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At least 91 records · Page 5

QUBIC II: Spectral polarimetry with bolometric interferometry

Bolometric interferometry is a novel technique that has the ability to perform spectral imaging. A bolometric interferometer observes the sky in a wide frequency band and can reconstruct sky maps in several sub-bands within the physical band in post-processing of the data. This provides a powerful spectral method to discriminate between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and astrophysical foregrounds. In this paper, the methodology is illustrated with examples based on the Q & U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) which is a ground-based instrument designed to measure the B-mode polarization of the sky at millimeter wavelengths. We consider the specific cases of point source reconstruction and Galactic dust mapping and we characterize the point spread function as a function of frequency. We study the noise properties of spectral imaging, especially the correlations between sub-bands, using end-to-end simulations together with a fast noise simulator. Finally, we conclude showing that spectral imaging performance are nearly optimal up to five sub-bands in the case of QUBIC.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A comparison of Gaussian processes and neural networks for computer model emulation and calibration

The Department of Energy relies on complex physics simulations for prediction in domains like cosmology, nuclear theory, and materials science. These simulations are often extremely computationally intensive, with some requiring days or weeks for a single simulation. In order to assure their accuracy, these models are calibrated against observational data in order to estimate inputs and systematic biases. Because of their great computational complexity, this process typically requires the construction of an emulator, a fast approximation to the simulation. In this paper, two emulator approaches are compared: Gaussian process regression and neural networks. Their emulation accuracy and calibration performance on three real problems of Department of Energy interest is considered. On these problems, the Gaussian process emulator tends to be more accurate with narrower, but still well-calibrated uncertainty estimates. The neural network emulator is accurate, but tends to have large uncertainty on its predictions. Finally, as a result, calibration with the Gaussian process emulator produces more constrained posteriors that still perform well in prediction.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Constraints on long-range forces in de Sitter space

The representation theory of de Sitter space admits partially massless (PM) particles, but whether such particles can participate in consistent interacting theories remains unclear. We investigate the consistency of theories containing PM fields, particularly when these fields are coupled to gravity. Our strategy exploits the fact that PM fields correspond to partially conserved currents on the spacetime boundary, which generate symmetries. These symmetries place stringent constraints on correlation functions of charged operators, allowing us to test the consistency of a proposed bulk spectrum. When the assumed operator content violates these constraints, the corresponding bulk theory is ruled out. Applying this framework, we show that, in four-dimensional de Sitter space, PM fields of spin 2 or 3 (at depth 0) cannot couple consistently to gravity: such couplings necessitate additional massive fields, which are inevitably non-unitary. In higher dimensions, however, the constraints can be satisfied without violating unitarity if further PM fields are included. The resulting structure leads to additional charge conservation laws, which suggests that consistency may ultimately require an infinite tower of higher-spin PM fields, akin to the situation for ordinary higher-spin symmetries. The methods developed here provide powerful constraints on possible long-range interactions in de Sitter space and delineate the landscape of consistent quantum field theories in cosmological spacetimes.

AdS-CFT Correspondence↗

On time-dependent backgrounds in 1 + 1 dimensional string theory

In perturbative string theory, one is generally interested in asymptotic observables, such as the S-matrix in flat spacetime, and boundary correlation functions in anti-de Sitter spacetime. However, there are backgrounds in which such observables do not exist. We study examples of such backgrounds in 1 + 1 dimensional string theory. In these examples, the Liouville wall accelerates and can become spacelike in the past and/or future. When that happens, the corresponding null infinity, at which the standard scattering states are defined, is shielded by the Liouville wall. We compute scattering and particle production amplitudes in these backgrounds in the region in parameter space where the wall remains timelike, and discuss the continuation of this picture to the spacelike regime. We also discuss the physics from the point of view of the dynamics of free fermions in backgrounds with a time-dependent Fermi surface.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

The Pantheon+ analysis: Improving the redshifts and peculiar velocities of Type Ia supernovae used in cosmological analyses

