The freestreaming of cosmological neutrinos prior to recombination of the baryon-photon plasma alters gravitational potentials and therefore the details of the time-dependent gravitational driving of acoustic oscillations. We report here a first detection of the resulting shifts in the temporal phase of the oscillations, which we infer from their signature in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature power spectrum. The magnitude of the shift is proportional to the fraction of the total radiation density in neutrinos. Parameterizing the shift via an effective number of neutrino species we find $1.9 < N_\nu^{\delta\phi} < 3.4$ at $68\%$ confidence, consistent with the standard model value of $N_{\nu} = 3.046$, and inconsistent with zero.
In this second paper we present the first Nbody cosmological simulations of strongly coupled Dark Energy models (SCDEW), a class of models that alleviates theoretical issues related to the nature of dark energy (namely the coincidence and the fine tuning problems). SCDEW models assume a strong coupling between Dark Energy (DE) and an ancillary Cold Dark Matter (CDM) component together with the presence of an uncoupled Warm Dark Matter component. The strong coupling between CDM and DE allows us to preserve small scale fluctuations even if the warm particle is quite light (~100 eV). Our large scale simulations show that, for 1e11<M<1e14 Msun, SCDEW haloes exhibit a number density and distribution similar to a standard Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model, even though they have lower concentration parameters. High resolution simulation of a galactic halo (M~1e12 Msun) shows ~60% less substructures than its LCDM counterpart, but the same cuspy density profile. On the scale of galactic satellites (M~1e9 Msun) SCDEW haloes dramatically differ from LCDM. Due to the high thermal velocities of the WDM component they are almost devoid of any substructures and present strongly cored dark matter density profiles. These density cores extend for several hundreds of parsecs, in very good agreement with Milky Way satellites observations. Strongly coupled models, thanks to their ability to match observations on both large and small scales might represent a valid alternative to a simple LCDM model.
In this first paper we discuss the linear theory and the background evolution of strongly coupled (SCDEW) models. In these models, today energy density is dominated by Warm Dark Matter which, like baryons,is uncoupled. Dark Energy is a scalar field $\Phi$, whose coupling to an ancillary low-density Cold Dark Matter (CDM) component is an essential model feature. Such coupling, in fact, allows the formation of cosmic structures, in spite of very low WDM particle masses (~100 eV). SCDEW models yield Cosmic Microwave Background and linear Large Scale features substantially indistinguishable from LCDM, but thanks to the very low WDM masses they strongly alleviates LCDM issues on small scales, as confirmed via numerical simulations in the II associated paper. Moreover SCDEW cosmologies significantly ease the coincidence and fine tuning problems of LCDM, and, by using a field theory approach, we also outline possible links with inflationary models. We also discuss a possible fading of the coupling at low redshifts which prevents non linearities on the CDM component. The coupling intensity and the WDM particle mass, being extra parameters in respect to LCDM, are found to be substantially constrained a priori so that, if SCDEW is the underlying cosmology, we expect most data to fit also LCDM predictions.
With the installation of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope, measurements of the metal content of the low redshift intergalactic medium (IGM) are now available. Using a new grid-based model for diffuse gas coupled to the SAGE semi-analytic model of galaxy formation, we examine the impact of supernova feedback on the pollution of the IGM. We consider different assumptions for the reheating and ejection of gas by supernovae and their dependence on galaxy circular velocity and gas surface density. Where metals are present, we find the most likely metallicity to be $-1.5 < $log$_{10}$(Z/Z$_{\odot}$)$< -1.0$ at $z = 0$, consistent with both observations and more sophisticated hydrodynamic simulations. Our model predicts that the regions of the IGM with the highest metallicities will be near galaxies with M$_{\star} \sim 10^{10.5}h^{-1}$M$_{\odot}$ and in environments of densities $\sim 10 \times$ the mean. We also find that 90% of IGM metals at $z = 0$ are ejected by galaxies with stellar masses less than $10^{10.33}h^{-1}$M$_{\odot}$.
We investigate the cosmological effects of neutrino lumps in Growing Neutrino Quintessence. The strongly non-linear effects are resolved by means of numerical N-body simulations which include relativistic particles, non-linear scalar field equations and backreaction effects. For the investigated models with a constant coupling between the scalar field and the neutrinos the backreaction effects are so strong that a realistic cosmology is hard to realize. This points towards the necessity of a field dependent coupling in Growing Neutrino Quintessence. In this case realistic models of dynamical Dark Energy exist which are testable by the observation or non-observation of large neutrino lumps.
We investigate the Lema\^{i}tre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) models, whose early time evolution and bang time are homogeneous and the distance - redshift relation and local Hubble parameter are inherited from the $\Lambda$CDM model. We show that the obtained LTB models and the $\Lambda$CDM model predict different relative local expansion rates and that the Hubble functions of the models diverge increasingly with redshift. The LTB models show tension between baryon acoustic oscillation and supernova observations and including cosmic microwave background observations only accentuates the better fit of the $\Lambda$CDM model compared to the LTB model. The result indicates that additional degrees of freedom are needed to explain the observations, for example by renouncing spherical symmetry, homogeneous bang time, or the early time homogeneity assumption.
Counter to intuition, the images of an extended galaxy lensed by a moving
galaxy cluster should have slightly different spectra in any metric gravity
theory. This is mainly for two reasons. One relies on the gravitational
potential of a moving lens being time-dependent (the Moving Cluster Effect,
MCE). The other is due to uneven magnification across the extended, rotating
source (the Differential Magnification Effect, DME). The time delay between the
images can also cause their redshifts to differ because of cosmological
expansion. This Differential Expansion Effect is likely to be small. Using a
simple model, we derive these effects from first principles.
One application would be to the Bullet Cluster, whose large tangential
velocity may be inconsistent with the $\Lambda$CDM paradigm. This velocity can
be estimated with complicated hydrodynamic models. Uncertainties with such
models can be avoided using the MCE. We argue that the MCE should be observable
with ALMA.
However, such measurements can be corrupted by the DME if typical spiral
galaxies are used as sources. Fortunately, we find that if detailed spectral
line profiles were available, then the DME and MCE could be distinguished. It
might also be feasible to calculate how much the DME should affect the mean
redshift of each image. Resolved observations of the source would be required
to do this accurately.
The DME is of order the source angular size divided by the Einstein radius
times the redshift variation across the source. Thus, it mostly affects nearly
edge-on spiral galaxies in certain orientations. This suggests that observers
should reduce the DME by careful choice of target, a possibility we discuss in
some detail.
The bispectrum of single-field inflationary trajectories in which the speed of sound of the inflationary trajectories $c_s$ is constant but not equal to the speed of light $c=1$ is explored. The trajectories are generated as random realisations of the Hubble Slow-Roll (HSR) hierarchy and the bispectra are calculated using numerical techniques that extends previous work. This method allows for out-of-slow-roll models with non-trivial time dependence and arbitrarily low $c_s$. The ensembles obtained using this method yield distributions for the shape and scale-dependence of the bispectrum and their relations with the standard inflationary parameters such as scalar spectral tilt $n_s$ and tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. The distributions demonstrate the squeezed-limit consistency relations for arbitrary single-field inflationary models.
Observations of helium and hydrogen emission lines from metal-poor extragalactic H II regions provide an independent method for determining the primordial helium abundance, Y_p. Traditionally, the emission lines employed are in the visible wavelength range, and the number of suitable lines is limited. Furthermore, when using these lines, large systematic uncertainties in helium abundance determinations arise due to the degeneracy of physical parameters, such as temperature and density. Recently, Izotov, Thuan, & Guseva (2014) have pioneered adding the He 10830 infrared emission line in helium abundance determinations. The strong electron density dependence of He 10830 makes it ideal for better constraining density, potentially breaking the degeneracy with temperature. We revisit our analysis of the dataset published by Izotov, Thuan, & Stasinska (2007) and incorporate the newly available observations of He 10830 by scaling them using the observed-to-theoretical Paschen-gamma ratio. The solutions are better constrained, in particular for electron density, temperature, and the neutral hydrogen fraction, improving the model fit to data, with the result that more spectra now pass screening for quality and reliability, in addition to a standard 95% confidence level cut. Furthermore, the addition of He 10830 decreases the uncertainty on the helium abundance for all galaxies, with reductions in the uncertainty ranging from 10-80%. Overall, we find a reduction in the uncertainty on Y_p by over 50%. From a regression to zero metallicity, we determine Y_p = 0.2449 +/- 0.0040, consistent with the BBN result, Y_p = 0.2470 +/- 0.0002, based on the Planck determination of the baryon density. The dramatic improvement in the uncertainty from incorporating He 10830 strongly supports the case for simultaneous (thus not requiring scaling) observations of visible and infrared helium emission line spectra.
We seek to obtain exact solutions of regular black holes in $f(T)$ Gravity with non-linear electrodynamics material content, with spherical symmetry in $4D$. The equations of motion provide the regaining of various solutions of General Relativity, as a particular case where the function $f(T)=T$. We developed a powerful method for finding exact solutions, where we get the first two new classes of regular black holes solutions in the $f(T)$ Theory, where all the geometrics scalars disappear at the origin of the radial coordinate.
Does the observable spectrum of cosmic fluctuations depend on detailed initial conditions? This addresses the question if the general inflationary paradigm is sufficient to predict within a given model the spectrum and amplitude of cosmic fluctuations, or if additional particular assumptions about the initial conditions are needed. The answer depends on the number of e-foldings $N_{in}$ between the beginning of inflation and horizon crossing of the observable fluctuations. We discuss an interacting inflaton field in an arbitrary homogeneous and isotropic geometry, employing the quantum effective action $\Gamma$. An exact time evolution equation for the correlation function involves the second functional derivative $\Gamma^{(2)}$. The operator formalism and quantum vacua for interacting fields are not needed. Use of the effective action also allows one to address the change of frames by field transformations (field relativity). For not too large $N_{in}$ we find that memory of the initial conditions is preserved. In this case the cosmic microwave background cannot disentangle between the initial spectrum and its processing at horizon crossing. The inflaton potential cannot be reconstructed without assumptions about the initial state of the universe. We argue that for very large $N_{in}$ a universal scaling form of the correlation functions is reached. This can be due to symmetrization and equilibration effects not yet contained in our approximation, which drive the short distance tail of the correlation function towards the Lorentz invariant propagator in flat space.
A method for improving the accuracy of hydrodynamical codes that use a moving Voronoi mesh is described. Our scheme is based on a new regularization scheme that constrains the mesh to be centroidal to high precision while still allowing the cells to move approximately with the local fluid velocity, thereby retaining the quasi-Lagrangian nature of the approach. Our regularization technique significantly reduces mesh noise that is attributed to changes in mesh topology and deviations from mesh regularity. We demonstrate the advantages of our method on various test problems, and note in particular improvements obtained in handling shear instabilities, mixing, and in angular momentum conservation. Calculations of adiabatic jets in which shear excites Kelvin Helmholtz instability show reduction of mesh noise and entropy generation. In contrast, simulations of the collapse and formation of an isolated disc galaxy are nearly unaffected, showing that numerical errors due to the choice of regularization do not impact the outcome in this case.
