Using Dark Energy Explorers and Machine Learning to Enhance the Hobby–Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment
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Lindsay R. House↗
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Results for “dark energy experiments”
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DESI 2024 VI: cosmological constraints from the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations
We present cosmological results from the measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in galaxy, quasar and Lyman-α forest tracers from the first year of observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), to be released in the DESI Data Release 1. DESI BAO provide robust measurements of the transverse comoving distance and Hubble rate, or their combination, relative to the sound horizon, in seven redshift bins from over 6 million extragalactic objects in the redshift range 0.1 < z < 4.2. To mitigate confirmation bias, a blind analysis was implemented to measure the BAO scales. DESI BAO data alone are consistent with the standard flat ΛCDM cosmological model with a matter density Ω m =0.295±0.015. Paired with a baryon density prior from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the robustly measured acoustic angular scale from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), DESI requires H 0 =(68.52±0.62) km s -1 Mpc -1 . In conjunction with CMB anisotropies from Planck and CMB lensing data from Planck and ACT, we find Ω m =0.307± 0.005 and H 0 =(67.97±0.38) km s -1 Mpc -1 . Extending the baseline model with a constant dark energy equation of state parameter w, DESI BAO alone requirew=-0.99 +0.15 -0.13 . In models with a time-varying dark energy equation of state parametrised by w 0 and w a , combinations of DESI with CMB or with type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) individually prefer w 0 > -1 and w a < 0. This preference is 2.6σ for the DESI+CMB combination, and persists or grows when SN Ia are added in, giving results discrepant with the ΛCDM model at the 2.5σ, 3.5σ or 3.9σ levels for the addition of the Pantheon+, Union3, or DES-SN5YR supernova datasets respectively. For the flat ΛCDM model with the sum of neutrino mass ∑ m ν free, combining the DESI and CMB data yields an upper limit ∑ m ν < 0.072 (0.113) eV at 95% confidence for a ∑ m ν > 0 (∑ m ν > 0.059) eV prior. These neutrino-mass constraints are substantially relaxed if the background dynamics are allowed to deviate from flat ΛCDM.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
Testing cosmology with double source lensing
Double source lensing provides a dimensionless ratio of distance ratios, a "remote viewing" of cosmology through distances relative to the gravitational lens, beyond the observer. We use this to test the cosmological framework, particularly with respect to spatial curvature and the distance duality relation. We derive a consistency equation for constant spatial curvature, allowing not only the investigation of flat vs curved but of the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker framework itself. For distance duality, we demonstrate that the evolution of the lens mass profile slope must be controlled to ≳ 5 times tighter fractional precision than a claimed distance duality violation. Furthermore, using LensPop forecasts of double source lensing systems in Euclid and LSST surveys we also explore constraints on dark energy equation of state parameters and any evolution of the lens mass profile slope.
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DESI 2024: reconstructing dark energy using crossing statistics with DESI DR1 BAO data
Here, we implement Crossing Statistics to reconstruct in a model-agnostic manner the expansion history of the universe and properties of dark energy, using DESI Data Release 1 (DR1) BAO data in combination with one of three different supernova compilations (PantheonPlus, Union3, and DES-SN5YR) and Planck CMB observations. Our results hint towards an evolving and emergent dark energy behaviour, with negligible presence of dark energy at z ≳ 1, at varying significance depending on data sets combined. In all these reconstructions, the cosmological constant lies outside the 95% confidence intervals for some redshift ranges. This dark energy behaviour, reconstructed using Crossing Statistics, is in agreement with results from the conventional w 0 –w a dark energy equation of state parametrization reported in the DESI Key cosmology paper. Our results add an extensive class of model-agnostic reconstructions with acceptable fits to the data, including models where cosmic acceleration slows down at low redshifts. We also report constraints on H 0 r d from our model-agnostic analysis, independent of the pre-recombination physics.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
Optimal parameterizations for observational constraints on thawing dark energy
Time-varying dark energy is often modeled in observational analyses through generic parameterizations of its equation of state w(z), which typically use two free parameters {w 0 , w a } to span a broad range of behaviors as a function of redshift. However, this broad range of behaviors can only approximately capture the dynamics of any given microphysical theory of dark energy. A complementary approach is to use targeted parameterizations designed to model specific classes of dynamical dark energy with greater precision. Focusing on the class of thawing dark energy, we quantify and compare the precision with which nineteen generic and targeted parameterizations can capture the dynamics of physically motivated thawing quintessence theories. We find that a targeted parameterization derived from a Padé expansion of w is the most reliable of these, producing accurate reconstructions of w(z), the expansion history H(z), and cosmological parameters such as H 0 and Ω m for a broad range of microphysical theories.