We examine the redshifts of a comprehensive set of published Type Ia supernovae, and provide a combined, improved catalogue with updated redshifts. We improve on the original catalogues by using the most up-to-date heliocentric redshift data available; ensuring all red shifts have uncertainty estimates; using the exact formulae to convert heliocentric redshifts into the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) frame; and utilising an improved peculiar velocity model that calculates local motions in redshift-space and more realistically accounts for the external bulk flow at high-redshifts. We review 2607 supernova redshifts; 2285 are from unique supernovae and 322 are from repeat observations of the same supernova. In total, we updated 990 unique heliocentric redshifts, and found 5 cases of missing or incorrect heliocentric corrections, 44 incorrect or missing supernova coordinates, 230 missing heliocentric or CMB frame redshifts, and 1200 missing redshift uncertainties. The absolute corrections range between 10 -8 ≤ Δz ≤ 0.038, and RMS(Δz) ~ 3 × 10 -3 . The sign of the correction was essentially random, so the mean and median corrections are small: 4 × 10 -4 and 4 × 10 -6 respectively. We examine the impact of these improvements for H 0 and the dark energy equation of state w and find that the cosmological results change by ΔH 0 = -0.12 km s -1 Mpc -1 and Δw = 0.003, both significantly smaller than previously reported uncertainties for H 0 of 1.0 km s -1 Mpc -1 and w of 0.04 respectively.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The impact of anisotropic redshift distributions on angular clustering

A leading way to constrain physical theories from cosmological observations is to test their predictions for the angular clustering statistics of matter tracers, a technique that is set to become ever more central with the next generation of large imaging surveys. Interpretation of this clustering requires knowledge of the projection kernel, or the redshift distribution of the sources, and the typical assumption is an isotropic redshift distribution for the objects. However, variations in the kernel are expected across the survey footprint due to photometric variations and residual observational systematic effects. Here, we develop the formalism for anisotropic projection and present several limiting cases that elucidate the key aspects. We quantify the impact of anisotropies in the redshift distribution on a general class of angular two-point statistics. In particular, we identify a mode-coupling effect that can add power to auto-correlations, including galaxy clustering and cosmic shear, and remove it from certain cross-correlations. If the projection anisotropy is primarily at large scales, the mode-coupling depends upon its variance as a function of redshift; furthermore, it is often of similar shape to the signal. In contrast, the cross-correlation of a field whose selection function is anisotropic with another one featuring no such variations — such as CMB lensing — is immune to these effects. We discuss explicitly several special cases of the general formalism including galaxy clustering, galaxy-galaxy lensing, cosmic shear and cross-correlations with CMB lensing, and publicly release a code to compute the biases.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Fisher for complements: extracting cosmology and neutrino mass from the counts-in-cells PDF

In this work, we comprehensively analyse the cosmology dependence of counts-in-cells statistics. Furthermore, we focus on the shape of the one-point probability distribution function (PDF) of the matter density field at mildly non-linear scales. Based on large-deviation statistics, we parametrize the cosmology dependence of the matter PDF in terms of the linear power spectrum, the growth factor, the spherical collapse dynamics, and the non-linear variance. We extend our formalism to include massive neutrinos, finding that the total matter PDF is highly sensitive to the total neutrino mass Mν and can disentangle it from the clustering amplitude σ 8 . Additionally, using more than a million PDFs extracted from the Quijote simulations, we determine the response of the matter PDF to changing parameters in the νΛCDM model and successfully cross-validate the theoretical model and the simulation measurements. We present the first νΛCDM Fisher forecast for the matter PDF at multiple scales and redshifts, and its combination with the matter power spectrum. We establish that the matter PDF and the matter power spectrum are highly complementary at mildly non-linear scales. The matter PDF is particularly powerful for constraining the matter density Ωm, clustering amplitude σ 8 and the total neutrino mass Mν. Adding the mildly non-linear matter PDF to the mildly non-linear matter power spectrum improves constraints on Ω m by a factor of 5 and σ 8 by a factor of 2 when considering the three lowest redshifts. In our joint analysis of the matter PDF and matter power spectrum at three redshifts, the total neutrino mass is constrained to better than 0.01 eV with a total volume of 6 (Gpc h -1 ) 3 . We discuss how density-split statistics can be used to translate those encouraging results for the matter PDF into realistic observables in galaxy surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

2D-FFTLog: efficient computation of real-space covariance matrices for galaxy clustering and weak lensing