About 1/3 of X-ray-luminous clusters show smooth, unpolarized radio emission on ~Mpc scales, known as giant radio halos. One promising model for radio halos is Fermi-II acceleration of seed relativistic electrons by turbulence of the intracluster medium (ICM); Coulomb losses prohibit acceleration from the thermal pool. However, the origin of seed electrons has never been fully explored. Here, we integrate the Fokker-Planck equation of the cosmic ray (CR) electron and proton distributions in a cosmological simulations of cluster formation. For standard assumptions, structure formation shocks lead to a seed electron population which produces too centrally concentrated radio emission. Instead, we present three realistic scenarios that each can reproduce the spatially flat radio emission observed in the Coma cluster: (1) the ratio of injected turbulent energy density to thermal energy density increase significantly with radius, as seen in cosmological simulations. This generates a flat radio profile even if the seed population of CRs is steep with radius. (2) Self-confinement of energetic CR protons can be inefficient, and CR protons may stream at the Alfven speed to the cluster outskirts when the ICM is relatively quiescent. A spatially flat CR proton distribution develops and produces the required population of secondary seed electrons. (3) The CR proton to electron acceleration efficiency K_ep ~ 0.1 is assumed to be larger than in our Galaxy (K_ep ~ 0.01), due to the magnetic geometry at the shock. The resulting primary electron population dominates. Due to their weaker density dependence compared to secondary electrons, these primaries can also reproduce radio observations. These competing non-trivial solutions provide incisive probes of non thermal processes in the high-beta ICM.
We present a series of high-resolution (20-2000 Msun, 0.1-4 pc) cosmological zoom-in simulations at z~6 from the Feedback In Realistic Environment (FIRE) project. These simulations cover halo masses 10^9-10^11 Msun and rest-frame ultraviolet magnitude Muv = -9 to -19. These simulations include explicit models of the multi-phase ISM, star formation, and stellar feedback, which produce reasonable galaxy properties at z = 0-6. We post-process the snapshots with a radiative transfer code to evaluate the escape fraction (fesc) of hydrogen ionizing photons. We find that the instantaneous fesc has large time variability (0.01%-20%), while the time-averaged fesc over long time-scales generally remains ~5%, considerably lower than the estimate in many reionization models. We find no strong dependence of fesc on galaxy mass or redshift. In our simulations, the intrinsic ionizing photon budgets are dominated by stellar populations younger than 3 Myr, which tend to be buried in dense birth clouds. The escaping photons mostly come from populations between 3-10 Myr, whose birth clouds have been largely cleared by stellar feedback. However, these populations only contribute a small fraction of intrinsic ionizing photon budgets according to standard stellar population models. We show that fesc can be boosted to high values, if stellar populations older than 3 Myr produce more ionizing photons than standard stellar population models (as motivated by, e.g., models including binaries). By contrast, runaway stars with velocities suggested by observations can enhance fesc by only a small fraction. We show that "sub-grid" star formation models, which do not explicitly resolve star formation in dense clouds with n >> 1 cm^-3, will dramatically over-predict fesc.
The Planck value of the spectral index can be interpreted as $n_s = 1 - 2/N$ in terms of the number of e-foldings $N$. An appealing explanation for this phenomenological observation is provided by $\alpha$-attractors: the inflationary predictions of these supergravity models are fully determined by the curvature of the Kahler manifold. We provide a novel formulation of $\alpha$-attractors which only involves a single chiral superfield. Our construction involves a natural deformation of no-scale models, and employs these to construct a De Sitter plateau with an exponential fall-off. Finally, we show how analogous structures with a flat Kahler geometry arise as a singular limit of such $\alpha$-scale models.
We present a new model of large field inflation along a winding trajectory in the field space of two axionic fields, where the 'axions' originate from the complex structure moduli sector of a Calabi-Yau 3-fold at large complex structure. The winding trajectory arises from fixing one combination of axions by bulk fluxes and allows for a transplanckian effective field range. The inflaton potential arises from small 'instantonic' corrections to the geometry and realises natural inflation. By working in a regime of large complex structure for two complex structure moduli the inflaton potential can be made subdominant without severe tuning. We also discuss the impact of the recent 'no-go theorems' for transplanckian axion periodicities on our work. Interestingly, our setup seems to realise a loophole pointed out in arXiv:1503.04783: our construction is a candidate for a string theory model of large field inflation which is consistent with the mild form of the weak gravity conjecture for axions.
We show that effective theories of matter that classically violate the null energy condition cannot be minimally coupled to Einstein gravity without being inconsistent with both string theory and black hole thermodynamics. We argue however that they could still be either non-minimally coupled or coupled to higher-curvature theories of gravity.
We present results of a ground-based survey for Cepheid variables in NGC 4258. This galaxy plays a key role in the Extragalactic Distance Scale due to its very precise and accurate distance determination via VLBI observations of water masers. We imaged two fields within this galaxy using the Gemini North telescope and GMOS, obtaining 16 epochs of data in the SDSS gri bands over 4 years. We carried out PSF photometry and detected 94 Cepheids with periods between 7 and 127 days, as well as an additional 215 variables which may be Cepheids or Population II pulsators. We used the Cepheid sample to test the absolute calibration of theoretical gri Period-Luminosity relations and found good agreement with the maser distance to this galaxy. The expected data products from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) should enable Cepheid searches out to at least 10 Mpc.
We present a first English translation and analysis of a little-known review of relativistic cosmology written by Albert Einstein in late 1932. The article, which was published in 1933 in a book of Einstein papers translated into French, contains a substantial review of static and dynamic relativistic models of the cosmos, culminating in a discussion of the Einstein-de Sitter model. The article offers a valuable contemporaneous insight into Einstein's cosmology in the 1930s and confirms that his interest lay in the development of the simplest model of the cosmos that could account for observation, rather than an exploration of all possible cosmic models. The article also confirms that Einstein did not believe that simplistic relativistic models could give an accurate description of the early universe.
We study the imprint of new particles on the primordial cosmological fluctuations. New particles with masses comparable to the Hubble scale produce a distinctive signature on the non-gaussianities. This feature arises in the squeezed limit of the correlation functions of primordial fluctuations. It consists of particular power law, or oscillatory, behavior that contains information about the masses of new particles. There is an angular dependence that gives information about the spin. We also have a relative phase that crucially depends on the quantum mechanical nature of the fluctuations and can be viewed as arising from the interference between two processes. While some of these features were noted before in the context of specific inflationary scenarios, here we give a general description emphasizing the role of symmetries in determining the final result.
The purpose of this document is to describe the upgrade of the CRESST dark matter search at LNGS. The proposed strategy will allow to explore a region of the parameter space for spin-independent WIMP-nucleon elastic scattering corresponding to WIMP masses below 10GeV/c$^\text{2}$, that has not been covered by other experiments. These results can be achieved only with outstanding detector performances in terms of threshold and background. This proposal shows how CRESST can match these performance requirements, adding a unique piece of information to the dark matter puzzle. The results of this program will fix a new state-of-the-art in the low mass WIMP exploration, opening new perspectives of understanding the dark matter scenario.
Identifying the inflaton with a pseudo-Goldstone boson explains the flatness of its potential. Additionally, successful Goldstone Inflation should be robust against UV corrections, such as from quantum gravity. In this paper we present the scenarios which lead to this successful model by examining the structure of Goldstone potentials arising from Coleman-Weinberg contributions. In particular, we notice that both bosonic and fermionic contributions are required to build a successful inflationary model. In single field inflation, we find that spinorial, and not fundamental, fermion representations can generate the right potential shape. This indicates that the Goldstone inflaton comes from the breaking of a $SO(N)$ global symmetry. We also evaluate the constraints from higher-derivative interactions, finding that axiomatic constraints on Goldstone boson scattering prevail over the current CMB constraints on the speed of sound. We connect inflationary constraints to the UV completions for Goldstone Inflation, finding relations in the spectrum of new resonances. Finally, we present models of hybrid inflation, where both the inflaton and the waterfall fields share a common origin as Goldstones.
The discovery that most of the energy density in the universe is stored in the form of dark energy has profound consequences for our future. In particular our current limited understanding of quantum theory of gravity indicates that some time in the future our universe will undergo a phase transition that will destroy us and everything else around us instantaneously. However the laws of gravity also suggest a way out -- some of our descendants could survive this catastrophe by riding gravity away from the danger. In this essay I describe the tale of this escape from doomsday.
The era of the universe's first (Population III) stars is essentially unconstrained by observation. Ultra-luminous and massive stars from this time altered the chemistry of the cosmos, provided the radiative scaffolding to support the formation of the first protogalaxies, and facilitated the creation and growth of now-supermassive black holes. Unfortunately, because these stars lie literally at the edge of the observable universe, they will remain beyond the reach of even the next generation of telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope and the Thirty-Meter Telescope. In this paper, we provide a primer to supernovae modeling and the first stars to make our discussion accessible to those new to or outside our field. We review recent work of the Los Alamos Supernova Light Curve Project and Brigham Young University to explore the possibility of probing this era through observations of the spectacular deaths of the first stars. We find that many such brilliant supernova explosions will be observable as far back as $\sim 99$% of the universe's current age, tracing primordial star formation rates and the locations of their protogalaxies on the sky. The observation of Population III supernovae will be among the most spectacular discoveries in observational astronomy in the coming decade.
We present results from a very deep (650 ks) Chandra X-ray observation of the galaxy group NGC~5813, the deepest Chandra observation of a galaxy group to date. Earlier observations showed two pairs of cavities distributed roughly collinearly, with each pair associated with an elliptical shock front. The new observations confirm a third pair of outer cavities, collinear with the other pairs, and reveal an associated outer outburst shock at ~30 kpc. This system is therefore unique in exhibiting three cavity pairs, each associated with an unambiguous AGN outburst shock front. The implied mean kinetic power is roughly the same for each outburst, demonstrating that the average AGN kinetic luminosity can remain stable over long timescales (~50 Myr). The two older outbursts have larger, roughly equal total energies as compared with the youngest outburst, implying that the youngest outburst is ongoing. We find that the radiative cooling rate and the mean shock heating rate of the gas are well balanced at each shock front, suggesting that AGN outburst shock heating alone is sufficient to offset cooling and establish AGN/ICM feedback within at least the central 30 kpc. This heating takes place roughly isotropically and most strongly at small radii, as is required for feedback to operate. We suggest that shock heating may play a significant role in AGN feedback at smaller radii in other systems, where weak shocks are more difficult to detect. We find non-zero shock front widths that are too large to be explained by particle diffusion. Instead, all measured widths are consistent with shock broadening due to propagation through a turbulent ICM with a mean turbulent speed of ~70 km/s. Finally, we place lower limits on the temperature of any volume-filling thermal gas within the cavities that would balance the internal cavity pressure with the external ICM.
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We present an analysis of anomaly detection for machine learning redshift estimation. Anomaly detection allows the removal of poor training examples, which can adversely influence redshift estimates. Anomalous training examples may be photometric galaxies with incorrect spectroscopic redshifts, or galaxies with one or more poorly measured photometric quantity. We select 2.5 million 'clean' SDSS DR12 galaxies with reliable spectroscopic redshifts, and 6730 'anomalous' galaxies with spectroscopic redshift measurements which are flagged as unreliable. We contaminate the clean base galaxy sample with galaxies with unreliable redshifts and attempt to recover the contaminating galaxies using the Elliptical Envelope technique. We then train four machine learning architectures for redshift analysis on both the contaminated sample and on the preprocessed 'anomaly-removed' sample and measure redshift statistics on a clean validation sample generated without any preprocessing. We find an improvement on all measured statistics of up to 80% when training on the anomaly removed sample as compared with training on the contaminated sample for each of the machine learning routines explored. We further describe a method to estimate the contamination fraction of a base data sample.