dark energy experiments↗
A data compression and optimal galaxy weights scheme for Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and weak lensing data sets
Combining different observational probes, such as galaxy clustering and weak lensing, is a promising technique for unveiling the physics of the Universe with upcoming dark energy experiments. The galaxy redshift sample from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will have a significant overlap with major ongoing imaging surveys specifically designed for weak lensing measurements: the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), the Dark Energy Survey (DES), and the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) survey. In this work, we analyse simulated redshift and lensing catalogues to establish a new strategy for combining high-quality cosmological imaging and spectroscopic data, in view of the first-year data assembly analysis of DESI. In a test case fitting for a reduced parameter set, we employ an optimal data compression scheme able to identify those aspects of the data that are most sensitive to cosmological information and amplify them with respect to other aspects of the data. We find this optimal compression approach is able to preserve all the information related to the growth of structures.
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DESI Spectroscopy of HETDEX Emission-line Candidates. I. Line Discrimination Validation
The Hobby–Eberly Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is an untargeted spectroscopic galaxy survey that uses Lyα-emitting galaxies (LAEs) as tracers of 1.9 < z < 3.5 large-scale structure. Most detections consist of a single emission line, whose identity is inferred via a Bayesian analysis of ancillary data. To determine the accuracy of these line identifications, HETDEX detections were observed with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). In two DESI pointings, high-confidence spectroscopic redshifts are obtained for 1157 sources, including 982 LAEs. The DESI spectra are used to evaluate the accuracy of the HETDEX object classifications and tune the methodology to achieve the HETDEX science requirement of ≲2% contamination of the LAE sample by low-redshift emission-line galaxies, while still assigning 96% of the true Lyα emission sample with the correct spectroscopic redshift. We compare emission-line measurements between the two experiments assuming a simple Gaussian line fitting model. Fitted values for the central wavelength of the emission line, the measured line flux, and line widths are consistent between the surveys within uncertainties. Derived spectroscopic redshifts, from the two classification pipelines, when both agree as an LAE classification, are consistent to within $\langle$Δz/(1 + z)$\rangle$ = 6.9 × 10 −5 with an rms scatter of 3.3 × 10 −4 . Data are available at https://data.desi.lbl.gov/desi/public/dr1/vac/dr1/hetdex.
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SPT-3G D1: Axion early dark energy with CMB experiments and DESI observations
We present the most up-to-date constraints on axion early dark energy (AEDE) from cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements. In particular, we assess the impact of data from ground-based CMB experiments, the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT)—both with and without Planck—on constraints on AEDE. We also highlight the impact that BAO information from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has on these constraints. From CMB data alone, we do not find statistically significant evidence for the presence of AEDE, and we find only moderate reduction in the Hubble tension. From the latest SPT data alone, we find the maximal fractional contribution of AEDE to the cosmic energy budget is f EDE < 0.12 at 95% confidence level (CL), and the Hubble tension between the SPT and Supernovae, H0, for the Equation of State of Dark Energy (SH0ES) results is reduced to the 2.3 σ level. When combining the latest SPT, ACT, and Planck datasets, we find f EDE < 0.070 at 95% CL and the Hubble tension at the 3.6 σ level. In contrast, adding DESI data to the CMB datasets results in mild preference for AEDE and, in some cases, non-negligible reduction in the Hubble tension. From SPT + DESI , we find f EDE = 0.08 1 - 0.052 + 0.037 at 68% CL, and the Hubble tension reduces to 1.5 σ . From the combination of DESI with all three CMB experiments, we get f EDE = 0.05 5 - 0.047 + 0.024 at 68% CL and a weak preference for AEDE over Λ CDM . This data combination, in turn, reduces the Hubble tension to 2.6 σ . We highlight that this shift in parameters when adding the DESI dataset is a manifestation of the discrepancy currently present between DESI and CMB experiments in the concordance model Λ CDM .