ABSTRACT Accurate covariance matrices for two-point functions are critical for inferring cosmological parameters in likelihood analyses of large-scale structure surveys. Among various approaches to obtaining the covariance, analytic computation is much faster and less noisy than estimation from data or simulations. However, the transform of covariances from Fourier space to real space involves integrals with two Bessel integrals, which are numerically slow and easily affected by numerical uncertainties. Inaccurate covariances may lead to significant errors in the inference of the cosmological parameters. In this paper, we introduce a 2D-FFTLog algorithm for efficient, accurate, and numerically stable computation of non-Gaussian real-space covariances for both 3D and projected statistics. The 2D-FFTLog algorithm is easily extended to perform real-space bin-averaging. We apply the algorithm to the covariances for galaxy clustering and weak lensing for a Dark Energy Survey Year 3-like and a Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time Year 1-like survey, and demonstrate that for both surveys, our algorithm can produce numerically stable angular bin-averaged covariances with the flat sky approximation, which are sufficiently accurate for inferring cosmological parameters. The code CosmoCov for computing the real-space covariances with or without the flat-sky approximation is released along with this paper.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

How accurately can we detect the splashback radius of dark matter haloes and its correlation with accretion rate?

ABSTRACT The splashback radius (Rsp) of dark matter haloes has recently been detected using weak gravitational lensing and cross-correlations with galaxies. However, different methods have been used to measure Rsp and to assess the significance of its detection. In this paper, we use simulations to study the precision and accuracy to which we can detect the splashback radius with 3D density, 3D subhalo, and weak lensing profiles. We study how well various methods and tracers recover Rsp by comparing it with the value measured directly from particle dynamics. We show that estimates of Rsp from density and subhalo profiles correspond to different percentiles of the underlying Rsp distribution of particle orbits. At low accretion rates, a second caustic appears and can bias results. Finally, we show that upcoming lensing surveys may be able to constrain the Rsp–Γdyn relation directly.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Correlations between triaxial shapes and formation history of dark matter haloes

ABSTRACT The shape of dark matter (DM) haloes plays a critical role in constraining cosmology with upcoming large-scale structure surveys. In this paper, we study the correlations between the triaxial shapes and formation histories in DM haloes in the MultiDark Planck 2 N-body cosmological simulation. We find that halo ellipticity is strongly correlated with halo properties that serve as proxies of halo formation history, such as halo concentration and the normalized peak-centroid offset. These correlations are nearly independent of the halo density peak height. We present a simple model for the correlation between halo ellipticity and concentration using conditional abundance matching, and provide fitting formulae for the multidimensional distributions of triaxial halo shape as a function of halo peak height. We apply our halo shape model to gauge the effects of halo ellipticity and orientation bias on the excess surface mass density profiles in cluster-sized haloes. Our model should be useful for exploring the impact of triaxial halo shape on cosmological constraints in upcoming weak lensing surveys of galaxy clusters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Testing general relativity on cosmological scales at redshift z ∼ 1.5 with quasar and CMB lensing

ABSTRACT We test general relativity (GR) at the effective redshift $\bar{z} \sim 1.5$ by estimating the statistic EG, a probe of gravity, on cosmological scales $19 - 190\, h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$. This is the highest redshift and largest scale estimation of EG so far. We use the quasar sample with redshifts 0.8 < z < 2.2 from Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 16 as the large-scale structure (LSS) tracer, for which the angular power spectrum $C_\ell ^{qq}$ and the redshift-space distortion parameter β are estimated. By cross-correlating with the Planck 2018 cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing map, we detect the angular cross-power spectrum $C_\ell ^{\kappa q}$ signal at $12\, \sigma$ significance. Both jackknife resampling and simulations are used to estimate the covariance matrix (CM) of EG at five bins covering different scales, with the later preferred for its better constraints on the covariances. We find EG estimates agree with the GR prediction at $1\, \sigma$ level over all these scales. With the CM estimated with 300 simulations, we report a best-fitting scale-averaged estimate of $E_G(\bar{z})=0.30\pm 0.05$, which is in line with the GR prediction $E_G^{\rm GR}(\bar{z})=0.33$ with Planck 2018 CMB + BAO matter density fraction Ωm = 0.31. The statistical errors of EG with future LSS surveys at similar redshifts will be reduced by an order of magnitude, which makes it possible to constrain modified gravity models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Towards a self-consistent analysis of the anisotropic galaxy two- and three-point correlation functions on large scales: application to mock galaxy catalogues