We introduce an ordinal classification algorithm for photometric redshift
estimation, which vastly improves the reconstruction of photometric redshift
probability density functions (PDFs) for individual galaxies and galaxy
samples. As a use case we apply our method to CFHTLS galaxies. The ordinal
classification algorithm treats distinct redshift bins as ordered values, which
improves the quality of photometric redshift PDFs, compared with non-ordinal
classification architectures. We also propose a new single value point estimate
of the galaxy redshift, that can be used to estimate the full redshift PDF of a
galaxy sample. This method is competitive in terms of accuracy with
contemporary algorithms, which stack the full redshift PDFs of all galaxies in
the sample, but requires orders of magnitudes less storage space.
The methods described in this paper greatly improve the log-likelihood of
individual object redshift PDFs, when compared with a popular Neural Network
code (ANNz). In our use case, this improvement reaches 50% for high redshift
objects defined as $z \geq 0.75$.
We show that using these more accurate photometric redshift PDFs will lead to
a reduction in the systematic biases by up to a factor of four, when compared
with less accurate PDFs obtained from commonly used methods. The cosmological
analyses we examine and find improvement upon are the following: Gravitational
Lensing cluster mass estimates, modelling of angular correlation functions, and
modelling of cosmic shear correlation functions.
We present a reconstructions of galaxy-cluster-scale mass distributions from simulated gravitational lensing data sets including strong lensing, weak lensing shear, and measurements of quadratic image distortions -- flexion. The lensing data is constructed to make a direct comparison between mass reconstructions with and without flexion. We show that in the absence of flexion measurements, significant galaxy-group scale substructure can remain undetected in the reconstructed mass profiles, and that the resulting profiles underestimate the aperture mass in the substructure regions by $\sim25-40\%$. When flexion is included, subhaloes down to a mass of $\sim3\times10^{12}$ M$_\odot$ can be detected at an angular resolution smaller than 10\arcsec. Aperture masses from profiles reconstructed with flexion match the input distribution values to within an error of $\sim13\%$, including both statistical error and scatter. This demonstrates the important constraint that flexion measurements place on substructure in galaxy clusters and its utility for producing high-fidelity mass reconstructions.
Thomson optical depth measurements from Planck provide new insights into the reionization of the universe. To obtain new model-independent constraints on the properties of the ionizing sources, we determine the empirical evolution of the ionising background. We use a simple two-parameter model to map out the evolution in this background at z>~6 from the new Planck optical depth tau measurements and from the constraints provided by quasar absorption spectra and the prevalence of Ly-alpha emission in z~7-8 galaxies. We find the redshift evolution in the ionising background N_{ion} required by the observations to be dlog_{10} N_{ion}/dz(z=8)=-0.19_{-0.11}^{+0.09}, largely independent of the assumed clumping factor C_{HII} and entirely independent of the identity of the ionizing sources. The trend in N_{ion} is well-matched by the evolution of the galaxy UV-luminosity density (dlog_{10} rho_{UV}/dz=-0.11+/-0.04) to a magnitude limit >~-13 mag, suggesting that galaxies are the sources that drive the reionization of the universe. The role of galaxies is further strengthened by the conversion from the UV luminosity density to N_{ion}(z) being possible for physically plausible values of the escape fraction f_{esc}, the Lyman-continuum photon production efficiency xi_{ion}, and faint-end cut-off M_{lim} to the LF. Lastly, we use the inferred evolution in the ionizing background to estimate the z~10 UV luminosity density, finding this luminosity density to be 12_{-7}^{+21}x lower than at z~6, consistent with current measurements at z~10. Quasars/AGN appear to match neither the redshift evolution nor normalization of the ionizing background. This new approach of contrasting the inferred evolution of the ionising background with that of the galaxy UV luminosity density adds to the growing observational evidence that galaxies are the sources that drive the reionization of the universe.
We study multi-field inflation models that contain a non-trivial field-space metric and a non-minimal coupling between the gravity and inflaton sectors. In such models it is known that even in the absence of explicit interaction terms the inflaton sector can decay into matter as a result of its non-minimal coupling to gravity, thereby reheating the Universe gravitationally. Using the Bogoliubov approach we evaluate the gravitational decay rates of the inflaton fields into both scalars and fermions, and analyse the reheating dynamics. We also discuss how the interpretation of the reheating dynamics differs in the so-called Jordan and Einstein frames, highlighting that the calculation of the Bogoliubov coefficients is independent of the frame in which one starts.
A long standing question in cosmology is whether gravitational lensing changes the distance-redshift relation $D(z)$ or the mean flux density of sources. Interest in this has been rekindled by recent studies in non-linear relativistic perturbation theory that find biases in both the area of a surface of constant redshift and in the mean distance to this surface, with a fractional bias in both cases on the order of the mean squared convergence $\langle \kappa^2 \rangle$. Any such area bias could alter CMB cosmology, and the corresponding bias in mean flux density could affect supernova cosmology. Here we show that, in an ensemble averaged sense, the perturbation to the area of a surface of constant redshift is in reality much smaller, being on the order of the cumulative bending angle squared, or roughly a part-in-a-million effect. This validates the arguments of Weinberg (1976) that the mean magnification $\mu$ of sources is unity and of Kibble \& Lieu (2005) that the mean direction-averaged inverse magnification is unity. It also validates the conventional treatment of lensing in analysis of CMB anisotropies. But the existence of a scatter in magnification will cause any non-linear function of these conserved quantities to be statistically biased. The distance $D$, for example, is proportional to $\mu^{-1/2}$ so lensing will bias $\langle D\rangle$ even if $\langle \mu \rangle=1$. The fractional bias in such quantities is generally of order $\langle \kappa^2 \rangle$, which is orders of magnitude larger than the area perturbation. Claims for large bias in area or flux density of sources appear to have resulted from misinterpretation of such effects: they do not represent a new non-Newtonian effect, nor do they invalidate standard cosmological analyses.
Traditional theories, which predict the cosmological evolution of the fundamental constants of Nature, assume that the underlying fields, which give rise to this evolution, are unnaturally light. We demonstrate that massive fields, such as dark matter, also directly produce a cosmological evolution of the fundamental constants. We consider the specific model of a scalar dark matter field $\phi$, which interacts with Standard Model particles via quadratic couplings in $\phi$. In this particular model, cosmological evolution of the fundamental constants arises due to changes in $\left<\phi^2\right>$ in time and space. The most stringent constraints on the physical parameters of the present model come from measurements of the neutron-proton mass difference at the time of the weak interaction freeze-out.
We look at the question posed by Parker {\it et al.} about the effect of UV regularisation on the power spectrum for inflation. Focusing on the slow-roll $k$-inflation, we show that up to second order in the Hubble and sound flow parameters, the adiabatic regularisation of such model leads to no difference in the power spectrum apart from certain cases that violate near scale invariant power spectra. Furthermore, extending to non-minimal $k$-inflation, we establish the equivalence of the subtraction terms in the adiabatic regularisation of the power spectrum in Jordan and Einstein frames.
We extend the Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) framework to generate mock galaxy catalogs exhibiting varying levels of "galactic conformity", which has emerged as a potentially powerful probe of environmental effects in galaxy evolution. Our model correlates galaxy colours in a group with the concentration of the common parent dark halo through a "group quenching efficiency" $\rho$ which makes older, more concentrated halos $\textit{at fixed mass}$ preferentially host redder galaxies. We find that, for a specific value of $\rho$, this 1-halo conformity matches corresponding measurements in a group catalog based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our mocks also display conformity at large separations from isolated objects, potentially an imprint of halo assembly bias. A detailed study - using mocks with assembly bias erased while keeping 1-halo conformity intact - reveals a rather nuanced situation, however. At separations $\lesssim 4$Mpc, conformity is mainly a 1-halo effect dominated by the largest halos and is $\textit{not}$ a robust indicator of assembly bias. Only at very large separations ($\gtrsim 8$Mpc) does genuine 2-halo conformity, driven by the assembly bias of small halos, manifest distinctly. We explain all these trends in standard Halo Model terms. Our model opens the door to parametrized HOD analyses that self-consistently account for galactic conformity at all scales.
Tentative evidence for excess GeV-scale gamma rays from the galactic center has been corroborated by several groups, including the Fermi collaboration, on whose data the observation is based. Dark matter annihilation into standard model particles has been shown to give a good fit to the signal for a variety of final state particles, but generic models are inconsistent with constraints from direct detection. Models where the dark matter annihilates to mediators that subsequently decay are less constrained. We perform global fits of such models to recent data, allowing branching fractions to all possible fermionic final states to vary. The best fit models, including constraints from the AMS-02 experiment (and also antiproton ratio), require branching primarily to muons, with a $\sim 10-20\%$ admixture of $b$ quarks, and no other species. This suggests models in which there are two scalar mediators that mix with the Higgs, and have masses consistent with such a decay pattern. The scalar that decays to $\mu^+\mu^-$ must therefore be lighter than $2m_\tau \cong 3.6$ GeV. Such a small mass can cause Sommerfeld enhancement, which is useful to explain why the best-fit annihilation cross section is larger than the value needed for a thermal relic density. For lighter mediator masses $\sim 200$ MeV, it can also naturally lead to elastic DM self-interactions at the right level for addressing discrepancies in small structure formation as predicted by collisionless cold dark matter.
We report the discovery of gamma-ray emission from the narrow-line Seyfert 1 (NLSy1) galaxy FBQS J1644+2619 by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi satellite. The Third Fermi LAT Source catalogue reports an unidentified gamma-ray source, detected over the first four years of Fermi operation, 0.23 deg from the radio position of the NLSy1. Analysing 76 months of gamma-ray data (2008 August 4-2014 December 31) we are able to better constrain the localization of the gamma-ray source. The new position of the gamma-ray source is 0.05 deg from FBQS J1644+2619, suggesting a spatial association with the NLSy1. This is the sixth NLSy1 detected at high significance by Fermi-LAT so far. Notably, a significant increase of activity was observed in gamma-rays from FBQS J1644+2619 during 2012 July-October, and an increase of activity in V-band was detected by the Catalina Real-Time Sky Survey in the same period.
We demonstrate that finite time singularities of Type IV can be consistently incorporated in the Universe's cosmological evolution, either appearing in the inflationary era, or in the late-time regime. While using only one scalar field instabilities can in principle occur at the time of the phantom-divide crossing, when two fields are involved we are able to avoid such instabilities. Additionally, the two-field scalar-tensor theories prove to be able to offer a plethora of possible viable cosmological scenarios, at which various types of cosmological singularities can be realized. Amongst others, it is possible to describe inflation with the appearance of a Type IV singularity, and phantom late-time acceleration which ends in a Big Rip. Finally, for completeness, we also present the Type IV realization in the context of suitably reconstructed $F(R)$ gravity.
We comment upon the application of Hojman's method for the determination of conservation laws in Cosmology, which has been introduced by Capozziello \& Roshan (Phys. Lett. B 726 (2013) 471 (arXiv:1308.3910)), and has been applied recently in the cosmological scenario of a nonminimally coupled scalar field by Paolella \& Capozziello (Phys. Lett. A (2015), in press (arXiv:1503.00098)). We apply the Ansatz, $\phi\left( t\right) =\phi\left( a\left( t\right) \right) $, which was introduced by the cited authors for a minimally-coupled scalar field, and we study the Lie and Noether point symmetries for the reduced equation. We show that under this Ansatz the unknown function of the model cannot be constrained by the requirement of the existence of a conservation law and that the Hojman conservation quantity which arises for the reduced equation is nothing more than the functional form of the Noether conservation law of momentum for the free particle. Finally we show that Hojman's method for Hamiltonian systems, in which the Hamiltonian function is one of the involved equations of the system, is equivalent with the application of Noether's Theorem for generalized transformations.