Khalife, A. R. [Paris, Inst. Astrophys.] (ORCID:00↗
HETDEX Public Source Catalog 1: 220 K Sources Including Over 50 K Ly$α$ Emitters from an Untargeted Wide-area Spectroscopic Survey*
We present the first publicly released catalog of sources obtained from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). HETDEX is an integral field spectroscopic survey designed to measure the Hubble expansion parameter and angular diameter distance at 1.88 < z < 3.52 by using the spatial distribution of more than a million Lyα-emitting galaxies over a total target area of 540 deg 2 . The catalog comes from contiguous fiber spectra coverage of 25 deg 2 of sky from 2017 January through 2020 June, where object detection is performed through two complementary detection methods: one designed to search for line emission and the other a search for continuum emission. The HETDEX public release catalog is dominated by emission-line galaxies and includes 51,863 Ly$α$-emitting galaxy (LAE) identifications and 123,891 [O ii]-emitting galaxies at z < 0.5. Also included in the catalog are 37,916 stars, 5274 low-redshift (z < 0.5) galaxies without emission lines, and 4976 active galactic nuclei. The catalog provides sky coordinates, redshifts, line identifications, classification information, line fluxes, [O ii] and Ly$α$ line luminosities where applicable, and spectra for all identified sources processed by the HETDEX detection pipeline. Extensive testing demonstrates that HETDEX redshifts agree to within Δz < 0.02, 96.1% of the time to those in external spectroscopic catalogs. We measure the photometric counterpart fraction in deep ancillary Hyper Suprime-Cam imaging and find that only 55.5% of the LAE sample has an r-band continuum counterpart down to a limiting magnitude of r ~ 26.2 mag (AB) indicating that an LAE search of similar sensitivity to HETDEX with photometric preselection would miss nearly half of the HETDEX LAE catalog sample. Data access and details about the catalog can be found online at http://hetdex.org/. A copy of the catalogs presented in this work (Version 3.2) is available to download at Zenodo doi:10.5281/zenodo.7448504.
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Unfolding Structure Formation in the Dark Universe via Weak Gravitational Lensing: from Pixels to Cosmology in the Dark Energy Survey and Roman Space Telescope
Weak gravitational lensing (deflection of light from distant galaxies due to the gravitational potential of intervening mass) is one of the most exciting probes in cosmology as it is sensitive both to the growth of the large-scale structure and the expansion history of the Universe. We can measure the coherent distortion of galaxy shapes (which we call cosmic shear) and infer the matter distribution. With next-generation imaging surveys such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (Rubin LSST) and the Nancy G. Roman Space Telescope (Roman), there is immense new promise in understanding the fundamental nature of dark matter and dark energy. With datasets from current experiments like the Dark Energy Survey (DES), we see apparent cosmological tensions between experiments that may either be real and indicate new physics or new systematics we do not yet understand. LSST and Roman will increase the number of galaxies we have observed by an order of magnitude, leading to improved constraints on our cosmological model by up to 300%. These experiments will have the potential to prove if these cosmological tensions are real. However, our control of systematic uncertainties must also improve by similar levels to achieve the promise of what these missions can deliver. To achieve these scientific outcomes, the challenges of determining galaxy shapes and redshifts and modeling the impact of astrophysical effects must be solved. My PhD has focused on enabling weak lensing science in DES and Roman. I co-led the shear analysis teams in DES to produce the largest weak lensing galaxy sample, as well as the final DES cosmological analysis of cosmic shear. For Roman, I have led two papers characterizing and mitigating shear-related systematics with image simulations.
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Systematic study of projection biases in the weak lensing analysis of cosmic shear and the combination of galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing
This paper presents the results of a systematic study of projection biases in the weak lensing analysis of cosmic shear and the combination of galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing using data collected during the first year of running the Dark Energy Survey experiment. The study uses Lambda cold dark matter ( Λ CDM ) as the cosmological model and two-point correlation functions for the weak lensing (WL) analysis. The results in this paper show that, independent of the WL analysis, projection biases of more than 1 σ exist and are a function of the position of the true values of the parameters h , n s , Ω b , and Ω ν h 2 with respect to their prior probabilities. For cosmic shear, and the combination of galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing, this study shows that the coverage probability of the 68.27% credible intervals ranges from as high as 93% to as low as 16% and that these credible intervals are inflated, on average, by 29% for cosmic shear and 20% for the combination of galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing. The results of the study also show that, in six out of nine tested cases, the reduction in error bars obtained by transforming credible intervals into confidence intervals is equivalent to an increase in the amount of data by a factor of 3.