We establish a practical method for the joint analysis of anisotropic galaxy two- and three-point correlation functions (2PCF and 3PCF, respectively) on the basis of the decomposition formalism of the 3PCF using tripolar spherical harmonics. We perform such an analysis with MultiDark-Patchy mock catalogues to demonstrate and understand the benefit of the anisotropic 3PCF. We focus on scales above $80\, h^{-1}\, {\rm Mpc}$, and use information from the shape and the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) signals of the 2PCF and 3PCF. We also apply density field reconstruction to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of BAO in the 2PCF measurement, but not in the 3PCF measurement. In particular, we study in detail the constraints on the angular diameter distance and the Hubble parameter. We build a model of the bispectrum or 3PCF that includes the non-linear damping of the BAO signal in redshift space. We carefully account for various uncertainties in our analysis including theoretical models of the 3PCF, window function corrections, biases in estimated parameters from the fiducial values, the number of mock realizations to estimate the covariance matrix, and bin size. The joint analysis of the 2PCF and 3PCF monopole and quadrupole components shows a $30{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ and $20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ improvement in Hubble parameter constraints before and after reconstruction of the 2PCF measurements, respectively, compared to the 2PCF analysis alone. Furthermore, this study clearly shows that the anisotropic 3PCF increases cosmological information from galaxy surveys and encourages further development of the modelling of the 3PCF on smaller scales than we consider.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Extensions to models of the galaxy–halo connection

ABSTRACT We explore two widely used empirical models for the galaxy–halo connection, subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) and the halo occupation distribution (HOD), and compare them with the hydrodynamical simulation IllustrisTNG (TNG) for multiple statistics quantifying the galaxy distribution at $n_{\rm gal}\approx 1.3\times 10^{-3}\, ({\rm Mpc}\,h^{-1})^{-3}$. We observe that in their most straightforward implementations, both models fail to reproduce the two-point clustering measured in TNG. We find that SHAM models that use the relaxation velocity, Vrelax, and the peak velocity, Vpeak, perform best, and match the clustering reasonably well, although neither captures adequately the one-halo clustering. Splitting the total sample into sub-populations, we discover that SHAM overpredicts the clustering of high-mass, blue, star-forming, and late-forming galaxies and underpredicts that of low-mass, red, quiescent, and early-forming galaxies. We also study various baryonic effects, finding that subhaloes in the dark-matter-only simulation have consistently higher values of their SHAM-proxy properties than their full-physics counterparts. We then consider a 2D implementation of the HOD model augmented with a secondary parameter (environment, velocity anisotropy, σ2Rhalf-mass, and total potential) tuned so as to match the two-point clustering of the IllustrisTNG galaxies on large scales. We analyse these galaxy populations adopting alternative statistical tools such as galaxy–galaxy lensing, void–galaxy cross-correlations, and cumulants of the density field, finding that the hydrodynamical galaxy distribution disfavours σ2Rhalf-mass and the total potential as secondary parameters, while the environment and velocity anisotropy samples are consistent with full physics across all statistical probes examined. Our results demonstrate the power of examining multiple statistics for determining the secondary parameters that are vital for understanding the galaxy–halo connection.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Completed SDSS-IV Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: N-body Mock Challenge for Galaxy Clustering Measurements

We develop a series of N-body data challenges, functional to the final analysis of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) Data Release 16 (DR16) galaxy sample. The challenges are primarily based on high-fidelity catalogues constructed from the Outer Rim simulation - a large box size realization (3h(-1) Gpc) characterized by an unprecedented combination of volume and mass resolution, down to 1.85 x 10(9) h(-1)M(circle dot). We generate synthetic galaxy mocks by populating Outer Rim haloes with a variety of halo occupation distribution (HOD) schemes of increasing complexity, spanning different redshift intervals. We then assess the performance of three complementary redshift space distortion (RSD) models in configuration and Fourier space, adopted for the analysis of the complete DR16 eBOSS sample of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG5). We find all the methods mutually consistent, with comparable systematic errors on the Alcock-Paczynski parameters and the growth of structure, and robust to different HOD prescriptions - thus validating the robustness of the models and the pipelines used for the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) and full shape clustering analysis. In particular, all the techniques are able to recover and alpha(11) to within 0.9 per cent, and f sigma(8) to within 1.5 per cent. As a by-product of our work, we are also able to gain interesting insights on the galaxy-halo connection. Our study is relevant for the final eBOSS DR16 'consensus cosmology', as the systematic error budget is informed by testing the results of analyses against these high-resolution mocks. In addition, it is also useful for future large-volume surveys, since similar mock-making techniques and systematic corrections can be readily extended to model for instance the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) galaxy sample.