We apply a semi-analytic galaxy formation model to two high resolution cosmological N-body simulations to investigate analogues of the Milky Way system. We select these according to observed properties of the Milky Way rather than by halo mass as in most previous work. For disk-dominated central galaxies with stellar mass (5--7) x 10d10Msun, the median host halo mass is 1.4 x 10d12Msun, with 1 sigma dispersion in the range [0.86, 3.1] x 10d12Msun, consistent with dynamical measurements of the Milky Way halo mass. For any given halo mass, the probability of hosting a Milky Way system is low, with a maximum of ~20% in haloes of mass ~10d12Msun. The model reproduces the V-band luminosity function and radial profile of the bright (MV < -9) Milky Way satellites. Galaxy formation in low mass haloes is found to be highly stochastic, resulting in an extremely large scatter in the relation between MV (or stellar mass) for satellites and the depth of the subhalo potential well in which they live, as measured by the maximum of the rotation curve, Vmax. We conclude that the "too big to fail" problem is an artifact of selecting satellites in N-body simulations according to subhalo properties: in 10% of cases we find that three or fewer of the brightest (or most massive) satellites have Vmax > 30 km/s. Our model predicts that around half of the dark matter subhaloes with Vmax > 20 km/s host satellites fainter than MV = -9 and so may be missing from existing surveys.
In this paper, we use the Cosmokinematics approach to study the accelerated expansion of the Universe. This is a model independent approach and depends only on the assumption that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic and is described by the FRW metric. We parametrize the deceleration parameter, $q(z)$, to constrain the transition redshift $z_t$ at which the expansion of the Universe goes from a decelerating to an accelerating phase. To calculate the value of $z_t$ we use three different parametrizations of $q(z)$ namely, $q_I(z)=q_{1}+q_2 z$, $q_{II} (z) = q_3 + q_4 \ln (1 + z)$ and $q_{III}(z)=1/2 +q_5/(1+z)^2$. A joint analysis of the age of galaxies and strong lensing data indicates a high value of the transition redshift i.e. $z_t>1$. Within $2\sigma$ confidence interval our results are in concordance with other observations such as SNe Ia etc.
We present the Spitzer Archival Far-InfraRed Extragalactic Survey (SAFIRES). This program produces refined mosaics and source lists for all far-infrared extragalactic data taken during the more than six years of the cryogenic operation of the Spitzer Space Telescope. The SAFIRES products consist of far-infrared data in two wavelength bands (70 um and 160 um) across approximately 180 square degrees of sky, with source lists containing far-infrared fluxes for almost 40,000 extragalactic point sources. Thus, SAFIRES provides a large, robust archival far-infrared data set suitable for many scientific goals.
We study the evolution of the luminosity-to-halo mass relation of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs). We select a sample of 52 000 LOWZ and CMASS LRGs from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) SDSS-DR10 in the ~450 deg^2 that overlaps with imaging data from the second Red-sequence Cluster Survey (RCS2), group them into bins of absolute magnitude and redshift and measure their weak lensing signals. The source redshift distribution has a median of 0.7, which allows us to study the lensing signal as a function of lens redshift. We interpret the lensing signal using a halo model, from which we obtain the halo masses as well as the normalisations of the mass-concentration relations. We find that the concentration of haloes that host LRGs is consistent with dark matter only simulations once we allow for miscentering or satellites in the modelling. The slope of the luminosity-to-halo mass relation has a typical value of 1.4 and does not change with redshift, but we do find evidence for a change in amplitude: the average halo mass of LOWZ galaxies increases by 25_{-14}^{+16} % between z=0.36 and 0.22 to an average value of 6.43+/-0.52 x 10^13 h70^-1 Msun. If we extend the redshift range using the CMASS galaxies and assume that they are the progenitors of the LOWZ sample, we find that the average mass of LRGs increases by 80^{+39}_{-28} % between z=0.6 and 0.2
Weak gravitational lensing is normally assumed to have only two principle effects: a magnification of a source and a distortion of the sources shape in the form of a shear. However, further distortions are actually present owing to changes in the gravitational field across the scale of the ray bundle of light propagating to us, resulting in the familiar arcs in lensed images. This is normally called the flexion, and is approximated by Taylor expanding the shear and magnification across the image plane. However, the physical origin of this effect arises from higher-order corrections in the geodesic deviation equation governing the gravitational force between neighbouring geodesics - so involves derivatives of the Riemann tensor. We show that integrating the second-order geodesic deviation equation results in a 'Hessian map' for gravitational lensing, which is a higher-order addition to the Jacobi map. We derive the general form of the Hessian map in an arbitrary spacetime paying particular attention to the separate effects of local Ricci versus non-local Weyl curvature. We then specialise to the case of a perturbed FLRW model, and give the general form of the Hessian for the first time. This has a host of new contributions which could in principle be used as tests for modified gravity.
We present a pedagogical review of the weak gravitational lensing measurement process and its connection to major scientific questions such as dark matter and dark energy. Then we describe common ways of parametrizing systematic errors and understanding how they affect weak lensing measurements. Finally, we discuss several instrumental systematics and how they fit into this context, and conclude with some future perspective on how progress can be made in understanding the impact of instrumental systematics on weak lensing measurements.
If the Hartle-Hawking wave function is the correct boundary condition of our universe, the history of our universe will be well approximated by an instanton. Although this instanton should be classicalized at infinity, as long as we are observing a process of each history, we may detect a non-classicalized part of field combinations. When we apply it to a dark energy model, this non-classicalized part of fields can be well embedded to a quintessence and a phantom model, i.e., a quintom model. Because of the property of complexified instantons, the phantomness will be naturally free from a big rip singularity. This phantomness does not cause perturbative instabilities, as it is an effect \textit{emergent} from the entire wave function. Our work may thus provide a theoretical basis for the quintom models, whose equation of state (EoS) can cross the cosmological constant boundary (CCB) phenomenologically.
We have modelled Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) long baseline imaging of the strong gravitational lens system H-ATLAS J090311.6+003906 (SDP.81). We have reconstructed the distribution of continuum emission in the z=3.042 source and we have determined its kinematic properties by reconstructing CO line emission. The continuum imaging reveals a highly non-uniform distribution of dust with clumps on scales of ~200pc. In contrast, the CO line emission shows a relatively smooth velocity field which resembles disk-like dynamics. Modelling the velocity field as a rotating disk indicates an inclination angle of (40 +/- 5) degrees, implying an intrinsic asymptotic rotation velocity of 320km/s and a dynamical mass of 3.5x10^{10} M_sol within 1.5kpc. We obtain similar estimates of the total molecular gas mass of 2.7x10^{10} M_sol and 1.4x10^{10} M_sol from the dust continuum emission and CO emission respectively. Our new reconstruction of the lensed HST near-infrared emission shows two objects that appear to be interacting, with the rotating disk of gas and dust revealed by ALMA distinctly offset from the near-infrared emission. The clumpy nature of the dust and the low value of the Toomre parameter of Q~0.2 we measure suggest that the disk is in a state of collapse. From our dynamical measurements, we estimate that the disk is unstable on scales from ~50pc (the Jeans length) to ~700pc (the scale on which the disk should be stabilized by shear). This agrees well with the sizes of the clumps that we observe. We estimate that stars are forming in the disk at a rate of 500 M_sol/yr, and that the star-formation efficiency in the disk is ~65 times greater than in typical low-redshift galaxies. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that the most infra-red luminous, dust obscured galaxies in the high redshift Universe represent a population of merger induced starbursts.
We formulate the basic framework of thermodynamical entropic force cosmology which allows varying gravitational constant $G$ and varying speed of light $c$. Three different approaches to the formulation of the field equations are presented. Some cosmological solutions for each framework are given. In all these cases the entropic terms and the varying constants can play the role of dark energy.
The non-perturbative curvature inhomogeneities induced by relativistic viscous fluids are not conserved in the large-scale limit. However when the bulk viscosity is a function of the total energy density of the plasma (or of the trace of the extrinsic curvature) the relevant evolution equations develop a further symmetry preventing the non-linear growth of curvature perturbations. In this situation the fully inhomogeneous evolution can be solved to leading order in the gradient expansion. Over large-scales both the acceleration and the curvature inhomogeneities are determined by the bulk viscosity coefficients. Conversely the shear viscosity does not affect the evolution of the curvature and does not produce any acceleration. The curvature modes analyzed here do not depend on the choice of time hypersurfaces and are invariant for infinitesimal coordinate transformations in the perturbative regime.
We develop a new approach to building cosmological models, in which small pieces of perturbed Minkowski space are joined together at reflection-symmetric boundaries in order to form a global, dynamical space-time. Each piece of this patchwork universe is described using post-Newtonian gravitational physics, with the large-scale expansion of the universe being an emergent phenomenon. This approach to cosmology does not require any assumptions about non-local averaging processes. Our framework clarifies the relation between the weak-field limit of general relativity, and the cosmological solutions that result from solving Einstein's equations with a set of symmetry assumptions. It also allows the effects of structure formation on the large-scale expansion of the universe to be investigated in an unambiguous way. As an explicit example, we use this formalism to investigate the cosmological behaviour of a large number of regularly arranged point-like masses. In this case we find that the large-scale expansion is well modelled by a Friedmann-like equation that contains terms that take the form of dust, radiation, and spatial curvature. The radiation term, while small compared to the dust term, is purely a result of the non-linearity of Einstein's equations.
We build models where Dark Matter candidates arise as composite states of a new confining gauge force, stable thanks to accidental symmetries. Restricting to renormalizable theories compatible with SU(5) unification, we find 13 models based on SU(N) gauge theories and 9 based on SO(N). We also describe other models that require non-renormalizable interactions. The two gauge groups lead to distinctive phenomenologies: SU(N) theories give complex DM, with potentially observable electric and magnetic dipole moments that lead to peculiar spin-independent cross sections; SO(N) theories give real DM, with challenging spin-dependent cross sections or inelastic scatterings. Models with Yukawa couplings also give rise to spin-independent direct detection mediated by the Higgs boson and to electric dipole moments for the electron. In some models DM has higher spin. Each model predicts a specific set of lighter composite scalars, possibly observable at colliders.
We investigate the propagation of gravitational waves in the context of fourth order gravity nonminimally coupled to a massive scalar field. Using the damping of the orbital period of coalescing stellar binary systems, we impose constraints on the free parameters of extended gravity models. In particular, we find that the variation of the orbital period is a function of three mass scales which depend on the free parameters of the model under consideration; we can constrain these mass scales from current observational data.