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Probing the Properties of Superheavy Dark Matter Annihilating or Decaying into Neutrinos With Ultra-High Energy Neutrino Experiments
The evidence for dark matter particles,x, is compelling based on Galactic to cosmological scale observations. Thus far, the promising weakly interacting massive particle scenario have eluded detection, motivating alternative models of dark matter. We consider scenarios involving super-heavy dark matter (SHDM) that potentially can decay or annihilate to neutrinos and antineutrinos. In the mass range m(sub x) =10(exp 7) −10(exp 15) GeV, we evaluate the sensitivities of future observatories PO-EMMA and GRAND for indirect dark matter detection via the measurement of neutrino-induced extensive air showers (EAS), compute the Auger and ANITA limits using their last up-to-date sensitivities, and compare them with IceCube limits. We also show that the uncertainties related to the dark matter distribution in the Galactic halo have a large impact on the neutrino flux. We show that a ground-based radio detector such as GRAND can achieve high sensitivities due to its large effective area and high duty cycle. Space-based Cherenkov detectors such as POEMMA that measure the EAS optical Cherenkov signal have the advantage of full-sky coverage and rapid slewing, enabling an optimized SHDM observation strategy focusing on the Galactic Center. We show that increasing the field of view of the Cherenkov detectors can significantly enhance the sensitivity. Moreover, POEMMA’s fluorescence observation mode that measures EAS above20EeV will achieve state-of-the-art sensitivity to SHDM properties at the highest mass scales.
Claire Guepin↗
The DESI One-Percent survey: exploring the Halo Occupation Distribution of Emission Line Galaxies with AbacusSummit simulations
The One-Percent survey of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument collected ~ 270k emission line galaxies (ELGs) at 0.8 < z < 1.6. The high completeness of the sample allowed the clustering to be measured down to scales never probed before, 0.04 Mpc/h in rp for the projected 2-point correlation function (2PCF) and 0.17 Mpc/h in galaxy pair separation s for the 2PCF monopole and quadrupole. The most striking feature of the measurements is a strong signal at the smallest scales, below 0.2 Mpc/h in rp and 1 Mpc/h in s. We analyse these data in the halo occupation distribution framework. We consider different distributions for central galaxies, a standard power law for satellites with no condition on the presence of a central galaxy and explore several extensions of these models. For all considered models, the mean halo mass of the sample is found to be log10 $\langle$Mh$\rangle$ ~ 11.9. We obtain a satellite mean occupation function which agrees with physically motivated ELG models only if we introduce central-satellite conformity, meaning that the satellite occupation is conditioned by the presence of central galaxies of the same type. To achieve in addition a good modelling of the clustering between 0.1 and 1 Mpc/h in rp, we allow for ELG positioning outside of the halo virial radius and find 0.5% of ELGs residing in the outskirts of halos. Furthermore, the satellite velocity dispersion inside halos is found to be ~ 30% larger than that of the halo dark matter particles. These are the main findings of our work. Here we investigate assembly bias as a function of halo concentration, local density or local density anisotropies and observe no significant change in our results. We split the data sample in two redshift bins and report no significant evolution with redshift. Lastly, changing the cosmology in the modelling impacts only slightly our results.
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3D correlations in the Lyman-α forest from early DESI data
We present the first measurements of Lyman-α (Lyα) forest correlations using early data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). We measure the auto-correlation of Lyα absorption using 88 509 quasars at z > 2, and its cross-correlation with quasars using a further 147 899 tracer quasars at z ≳ 1.77. Then, we fit these correlations using a 13-parameter model based on linear perturbation theory and find that it provides a good description of the data across a broad range of scales. We detect the BAO peak with a signal-to-noise ratio of 3.8σ, and show that our measurements of the auto- and cross-correlations are fully-consistent with previous measurements by the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). Even though we only use here a small fraction of the final DESI dataset, our uncertainties are only a factor of 1.7 larger than those from the final eBOSS measurement. As a result, we validate the existing analysis methods of Lyα correlations in preparation for making a robust measurement of the BAO scale with the first year of DESI data.