cosmology: theory, large-scale structure of Univer↗

The phase-space structure of dark matter haloes

ABSTRACT The phase space structure of dark matter haloes can be used to measure the mass of the halo, infer mass accretion rates, and probe the effects of modified gravity. Previous studies showed that the splashback radius can be measured in position space using a sharp drop in the density profile. Using N-body simulations, we model the distribution of the kinematically distinct infalling and orbiting populations of subhaloes and haloes. We show that the two are mixed spatially all the way to redge, which extends past the splashback radius defined by the drop in the spherically averaged density profile. This edge radius can be interpreted as a radius that contains a fixed fraction of the apocentres of dark matter particles. Our results highlight the possibility of measuring the outer boundary of a dark matter halo using its phase space structure and provide a firm theoretical foundation to the satellite galaxy model adopted in the companion paper, where we analysed the phase space distribution of Sloan Digital Sky Survey redMaPPer clusters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Limitations to the ‘basic’ HOD model and beyond

ABSTRACT We use the IllustrisTNG cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations to test fundamental assumptions of the mass-based halo occupation distribution (HOD) approach to modelling the galaxy–halo connection. By comparing the clustering of galaxies measured in the 300 Mpc TNG box (TNG300) with that predicted by the standard (basic) HOD model, we find that, on average, the ‘basic’ HOD model underpredicts the real-space correlation function in the TNG300 box by ∼15 per cent on scales of $1 \,\,\lt\,\, r \,\,\lt\,\, 20 \ {\rm Mpc}\, h^{-1}$, which is well beyond the target precision demanded of next-generation galaxy redshift surveys. We perform several tests to establish the robustness of our findings to systematic effects, including the effect of finite box size and the choice of halo finder. In our exploration of ‘secondary’ parameters with which to augment the ‘basic’ HOD, we find that the local environment of the halo, the velocity dispersion anisotropy, β, and the product of the half-mass radius and the velocity dispersion, σ2Rhalfmass, are the three most effective measures of assembly bias that help reconcile the ‘basic’ HOD-predicted clustering with that in TNG300. In addition, we test other halo properties such as halo spin, formation epoch, and halo concentration. We also find that at fixed halo mass, galaxies in one type of environment cluster differently from galaxies in another. We demonstrate that a more complete model of the galaxy–halo connection can be constructed if we combine both mass and local environment information about the halo.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Good and proper: self-similarity of N -body simulations with proper force softening

ABSTRACT Analysis of self-similarity in scale-free N-body simulations reveals the spatial and temporal scales for which statistics measured in cosmological simulations are converged to the physical continuum limit. We examine how the range of scales in which the two-point correlation function is converged depends on the force softening length and whether it is held constant in comoving or proper coordinates. We find that a proper softening that reaches roughly 1/30th of the inter-particle spacing by the end of the simulation resolves the same spatial and temporal scales as a comoving softening of the same length while using a third fewer time-steps, for a range of scale factors typical to Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) simulations. We additionally infer an inherent resolution limit, set by the particle mass and scaling as a−1/2, beyond which reducing the softening does not improve the resolution. We postulate a mapping of these results with spectral index n = −2 to ΛCDM simulations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Information content of higher order galaxy correlation functions

The shapes of galaxy N-point correlation functions can be used as standard rulers to constrain the distance–redshift relationship. The cosmological density fields traced by late-time galaxy formation are initially nearly Gaussian, and hence, all the cosmological information can be extracted from their two-point correlation function. Subsequent non-linear evolution under gravity, as well as halo and then galaxy formation, generates higher order correlation functions. Since the mapping of the initial to the final density field is, on large scales, invertible, it is often claimed that the information content of the initial field’s power spectrum is equal to that of all the higher order functions of the final, non-linear field. This claim implies that reconstruction of the initial density field from the non-linear field renders analysis of higher order correlation functions of the latter superfluous. We show that this claim is false when the N-point functions are used as standard rulers. Constraints available from joint analysis of the two and three-point correlation functions can, in some cases, exceed those offered by the initial power spectrum. We provide a mathematical justification for this claim and demonstrate it using a large suite of N-body simulations. In particular, we show that for the z = 0 real-space matter field in the limit of vanishing shot-noise, taking modes up to k max = 0.2 h Mpc −1 , using the bispectrum alone offers a factor of 2 reduction in the variance on the cosmic distance scale relative to that available from the linear power spectrum.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