[Abridged] We use the Planck all-sky submm and mm maps to search for rare sources distinguished by extreme brightness, a few hundreds of mJy, and their potential for being situated at high redshift. These "cold" Planck sources, selected using the High Frequency Instrument (HFI) directly from the maps and from the Planck Catalogue of Compact Sources (PCCS), all satisfy the criterion of having their rest-frame far-infrared peak redshifted to the frequency range 353 and 857 GHz. This colour-selection favours galaxies in the redshift range z=2-4, which we consider as cold peaks in the cosmic infrared background (CIB). We perform a dedicated Herschel-SPIRE follow-up of 234 such Planck targets, finding a significant excess of red 350 and 500um sources, in comparison to reference SPIRE fields. About 94% of the SPIRE sources in the Planck fields are consistent with being overdensities of galaxies peaking at 350um. About 3% are candidate lensed systems, all 12 of which have secure spectroscopic confirmations, placing them at redshifts z>2.2. The galaxy overdensities are detected with high significance, half of the sample showing statistical significance above 10sigma. The SPIRE photometric redshifts of galaxies in overdensities suggest a peak at z~2. Under the Td=35K assumption, we derive an infrared (IR) luminosity for each SPIRE source of about 4x10^12 Lsun, yielding star formation rates of typically 700 Msun.yr^-1. If the observed overdensities are actual gravitationally-bound structures, the total total star formation rates reaches 7x10^3 Msun.yr^-1. Taken together, these sources show the signatures of high-z (z>$) protoclusters of intensively star-forming galaxies. All these observations confirm the uniqueness of our sample and demonstrate the ability of the all-sky Planck-HFI cold sources to select populations of cosmological and astrophysical interest for structure formation studies.
This essay discusses phenomenological aspects of the diffusion time
dependence of the spectral dimension predicted by the Causal Dynamical
Triangulations (CDT) approach to quantum gravity. The deformed form of the
dispersion relation for the fields defined on the CDT space-time is
reconstructed. Using the \emph{Fermi} satellite observations of the GRB 090510
source we find that the energy scale of the dimensional reduction is $E_* > 6.7
\cdot 10^{10}$ GeV at (95 $\%$ CL).
By applying the deformed dispersion relation to the cosmological
perturbations it is shown that, for a scenario when the primordial
perturbations are formed in the UV region, the scalar power spectrum
$\mathcal{P}_S \propto k^{n_S-1}$ where $n_S-1\approx \frac{3r(d_{\rm
UV}-2)}{r+48(d_{\rm UV}-3)}$. Here, $d_{\rm UV} \approx 2$ is obtained from the
CDT value of the spectral dimension in the UV limit and $r$ is the
tensor-to-scalar ratio. We find that, the predicted deviation from the
scale-invariance ($n_S=1$) is in contradiction with the up to date
\emph{Planck} and \emph{BICEP2} results.
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We investigate the power of the caustic technique to identify substructures of galaxy clusters from optical redshift data alone. The caustic technique is designed to estimate the mass profile of galaxy clusters to radii well beyond the virial radius, where dynamical equilibrium does not hold. Two by-products of this technique are the identification of the cluster members and the identification of the cluster substructures. We test the caustic technique as a substructure detector on two samples of 150 mock redshift surveys of clusters; the clusters are extracted from a large cosmological $N$-body simulation of a $\Lambda$CDM model and have mass $M_{200} \sim 10^{14} h^{-1} M_{\odot}$ and $M_{200} \sim 10^{15} h^{-1} M_{\odot}$ in the two samples respectively. We limit our analysis to substructures identified in the simulation with mass larger than $10^{13} h^{-1} M_{\odot}$. With mock redshift surveys with 200 galaxies within $3R_{200}$, (1) the caustic technique recovers $\sim 30-50$% of the real substructures, and (2) $\sim 15-20$% of the substructures identified by the caustic technique corresponds to real substructures of the central cluster, the remaining fraction being low-mass substructures, groups or substructures of clusters in the surrounding region, or chance alignments of unrelated galaxies. These encouraging results show that the caustic technique is a promising approach to investigate the complex dynamics of galaxy clusters.
With the completion of the Planck mission, in order to continue to gather cosmological information it has become crucial to understand the Large Scale Structures (LSS) of the universe to percent accuracy. The Effective Field Theory of LSS (EFTofLSS) is a novel theoretical framework that aims to develop an analytic understanding of LSS at long distances, where inhomogeneities are small. We further develop the description of biased tracers in the EFTofLSS to account for the effect of baryonic physics and primordial non-Gaussianities, finding that new bias coefficients are required. Then, restricting to dark matter with Gaussian initial conditions, we describe the prediction of the EFTofLSS for the one-loop halo-halo and halo-matter two-point functions, and for the tree-level halo-halo-halo, matter-halo-halo and matter-matter-halo three-point functions. Several new bias coefficients are needed in the EFTofLSS, even though their contribution at a given order can be degenerate and the same parameters contribute to multiple observables. We develop a method to reduce the number of biases to an irreducible basis, and find that, at the order at which we work, seven bias parameters are enough to describe this extremely rich set of statistics. We then compare with the output of $N$-body simulations. For the lowest mass bin, we find percent level agreement up to $k\simeq 0.3\,h\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ for the one-loop two-point functions, and up to $k\simeq 0.15\,h\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ for the tree-level three-point functions, with the $k$-reach decreasing with higher mass bins. This is consistent with the theoretical estimates, and suggests that the cosmological information in LSS amenable to analytical control is much more than previously believed.
Intensity mapping, which images a single spectral line from unresolved galaxies across cosmological volumes, is a promising technique for probing the early universe. Here we present predictions for the intensity map and power spectrum of the CO(1-0) line from z~2.4-2.8 galaxies, based on a parameterized model for the galaxy-halo connection, and demonstrate the extent to which properties of high-redshift galaxies can be directly inferred from such observations. We find that our fiducial prediction should be detectable by a realistic experiment. Motivated by significant modeling uncertainties, we demonstrate the effect on the power spectrum of varying each parameter in our model. Using simulated observations, we infer constraints on our model parameter space with an MCMC procedure, and show corresponding constraints on the LIR-LCO relation and the CO luminosity function. These constraints would be complementary to current high-redshift galaxy observations, which can detect the brightest galaxies but not complete samples from the faint end of the luminosity function. By probing these populations in aggregate, CO intensity mapping could be a valuable tool for probing molecular gas and its relation to star formation in high-redshift galaxies.
We derive the Edgeworth streaming model (ESM) for the redshift space correlation function starting from an arbitrary distribution function for biased tracers of dark matter by considering its two-point statistics and show that it reduces to the Gaussian streaming model (GSM) when neglecting non-Gaussianities. We test the accuracy of the GSM and ESM independent of perturbation theory using the Horizon Run 2 N-body halo catalog. While the monopole of the redshift space halo correlation function is well described by the GSM, higher multipoles improve upon including the leading order non-Gaussian correction in the ESM: the GSM quadrupole breaks down on scales below 30 Mpc/h whereas the ESM stays accurate to 2% within statistical errors down to 10 Mpc/h. To predict the scale dependent functions entering the streaming model we employ Convolution Lagrangian perturbation theory (CLPT) based on the dust model and local Lagrangian bias. Since dark matter halos carry an intrinsic length scale given by their Lagrangian radius, we extend CLPT to the coarse grained dust model and consider two different smoothing approaches operating in Eulerian and Lagrangian space, respectively. The coarse-graining in Eulerian space features modified fluid dynamics different from dust while the coarse-graining in Lagrangian space is performed in the initial conditions with subsequent single streaming dust dynamics, implemented by smoothing the initial power spectrum in the spirit of the truncated Zel'dovich approximation. Finally, we compare the predictions of the different coarse-grained models for the streaming model ingredients to N-body measurements and comment on the proper choice of both the tracer distribution function and the smoothing scale. Since the perturbative methods we considered are not yet accurate enough on small scales, the GSM is sufficient when applied to perturbation theory.
In cosmological scenarios with thermal inflation, extra eras of moduli matter domination, thermal inflation and flaton matter domination exist between primordial inflation and the radiation domination of Big Bang nucleosynthesis. During these eras, cosmological perturbations on small scales can enter and re-exit the horizon, modifying the power spectrum on those scales. The largest modified scale, $k_\mathrm{b}$, touches the horizon size when the expansion changes from deflation to inflation at the transition from moduli domination to thermal inflation. We analytically calculate the evolution of perturbations from moduli domination through thermal inflation and evaluate the curvature perturbation on the constant radiation density hypersurface at the end of thermal inflation to determine the late time curvature perturbation. Our resulting transfer function suppresses the power spectrum by a factor $\sim 50$ at $k \gg k_\mathrm{b}$, with $k_\mathrm{b}$ corresponding to anywhere from megaparsec to subparsec scales depending on the parameters of thermal inflation. Thus, thermal inflation might be constrained or detected by small scale observations such as CMB distortions or 21cm hydrogen line observations.
We investigate the interacting dark energy models by using the diagnostics of statefinder hierarchy and growth rate of structure. We wish to explore the deviations from $\Lambda$CDM and to differentiate possible degeneracies in the interacting dark energy models with the geometrical and structure growth diagnostics. We consider two interacting forms for the models, i.e., $Q_1=\beta H\rho_c$ and $Q_2=\beta H\rho_{de}$, with $\beta$ being the dimensionless coupling parameter. Our focus is the I$\Lambda$CDM model that is a one-parameter extension to $\Lambda$CDM by considering a direct coupling between the vacuum energy ($\Lambda$) and cold dark matter (CDM), with the only additional parameter $\beta$. But we begin with a more general case by considering the I$w$CDM model in which dark energy has a constant $w$ (equation-of-state parameter). For calculating the growth rate of structure, we employ the "parametrized post-Friedmann" theoretical framework for interacting dark energy to numerically obtain the $\epsilon(z)$ values for the models. We show that in both geometrical and structural diagnostics the impact of $w$ is much stronger than that of $\beta$ in the I$w$CDM model. We thus wish to have a closer look at the I$\Lambda$CDM model by combining the geometrical and structural diagnostics. We find that the evolutionary trajectories in the $S^{(1)}_3$--$\epsilon$ plane exhibit distinctive features and the departures from $\Lambda$CDM could be well measured, indicating that the composite null diagnostic $\{S^{(1)}_3, \epsilon\}$ is very powerful for investigating the interacting dark energy models.
The cosmic web contains a large fraction of the total gas mass in the universe but is difficult to detect at most wavelengths. Synchrotron emission from shock-accelerated electrons may offer the chance of imaging the cosmic web at radio wavelengths. In this work we use 3D cosmological {\enzo}-MHD simulations to produce models of the radio emission from the cosmic web. In post-processing we study the capabilities of 12 large radio surveys to detect this emission. We find that surveys by LOFAR, SKA1-LOW and MWA have a chance of detecting the cosmic web, provided that the magnetisation level of the tenuous medium in filaments is of the order of $\sim 1$\% of the thermal gas energy.
We consider an inhomogeneous model and independently an anisotropic model of primordial power spectrum in order to describe the observed hemispherical anisotropy in Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. This anisotropy can be parametrized in terms of the dipole modulation model of the temperature field. Both the models lead to correlations between spherical harmonic coefficients corresponding to multipoles, l and l \pm 1. We obtain the model parameters by making a fit to TT correlations in CMBR data. Using these parameters we predict the signature of our models for correlations among different multipoles for the case of the TE and EE modes. These predictions can be used to test whether the observed hemispherical anisotropy can be correctly described in terms of a primordial power spectrum. Furthermore these may also allow us to distinguish between an inhomogeneous and an anisotropic model.
We propose to investigate a secluded WIMP dark matter model consisting of neutral fermions as the dark matter candidate and a Proca-Wentzel (PW) field as a mediator. In the model that we consider here, dark matter WIMPs interact with standard model (SM) particles only through the PW field of ~ MeV -- multi-GeV mass particles. The interactions occur via an U(1)' mediator, V_{\mu}', which couples to the SM by kinetic mixing with U(1) hypercharge bosons, B_{\mu}. One important difference between our model and other such models in the literature is the absence of an extra singlet scalar, so that the parameter with dimension of mass M^2_V is not related to a spontaneous symmetry breaking. The mass scale of the mediator and the absence of the singlet scalar can lead to interesting astrophysical signatures. We show that the GeV-energy gamma-ray excess in the galactic center region, as derived from Fermi-LAT Gamma-ray Space Telescope data, can be attributed to such secluded dark matter WIMPs, given parameters of the model that are consistent with the cosmological dark matter density.
