properties of SNe Ia, providing a different perspective on the properties of the unburned material; the radioactive and stable nickel produced; progenitor magnetic fields; and searches for possible signatures of companion stars.

(cosmology:) dark energy↗

Measurement of the half-life of 79 Se with accelerator mass spectrometry

The accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is an effective method for the determination of the half-life of long-lived radionuclides. In this paper, we report a method for measurement of the half-life of 79 Se. The number of 79 Se atoms was determined from measured 79 Se/Se absolute ratios with the AMS system at the China Institute of Atomic Energy and the decay rate of 79 Se was determined by counting the emitted β-rays with a liquid scintillation spectrometer. The major improvements of our measurements include using the high abundance of an 79 Se sample which was cooled for many years to exclude the interference of short-lived nuclides, the extraction of SeO 2 - molecular ions, that results in a suppression of the 79 Br background by as much as about five orders of magnitude. Also, an AMS measurement of the absolute ratio of 79 Se/Se was developed to avoid systematic errors. The results show that 79 Se/Se is (2.35±0.12)×10 -7 in the reference sample and the radioactivity of 79 Se is (1.24±0.05) Bq/g, so the half-life of 79 Se is (2.78±0.18)×10 5 a.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