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Full Modeling and parameter compression methods in configuration space for DESI 2024 and beyond
In the contemporary era of high-precision spectroscopic surveys, led by projects like DESI, there is an increasing demand for optimizing the extraction of cosmological information from clustering data. This work conducts a thorough comparison of various methodologies for modeling the full shape of the two-point statistics in configuration space. We investigate the performance of both direct fits (Full Modeling) and the parameter compression approaches (ShapeFit and Standard). We utilize the ABACUS-SUMMIT simulations, tailored to exceed DESI's precision requirements. Particularly, we fit the two-point statistics of three distinct tracers (LRG, ELG, and QSO), by employing a Gaussian Streaming Model in tandem with Convolution Lagrangian Perturbation Theory and Effective Field Theory. We explore methodological setup variations, including the range of scales, the set of galaxy bias parameters, the inclusion of the hexadecapole, as well as model extensions encompassing varying ns and allowing for w 0 w a CDM dark energy model. Throughout these varied explorations, while precision levels fluctuate and certain configurations exhibit tighter parameter constraints, our pipeline consistently recovers the parameter values of the mocks within 1σ in all cases for a 1-year DESI volume. Additionally, we compare the performance of configuration space analysis with its Fourier space counterpart using three models: PyBird, FOLPS and velocileptors, presented in companion papers. We find good agreement with the results from all these models.
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Impact of systematic redshift errors on the cross-correlation of the Lyman-α forest with quasars at small scales using DESI Early Data
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will measure millions of quasar spectra by the end of its 5 year survey. Quasar redshift errors impact the shape of the Lyman-α forest correlation functions, which can affect cosmological analyses and therefore cosmological interpretations. Here, using data from the DESI Early Data Release and the first two months of the main survey, we measure the systematic redshift error from an offset in the cross-correlation of the Lyman-α forest with quasars. We find evidence for a redshift dependent bias causing redshifts to be underestimated with increasing redshift, stemming from improper modeling of the Lyman-α optical depth in the templates used for redshift estimation. New templates were derived for the DESI Year 1 quasar sample at z > 1.6 and we found the redshift dependent bias, Δr ∥ , increased from -1.94 ± 0.15 h -1 Mpc to -0.08 ± 0.04 h -1 Mpc (-205 ± 15 km s -1 to -9.0 ± 4.0 km s -1 ). These new templates will be used to provide redshifts for the DESI Year 1 quasar sample.
Lyman alpha forest↗
Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
Broad absorption line quasars (BALs) exhibit blueshifted absorption relative to a number of their prominent broad emission features. These absorption features can contribute to quasar redshift errors and add absorption to the Lyman-α (Lyα) forest that is unrelated to large-scale structure. We present a detailed analysis of the impact of BALs on the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) results with the Lyα forest from the first year of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). The baseline strategy for the first year analysis is to mask all pixels associated with all BAL absorption features that fall within the wavelength region used to measure the forest. We explore a range of alternate masking strategies and demonstrate that these changes have minimal impact on the BAO measurements with both DESI data and synthetic data. This includes when we mask the BAL features associated with emission lines outside of the forest region to minimize their contribution to redshift errors. We identify differences in the properties of BALs in the synthetic datasets relative to the observational data, as well as use the synthetic observations to characterize the completeness of the BAL identification algorithm, and demonstrate that incompleteness and differences in the BALs between real and synthetic data also do not impact the BAO results for the Lyα forest.
Lyman alpha forest↗
Characterization of contaminants in the Lyman-alpha forest auto-correlation with DESI
Baryon Acoustic Oscillations can be measured with sub-percent precision above redshift two with the Lyman-α (Lyα) forest auto-correlation and its cross-correlation with quasar positions. This is one of the key goals of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) which started its main survey in May 2021. We present in this paper a study of the contaminants to the Lyα forest which are mainly caused by correlated signals introduced by the spectroscopic data processing pipeline as well as astrophysical contaminants due to foreground absorption in the intergalactic medium. Notably, an excess signal caused by the sky background subtraction noise is present in the Lyα auto-correlation in the first line-of-sight separation bin. We use synthetic data to isolate this contribution, we also characterize the effect of spectro-photometric calibration noise, and propose a simple model to account for both effects in the analysis of the Lyα forest. We then measure the auto-correlation of the quasar flux transmission fraction of low redshift quasars, where there is no Lyα forest absorption but only its contaminants. We demonstrate that we can interpret the data with a two-component model: data processing noise and triply ionized Silicon and Carbon auto-correlations. This result can be used to improve the modeling of the Lyα auto-correlation function measured with DESI.
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