We present the local HII region metallicity near the site of the recently discovered multiply lensed supernova (SN; "SN Refsdal") at redshift 1.49. "SN Refsdal" is located at the outer spiral arm ($\sim$7 kpc) of the lensed host galaxy, which we have previously reported to exhibit a steep negative galactocentric metallicity gradient. Based on our updated near-infrared integral field spectroscopic data, the gas-phase metallicity averaged in an intrinsic radius of $\sim$ 550 pc surrounding an HII region $\sim$ 200 pc away from the SN site is 12 + log(O/H)$_{\rm PP04N2}$ $\le$ 8.67. The metallicity averaged over nine HII regions at similar galactocentric distances ($\sim$5-7 kpc) as "SN Refsdal" is constrained to be 12 + log(O/H)$_{\rm PP04N2}$ $\le$ 8.11. Given the fortuitous discovery of "SN Refsdal" in an advantageously lensed face-on spiral, this is the first observational constraint on the local metallicity environment of an SN site at redshift $z>1$.
We present a 324.5MHz image of the NOAO Bo\"otes field that was made using Very Large Array (VLA) P-band observations. The image has a resolution of 5.6x5.1arcsec, a radius of $2.05^\circ$ and a central noise of ~0.2mJy\beam. Both the resolution and noise of the image are an order of magnitude better than what was previously available at this frequency and will serve as a valuable addition to the already extensive multiwavelength data that are available for this field. The final source catalogue contains 1370 sources and has a median 325 to 1400MHz spectral index of -0.72. Using a radio colour-colour diagram of the unresolved sources in our catalogue, we identify 33 megahertz peaked-spectrum (MPS) sources. Based on the turnover frequency linear size relation for the gigahertz peaked-spectrum (GPS) and compact steep-spectrum (CSS) sources, we expect that the MPS sources that are compact on scales of tens of milliarcseconds should be young radio loud active galactic nuclei at high (z>2) redshifts. Of the 33 MPS sources, we were able to determine redshifts for 24, with an average redshift of 1.3. Given that five of the sources are at z>2, that the four faint sources for which we could not find redshifts are likely at even higher redshifts and that we could only select sources that are compact on a scale of ~5arcsec, there is encouraging evidence that the MPS method can be used to search for high-redshift sources.
We discuss phenomenological aspects of no-scale supergravity inflationary models motivated by compactified string models, in which the inflaton may be identified either as a K\"ahler modulus or an untwisted matter field, focusing on models that make predictions for the scalar spectral index $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ that are similar to the Starobinsky model. We discuss possible patterns of soft supersymmetry breaking, exhibiting examples of the pure no-scale type $m_0 = B_0 = A_0 = 0$, of the CMSSM type with universal $A_0$ and $m_0 \ne 0$ at a high scale, and of the mSUGRA type with $A_0 = B_0 + m_0$ boundary conditions at the high input scale. These may be combined with a non-trivial gauge kinetic function that generates gaugino masses $m_{1/2} \ne 0$, or one may have a pure gravity mediation scenario where trilinear terms and gaugino masses are generated through anomalies. We also discuss inflaton decays and reheating, showing possible decay channels for the inflaton when it is either an untwisted matter field or a K\"ahler modulus. Reheating is very efficient if a matter field inflaton is directly coupled to MSSM fields, and both candidates lead to sufficient reheating in the presence of a non-trivial gauge kinetic function.
In this talk, I present a novel and minimal alternative to thermal leptogenesis, which builds upon the assumption that the electroweak gauge bosons are coupled to an axion-like scalar field, as it is, for instance, the case in certain string compactifications. The motion of this axion-like field after the end of inflation generates an effective chemical potential for leptons and antileptons, which, in the presence of lepton number-violating scatterings mediated by heavy Majorana neutrinos, provides an opportunity for baryogenesis via leptogenesis. In contrast to thermal leptogenesis, the final baryon asymmetry turns out to be insensitive to the masses and CP-violating phases in the heavy neutrino sector. Moreover, the proposed scenario requires a reheating temperature of at least O(10^12) GeV and it is, in particular, consistent with heavy neutrino masses close the scale of grand unification. This talk was given in February 2015 at HPNP 2015 at Toyama University and is based on recent work (arXiv:1412.2043 [hep-ph]) in collaboration with A. Kusenko and T. T. Yanagida.
I review the ideas leading to the QCD axion and also comment on the Jarlskog determinant describing the observed weak CP violation, and the axion-related Kim-Nilles-Peloso inflation. All of these use pseudoscalars, and the underlying principle is the discrete gauge symmetry either in the bottom-up or top-down approaches. Here, the effects of gravity are required to be unimportant in the low energy effective theory. String compactification is safe from the gravity spoil of global symmetries and some examples from string compactification are commented.
Signature change at high density has been obtained as a possible consequence of deformed space-time structures in models of loop quantum gravity. This article provides a conceptual discussion of implications for cosmological scenarios, based on an application of mathematical results for mixed-type partial differential equations (the Tricomi problem). While the effective equations from which signature change has been derived are shown to be locally regular and therefore reliable, the underlying theory of loop quantum gravity may face several global problems in its semiclassical solutions.
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We apply simple analyses techniques developed for the study of complex networks to the study of the cosmic web, the large scale galaxy distribution. In this paper, we measure three network centralities (ranks of topological importance), Degree Centrality (DC), Closeness Centrality (CL), and Betweenness Centrality (BC) from a network built from the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) catalog. We define 8 galaxy populations according to the centrality measures; Void, Wall, and Cluster by DC, Main Branch and Dangling Leaf by BC, and Kernel, Backbone, and Fracture by CL. We also define three populations by voronoi tessellation density to compare these with the DC selection. We apply the topological selections to galaxies in the (photometric) redshift range $0.91<z<0.94$ from the COSMOS survey, and explore whether the red and blue galaxy populations show differences in color, star-formation rate (SFR) and stellar mass in the different topological regions. Despite the limitations and uncertainties associated with using photometric redshift and indirect measurements of galactic parameters, the preliminary results illustrate the potential of network analysis. The coming future surveys will provide better statistical samples to test and improve this "network cosmology".
Very. Indeed, it is shown here that in a flat, cold dark matter (CDM) dominated Universe with positive cosmological constant ($\Lambda$), modelled in terms of a Newtonian and collisionless fluid, particle trajectories are analytical in time (representable by a convergent Taylor series) until at least a finite time after decoupling. The time variable used for this statement is the cosmic scale factor, i.e., the "$a$-time", and not the cosmic time. For this, a Lagrangian-coordinates formulation of the Euler-Poisson equations is employed, originally used by Cauchy for 3-D incompressible flow. Temporal analyticity for $\Lambda$CDM is found to be a consequence of novel explicit all-order recursion relations for the $a$-time Taylor coefficients of the Lagrangian displacement field, from which we derive the convergence of the $a$-time Taylor series. A lower bound for the $a$-time where analyticity is guaranteed and shell-crossing is ruled out is obtained, whose value depends only on $\Lambda$ and on the initial spatial smoothness of the density field. The largest time interval is achieved when $\Lambda$ vanishes, i.e., for an Einstein-de Sitter universe. Analyticity holds also if, instead of the $a$-time, one uses the linear structure growth $D$-time, but no simple recursion relations are then obtained. The analyticity result also holds when a curvature term is included in the Friedmann equation for the background, but inclusion of a radiation term arising from the primordial era spoils analyticity.
We use the "Dark Energy and Massive Neutrino Universe" (DEMNUni) simulations to compare the constraining power of "sufficient statistics" with the standard matter power spectrum on the sum of neutrino masses, $M_\nu \equiv \sum m_\nu$. In general, the power spectrum, even supplemented with higher moments of the distribution, captures only a fraction of the available cosmological information due to correlations between the Fourier modes. In contrast, the non-linear transform of sufficient statistics, approximated by a logarithmic mapping A=ln(1+\delta), was designed to capture all the available cosmological information contained in the matter clustering; in this sense it is an optimal observable. Our analysis takes advantage of the recent analytical model developed by Carron et al. 2014 to estimate both the matter power spectrum and the A-power spectrum covariance matrices. Using a Fisher information approach, we find that using sufficient statistics increases up to 8 times the available information on the total neutrino mass at z=0, thus tightening the constraints by almost a factor of 3 compared to the matter power spectrum.
The bridge effect of void filaments is a phrase coined by Park & Lee (2009b) to explain the correlations found in a numerical experiment between the luminosity of the void galaxies and the degree of the straightness of their host filaments. Their numerical finding implies that a straight void filament provides a narrow channel for the efficient transportation of gas and matter particles from the surroundings into the void galaxies. To observationally confirm the presence of the bridge effect of void filaments, we identify the filamentary structures from the Sloan void catalog and determine the specific size of each void filament as a measure of its straightness. Using both classical and Bayesian statistics, we indeed detect a strong tendency that the void galaxies located in the more straight filaments are on average more luminous, which is in agreement with the numerical prediction. It is also shown that the strength of correlation increases with the spatial extent of the void filaments, which can be physically understood on the grounds that the more stretched filaments can connect the dense surroundings even to the galaxies located deep in the central parts of the voids. This observational evidence may provide a key clue to the puzzling issue of why the void galaxies have higher specific star formation rates and bluer colours than their wall counterparts.
Some of the most obviously correct physical theories - namely string theory and the multiverse - make no testable predictions, leading many to question whether we should accept something as scientific even if it makes no testable predictions and hence is not refutable. However, some far-thinking physicists have proposed instead that we should give up on the notion of Falsifiability itself. We endorse this suggestion but think it does not go nearly far enough. We believe that we should also dispense with other outdated ideas, such as Fidelity, Frugality, Factuality and other "F" words. And we quote a lot of famous people to support this view.
Axion production due to photon-axion mixing in tangled magnetic field(s) prior to recombination epoch and magnetic field damping can generate cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectral distortions. In particular, contribution of both processes to CMB $\mu$ distortion in the case of resonant photon-axion mixing is studied. Assuming that magnetic field power spectrum is approximated by a power law $P_B(k)\propto k^n$ with spectral index $n$, it is shown that for magnetic field cut-off scales $172.5$ pc $\leq \lambda_B\leq 4\times 10^3$ pc, axion contribution to CMB $\mu$ distortion is subdominant in comparison with magnetic field damping in the cosmological plasma. Using COBE upper limit on $\mu$ and for magnetic field scale $\lambda_B\simeq 415$ pc, weaker limit in comparison with other studies on the magnetic field strength ($B_0\leq 8.5\times 10^{-8}$ G) up to a factor 10 for the DFSZ axion model and axion mass $m_a\geq 2.6\times 10^{-6}$ eV is found. A forecast for the expected sensitivity of PIXIE/PRISM on $\mu$ is also presented.
In this work the dynamics of self-gravitating systems composed by dark and baryonic matter was analyzed. Searching for a description of this dynamics, a system of Boltzmann equations for the two constituents and the Poisson equation for the gravitational field were employed. Through the solution of these equations the collapse criterion is determined from a dispersion relation. The collapse occurs in an unstable region where the solutions grow exponentially with time. Two cases were analyzed: (a) collisionless dark and baryonic matter and (b) collisionless baryons with self-interacting dark matter. For the former case it was shown that the unstable region becomes larger if the dispersion velocity of dark matter becomes larger than the one of the baryonic matter. For the later case it was shown that the unstable region becomes smaller by increasing the collision frequency of the self-interacting dark matter. The results obtained were also compared with the case where only the dark matter is present. The models of the present work have proven to have a higher limit instability and therefore, exhibited an advantage in the structure formation.
Supermassive black holes are not only common in the present-day galaxies, but billion solar masses black holes also powered $z\geq 6$ quasars. One efficient way to form such black holes is the collapse of a massive primordial gas cloud into a so-called direct collapse black hole. The main requirement for this scenario is the presence of large accretion rates of $\rm \geq 0.1~M_{\odot}/yr$ to form a supermassive star. The prime aim of the present work is to determine how and under what conditions such accretion rates can be obtained. We perform high resolution cosmological simulations for three primordial halos of a few times $\rm 10^7~M_{\odot}$ illuminated by an external UV flux, $\rm J_{21}=100-1000$. We find that a rotationally supported structure of about parsec size is assembled, with an aspect ratio between $\rm 0.25 - 1$ depending upon the thermodynamical properties. Rotational support, however, does not halt collapse, and mass inflow rates of $\rm \sim 0.1~M_{\odot}/yr$ can be obtained in the presence of even a moderate UV background flux of strength $\rm J_{21} \geq 100$. To assess whether such large accretion rates can be maintained over longer time scales, we employed sink particles, confirming the persistence of accretion rates of $\rm \sim 0.1~M_{\odot}/yr$. We propose that complete isothermal collapse and molecular hydrogen suppression may not always be necessary to form supermassive stars, precursors of black hole seeds. Sufficiently high inflow rates can be obtained for UV flux $\rm J_{21}=500-1000$, at least for some cases. This value brings the estimate of the abundance of direct collapse black hole seeds closer to that high redshift quasars.
The non-linear hydrodynamic equations for axion/scalar field dark matter (DM) in the non-relativistic Madelung-Shcr\"{o}dinger form are derived in a simple manner, including the effects of universal expansion and Hubble drag. The hydrodynamic equations are used to investigate the relative velocity between axion DM and baryons, and the moving-background perturbation theory (MBPT) derived. Axions massive enough to be all of the DM do not affect the coherence length of the relative velocity, but the MBPT equations are modified by the inclusion of the axion effective sound speed. These MBPT equations are necessary for accurately modelling the effects of axion DM on the formation of the first cosmic structures, and suggest that the 21cm power spectrum could improve constraints on axion mass by up to four orders of magnitude with respect to the current best constraints. A further application of these results uses the "quantum force" analogy to model scalar field gradient energy in a smoothed-particle hydrodynamics model of axion DM. Such a model can treat axion DM in the non-linear regime and could be incorporated into existing N-body codes.
The statistics of large-scale structure in our Universe can discriminate between different scenarios for the origin of primordial density perturbations. Primordial non-Gaussianity can lead to a scale-dependent bias in the density of collapsed halos relative to the underlying matter density. The galaxy power spectrum already provides constraints on local-type primordial non-Gaussianity complementary to those from the cosmic microwave background, while the bispectrum contains additional shape information and has the potential to outperform CMB constraints in future. We develop the bias model for the halo density contrast in the presence of local-type primordial non-Gaussianity, deriving a bivariate expansion up to second order in terms of the local linear matter density contrast and the local gravitational potential in Lagrangian coordinates. We show how the evolution from linear to non-linear matter density introduces the non-local, tidal term in the halo model, while the presence of local-type non-Gaussianity in the Lagrangian frame generically leads to a novel non-local convective term in the Eulerian frame proportional to the displacement field, when going beyond the spherical collapse approximation. We use an extended Press-Schechter approach to evaluate the halo mass function and thus the halo bispectrum including these non-local terms and show that they can lead to corrections of up to $25\%$ with respect to previous work for some configurations, on large scales or at high redshift.
Despite its importance for modeling the homogeneous hot early universe very little is experimentally known about the magnitude of the reheating temperature, leaving an uncertainty of remarkable 18 orders of magnitude. In this work we consider a general class of polynomial inflaton potentials up to fourth order. Employing a Monte Carlo scan and imposing theoretical and experimental constraints we derive a robust lower limit on the energy scale at the end of inflation, $V_\text{end}^{1/4} > 3 \times 10^{15}$ GeV for sizable tensor modes, $r \geq 10^{-3}$. If the reheating phase is matter dominated, this translates into a lower bound on the reheating temperature, yielding $T_\text{rh} > 3 \times 10^8 \; (7 \times 10^2)$ GeV for gravitational inflaton decay through a generic dimension five (six) operator.
The separate universe conjecture states that in General Relativity a density perturbation behaves locally (i.e. on scales much smaller than the wavelength of the mode) as a separate universe with different background density and curvature. We prove this conjecture for a spherical compensated tophat density perturbation of arbitrary amplitude and radius in $\Lambda$CDM. We then use Conformal Fermi Coordinates to generalize this result to scalar perturbations of arbitrary configuration and scale in a general cosmology with a mixture of fluids, but to linear order in perturbations. In this case, the separate universe conjecture holds for the isotropic part of the perturbations. The anisotropic part on the other hand is exactly captured by a tidal field in the Newtonian form. We show that the separate universe picture is restricted to scales larger than the sound horizons of all fluid components. We then derive an expression for the locally measured matter bispectrum induced by a long-wavelength mode of arbitrary wavelength, a new result which in standard perturbation theory is equivalent to a relativistic second-order calculation. We show that nonlinear gravitational dynamics does not generate observable contributions that scale like local-type non-Gaussianity $f^{\rm loc}_{\rm NL}$; rather, the locally measurable long-short mode coupling assumes a form essentially identical to subhorizon perturbation theory results, once the long-mode density perturbation is replaced by the synchronous-comoving gauge density perturbation. $f^{\rm loc}_{\rm NL}$-type contributions only enter through projection effects on photon propagation, which depend on the specific large-scale structure tracer and observable considered, and are in principle distinguishable from the local mode coupling induced by gravity.
We study the influence of the fluctuations of a Lorentz invariant and conserved vacuum on cosmological metric perturbations, and show that they generically blow up in the IR. We compute this effect using the K\"{a}ll\'{e}n-Lehmann spectral representation of stress correlators in generic quantum field theories, as well as the holographic bound on their entanglement entropy, both leading to an IR cut-off that scales as the fifth power of the highest UV scale (in Planck units). One may view this as analogous to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which is imposed on the phase space of gravitational theories by the Einstein constraint equations. The leading effect on cosmological observables come from anisotropic vacuum stresses which imply: i) any extension of the standard model of particle physics can only have masses (or resonances) $\lesssim$ 24 TeV, and ii) perturbative quantum field theory or quantum gravity becomes strongly coupled beyond a cut-off scale of $\Lambda\lesssim1$ PeV. Such a low cut-off is independently motivated by the Higgs hierarchy problem. This result, which we dub the cosmological non-constant problem, can be viewed as an extension of the cosmological constant (CC) problem, demonstrating the non-trivial UV-IR coupling and (yet another) limitation of effective field theory in gravity. However, it is more severe than the old CC problem, as vacuum fluctuations cannot be tuned to cancel due to the positivity of spectral densities or entropy. We thus predict that future advances in cosmological observations and collider technology will sandwich from above and below, and eventually discover, new (non-perturbative) physics beyond the Standard Model within the TeV-PeV energy range.
The origin of the Galactic halo stellar structure known as the Monoceros ring is still under debate. In this work, we study that halo substructure using deep CFHT wide-field photometry obtained for the globular clusters NGC2419 and Koposov2, where the presence of Monoceros becomes significant because of their coincident projected position. Using Sloan Digital Sky Survey photometry and spectroscopy in the area surrounding these globulars and beyond, where the same Monoceros population is detected, we conclude that a second feature, not likely to be associated with Milky Way disk stars along the line-of-sight, is present as foreground population. Our analysis suggests that the Monoceros ring might be composed of an old stellar population of age t ~ 9Gyr and a new component ~ 4Gyr younger at the same heliocentric distance. Alternatively, this detection might be associated with a second wrap of Monoceros in that direction of the sky and also indicate a metallicity spread in the ring. The detection of such a low-density feature in other sections of this halo substructure will shed light on its nature.
We present the first broadband 0.3-25.0 kev X-ray observations of the extreme ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) Holmberg II X-1, performed by NuSTAR, XMM-Newton and Suzaku in September 2013. The NuSTAR data provide the first observations of Holmberg II X-1 above 10 keV, and reveal a very steep high-energy spectrum, similar to other ULXs observed by NuSTAR to date. This implies that Holmberg II X-1 accretes at a high fraction of its Eddington accretion rate, and possibly exceeds it. The soft X-ray spectrum (E<10 keV) appears to be dominated by two blackbody-like emission components, the hotter of which may be associated with an accretion disk. However, all such models under-predict the NuSTAR data above ~10 keV, implying the presence of an additional emission component at the highest energies probed. We investigate plausible physical origins for this component, and favor a scenario in which the excess arises from Compton scattering in a hot corona of electrons with some properties similar to the very-high state seen in Galactic binaries. The observed broadband 0.3-25.0 keV luminosity inferred from these epochs is Lx = (8.1+/-0.1)e39 erg/s, typical for Holmberg II X-1, with the majority of the flux (~90%) emitted below 10 keV.
We present the rest-frame optical spectral properties of 155 luminous quasars at 3.3<z<6.4 taken with the AKARI space telescope, including the first detection of H$\alpha$ emission line as far out as z~6. We extend the scaling relation between the rest-frame optical continuum and line luminosity of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to the high luminosity, high redshift regime that has rarely been probed before. Remarkably, we find that a single log-linear relation can be applied to the 5100${\rm \AA}$ and H$\alpha$ AGN luminosities over a wide range of luminosity (10$^{42}$<$L_{5100}$<10$^{47}$ergs/s) or redshift (0<z<6), suggesting that the physical mechanism governing this relation is unchanged from z=0 to 6, over five decades in luminosity. Similar scaling relations are found between the optical and the UV continuum luminosities or line widths. Applying the scaling relations to the H$\beta$ black hole mass ($M_{\rm BH}$) estimator of local AGNs, we derive the $M_{\rm BH}$ estimators based on H$\alpha$, MgII, and CIV lines, finding that the UV-line based masses are overall consistent with the Balmer-line based, but with a large intrinsic scatter of 0.40dex for the CIV estimates. Our 43 $M_{\rm BH}$ estimates from H$\alpha$ confirm the existence of BHs as massive as ~10$^{10}M_{\odot}$ out to z~5, and provide a secure footing for previous MgII-line based studies that a rapid $M_{\rm BH}$ growth has occurred in the early universe.
A search for hidden photon cold dark matter (HP CDM) using a new technique with a dish antenna is reported. From the result of the measurement, we found no evidence for the existence of HP CDM and set an upper limit on the photon-HP mixing parameter $\chi$ of $\sim 6\times 10^{-12}$ for the hidden photon mass $m_\gamma = 3.1 \pm 1.2$ eV.
We study a general class of gravitational theories formulated in the Palatini approach and derive the equations governing the evolution of tensor perturbations. In the absence of torsion, the connection can be solved as the Christoffel symbols of an auxiliary metric which is non-trivially related to the space-time metric. We then consider background solutions corresponding to a perfect fluid and show that the tensor perturbations equations (including anisotropic stresses) for the auxiliary metric around such a background take an Einstein-like form. This facilitates the study in a homogeneous and isotropic cosmological scenario where we explicitly establish the relation between the auxiliary metric and the space-time metric tensor perturbations. As a general result, we show that both tensor perturbations coincide in the absence of anisotropic stresses.
We introduce a new paradigm in Composite Dark Sectors, where the full Standard Model (including the Higgs boson) is extended with a strongly-interacting composite sector with global symmetry group $\mathcal{G}$ spontaneously broken to $\mathcal{H}\subset \mathcal{G}$. We show that, under well-motivated conditions, the lightest neutral pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons are natural dark matter candidates for they are protected by a parity symmetry not even broken in the electroweak phase. These models are characterized by only two free parameters, namely the typical coupling $g_D$ and the scale $f_D$ of the composite sector, and are therefore very predictive. We consider in detail two minimal scenarios, $SU(3)/[SU(2)\times U(1)]$ and $[SU(2)^2\times U(1)]/[SU(2)\times U(1)]$, which provide a dynamical realization of the Inert Doublet and Triplet models, respectively. We show that the radiatively-induced potential can be computed in a five-dimensional description with modified boundary conditions with respect to Composite Higgs models. Finally, the dark matter candidates are shown to be compatible, in a large region of the parameter space, with current bounds from dark matter searches as well as electroweak and collider constraints on new resonances.
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We present the full public release of all data from the Illustris simulation project. Illustris is a suite of large volume, cosmological hydrodynamical simulations run with the moving-mesh code Arepo and including a comprehensive set of physical models critical for following the formation and evolution of galaxies across cosmic time. Each simulates a volume of (106.5 Mpc)^3 and self-consistently evolves five different types of resolution elements from a starting redshift of z=127 to the present day, z=0. These components are: dark matter particles, gas cells, passive gas tracers, stars and stellar wind particles, and supermassive black holes. This data release includes the snapshots at all 136 available redshifts, halo and subhalo catalogs at each snapshot, and two distinct merger trees. Six primary realizations of the Illustris volume are released, including the flagship Illustris-1 run. These include three resolution levels with the fiducial "full" baryonic physics model, and a dark matter only analog for each. In addition, we provide four distinct, high time resolution, smaller volume "subboxes". The total data volume is ~265 TB, including ~800 full volume snapshots and ~30,000 subbox snapshots. This paper describes the released data products as well as tools we have developed for their analysis. All data may be directly downloaded in its native HDF5 format. Additionally, we release a comprehensive, web-based API which allows programmatic access to search and data processing tasks. In both cases we provide example scripts and a getting-started guide in several languages: currently, IDL, Python, and Matlab. Finally, this paper addresses scientific issues relevant for the interpretation of the simulations, serves as a pointer to published and on-line documentation of the project, describes planned future additional data releases, and comments on technical aspects of the release.
The thermal state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at z < 6 constrains the nature and timing of cosmic reionization events, but its inference from the Ly-alpha forest is degenerate with the 3-D structure of the IGM on ~100 kpc scales, where, analogous to the classical Jeans argument, the pressure of the T~$10^4$ K gas supports it against gravity. We simulate the IGM using smoothed particle hydrodynamics, and find that, at z < 6, the gas density power spectrum does not exhibit the expected Jeans filtering cutoff, because dense gas in collapsed halos dominates the small-scale power masking pressure smoothing effects. We introduce a new statistic, the real-space Ly-alpha flux, $F_\mathrm{real}$, which naturally suppresses dense gas, and is thus robust against the poorly understood physics of galaxy formation, revealing pressure smoothing in the diffuse IGM. The $F_\mathrm{real}$ power spectrum is accurately described by a simple fitting function with cutoff at $\lambda_F$, allowing us to rigorously quantify the filtering scale for the first time: we find $\lambda_F$ = 79 kpc (comoving) at z=3 for our fiducial thermal model. This statistic has the added advantage that it directly relates to observations of correlated Ly-alpha forest absorption in close quasar pairs, recently proposed as a method to measure the filtering scale. Our results enable one to quantify the filtering scale in simulations, and ask meaningful questions about its dependence on reionization and thermal history. Accordingly, the standard description of the IGM in terms of the amplitude $T_0$ and slope $\gamma$ of the temperature-density relation $T = T_0\Delta^{\gamma-1}$ should be augmented with a third filtering scale parameter $\lambda_F$.
Very-high energy observations of blazars can be used to constrain the strength of the intergalactic magnetic field. A simplifying assumption which is often made is that of a magnetic field of constant strength composed by randomly oriented and identical cells. In this paper, we demonstrate that a more realistic description of the structure of the intergalactic magnetic field is indeed needed. If such a description is adopted, the observational bounds on the field strength are significantly affected in the limit of short field correlation lengths: in particular, they acquire a dependence on the magnetic field power spectrum. In the case of intergalactic magnetic fields which are generated causally, for which the magnetic field large scale spectral index is $n_B\geq 2$ and even, the observational lower bound becomes more constraining by about a factor 3. If instead $-3<n_B<-2$, the lower bound is significantly relaxed. Such magnetic fields with very red spectra can in principle be produced during inflation, but remain up to now speculative.
Based on a recent photometric redshift galaxy catalogue, we have searched for galaxy clusters in the Stripe~82 region of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey by applying the Adami & MAzure Cluster FInder (AMACFI). Extensive tests were made to fine-tune the AMACFI parameters and make the cluster detection as reliable as possible. The same method was applied to the Millennium simulation to estimate our detection efficiency and the approximate masses of the detected clusters. Considering all the cluster galaxies (i.e. within a 1 Mpc radius of the cluster to which they belong and with a photoz differing by less than 0.05 from that of the cluster), we stacked clusters in various redshift bins to derive colour-magnitude diagrams and galaxy luminosity functions (GLFs). For each galaxy with absolute magnitude brighter than -19.0 in the r band, we computed the disk and spheroid components by applying SExtractor, and by stacking clusters we determined how the disk-to-spheroid flux ratio varies with cluster redshift and mass. We detected 3663 clusters in the redshift range 0.15<z<0.70, with estimated mean masses between 10^13 and a few 10^{14 solar masses. By stacking the cluster galaxies in various redshift bins, we find a clear red sequence in the (g'-r') versus r' colour-magnitude diagrams, and the GLFs are typical of clusters, though with a possible contamination from field galaxies. The morphological analysis of the cluster galaxies shows that the fraction of late-type to early-type galaxies shows an increase with redshift (particularly in high mass clusters) and a decrease with detection level, i.e. cluster mass. From the properties of the cluster galaxies, the majority of the candidate clusters detected here seem to be real clusters with typical cluster properties.
SKA is a new technology radio-telescope array, about two orders of magnitude more sensitive and rapid in sky surveys than present instruments. It will probe the dark age of the universe, just afer recombination, and during the epoch of reionisation (z=6-15); it will be the unique instrument to map the atomic gas in high redshift galaxies, and determine the amount and distribution of dark matter in the early universe. Not only it will detect and measure the redshifts of billions of galaxies up to z=2, but also it will discover and monitor around 20 000 pulsars in our milky Way. The timing of pulsars will trace the stretching of space, able to detect gravitational waves. Binary pulsars will help to test gravity in strong fields, and probe general relativity. These exciting perspectives will become real beyond 2020.
We carry out a detailed study of the orbital dynamics and structural evolution of over 6000 subhalos in the Via Lactea II simulation, from infall to present. By analyzing subhalos with masses down to m = 4e5 Msun, we find that lower mass subhalos, which are not strongly affected by dynamical friction, exhibit behaviors qualitatively different from those found previously for more massive ones. Furthermore, there is a clear trend of subhalos that fell into the host earlier being less concentrated. We show that the concentration at infall characterizes various aspects of subhalo evolution. In particular, tidal effects truncate the growth of less concentrated subhalos at larger distances from the host; subhalos with smaller concentrations have larger infall radii. The concentration at infall is further shown to be a determining factor for the subsequent mass loss of subhalos within the host, and also for the evolution of their internal structure in the v_max-r_max plane. Our findings raise the prospects of using the concentration to predict the tidal evolution of subhalos, which will be useful for obtaining analytic models of galaxy formation, as well as for near field cosmology.
We study the optimisation and porting of the "Modal" code on Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors and/or Intel(R) Xeon Phi(TM) coprocessors using methods which should be applicable to more general compute bound codes. "Modal" is used by the Planck satellite experiment for constraining general non-Gaussian models of the early universe via the bispectrum of the cosmic microwave background. We focus on the hot-spot of the code which is the projection of bispectra from the end of inflation to spherical shell at decoupling which defines the CMB we observe. This code involves a three-dimensional inner product between two functions, one of which requires an integral, on a non-rectangular sparse domain. We show that by employing separable methods this calculation can be reduced to a one dimensional summation plus two integrations reducing the dimensionality from four to three. The introduction of separable functions also solves the issue of the domain allowing efficient vectorisation and load balancing. This method becomes unstable in certain cases and so we present a discussion of the optimisation of both approaches. By making bispectrum calculations competitive with those for the power spectrum we are now able to consider joint analysis for cosmological science exploitation of new data. We demonstrate speed-ups of over 100x, arising from a combination of algorithmic improvements and architecture-aware optimizations targeted at improving thread and vectorization behaviour. The resulting MPI/OpenMP code is capable of executing on clusters containing Intel(R) Xeon(R) processors and/or Intel(R) Xeon Phi(TM) coprocessors, with strong-scaling efficiency of 98.6% on up to 16 nodes. We find that a single coprocessor outperforms two processor sockets by a factor of 1.3x and that running the same code across a combination of processors and coprocessors improves performance-per-node by a factor of 3.38x.
Hybrid sources that present FR I - like jet on the one side of the radio core and FR II - like on the other are rare class of objects that may posses key to understanding the origin of FR division. We presents information connected with the new high resolution VLBA follow-up observations of 5 recently discovered hybrid sources. We believe that sources which exhibit two different morphologies at the opposite side of the radio core are FR II type objects evolving in non-uniform high-density environment.
We investigate how uncertainties in the chemical and cooling rate coefficients relevant for a metal-free gas influence our ability to determine the critical ultraviolet field strength required to suppress H2 cooling in high-redshift atomic cooling halos. The suppression of H2 cooling is a necessary prerequisite for the gas to undergo direct collapse and form an intermediate mass black hole. These black holes can then act as seeds for the growth of the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) observed at redshifts $z \sim 6$. The viability of this model for SMBH formation depends on the critical ultraviolet field strength, Jcrit: if this is too large, then too few seeds will form to explain the observed number density of SMBHs. We show in this paper that there are five key chemical reactions whose rate coefficients are uncertain enough to significantly affect Jcrit. The most important of these is the collisional ionization of hydrogen by collisions with other hydrogen atoms, as the rate for this process is very poorly constrained at the low energies relevant for direct collapse. The total uncertainty introduced into Jcrit by this and the other four reactions could in the worst case approach a factor of five. We also show that the use of outdated or inappropriate values for the rates of some chemical reactions in previous studies of the direct collapse mechanism may have significantly affected the values of Jcrit determined by these studies.
I describe a simple class of $\alpha$-attractors, generalizing the single-field GL model of inflation in supergravity. The new class of models is defined for $0<\alpha \lesssim 1$, providing a good match to the present cosmological data. I also present a generalized version of these models which can describe not only inflation but also dark energy and supersymmetry breaking.
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