Future Galaxy Surveys Research Articles

Theoretical accuracy in cosmological growth estimation

We elucidate the importance of the consistent treatment of gravity-model specific non-linearities when estimating the growth of cosmological structures from redshift space distortions (RSD). Within the context of standard perturbation theory (SPT), we compare the predictions of two theoretical templates with redshift space data from COLA (COmoving Lagrangian Acceleration) simulations in the normal branch of DGP gravity (nDGP) and General Relativity (GR). Using COLA for these comparisons is validated using a suite of full N-body simulations for the same theories. The two theoretical templates correspond to the standard general relativistic perturbation equations and those same equations modelled within nDGP. Gravitational clustering non-linear effects are accounted for by modelling the power spectrum up to one loop order and redshift space clustering anisotropy is modelled using the Taruya, Nishimichi and Saito (TNS) RSD model. Using this approach, we attempt to recover the simulation's fiducial logarithmic growth parameter $f$. By assigning the simulation data with errors representing an idealised survey with a volume of $10\mbox{Gpc}^3/h^3$, we find the GR template is unable to recover fiducial $f$ to within 1$\sigma$ at $z=1$ when we match the data up to $k_{\rm max}=0.195h$/Mpc. On the other hand, the DGP template recovers the fiducial value within $1\sigma$. Further, we conduct the same analysis for sets of mock data generated for generalised models of modified gravity using SPT, where again we analyse the GR template's ability to recover the fiducial value. We find that for models with enhanced gravitational non-linearity, the theoretical bias of the GR template becomes significant for stage IV surveys. Thus, we show that for the future large data volume galaxy surveys, the self-consistent modelling of non-GR gravity scenarios will be crucial in constraining theory parameters.

Towards optimal cosmological parameter recovery from compressed bispectrum statistics

Over the next decade, improvements in cosmological parameter constraints will be driven by surveys of large-scale structure. Its inherent non-linearity suggests that significant information will be embedded in higher correlations beyond the two-point function. Extracting this information is extremely challenging: it requires accurate theoretical modelling and significant computational resources to estimate the covariance matrix describing correlations between different Fourier configurations. We investigate whether it is possible to reduce the covariance matrix without significant loss of information by using a proxy that aggregates the bispectrum over a subset of Fourier configurations. Specifically, we study the constraints on $\Lambda$CDM parameters from combining the power spectrum with (a) the modal bispectrum decomposition, (b) the line correlation function and (c) the integrated bispectrum. We forecast the error bars achievable on $\Lambda$CDM parameters using these proxies in a future galaxy survey and compare them to those obtained from measurements of the Fourier bispectrum, including simple estimates of their degradation in the presence of shot noise. Our results demonstrate that the modal bispectrum performs as well as the Fourier bispectrum, even with considerably fewer modes than Fourier configurations. The line correlation function has good performance but does not match the modal bispectrum. The integrated bispectrum is comparatively insensitive to changes in the background cosmology. We find that adding bispectrum data can improve constraints on bias parameters and the normalization $\sigma_8$ by up to 5 compared to power spectrum measurements alone. For other parameters, improvements of up to $\sim$ 20% are possible. Finally, we use a range of theoretical models to explore how the sophistication required for realistic predictions varies with each proxy. (abridged)

A lightcone catalogue from the Millennium-XXL simulation

Future galaxy surveys require realistic mock catalogues to understand and quantify systematics in order to make precise cosmological measurements. We present a halo lightcone catalogue and halo occupation distribution (HOD) galaxy catalogue built using the Millennium-XXL (MXXL) simulation. The halo catalogue covers the full sky, extending to z = 2 with a mass resolution of ~1e11 Msun/h . We use this to build a galaxy catalogue, which has an r-band magnitude limit of r < 20.0, with a median redshift of z~0.2. A Monte Carlo HOD method is used to assign galaxies to the halo lightcone catalogue, and we evolve the HODs to reproduce a target luminosity function; by construction, the luminosity function of galaxies in the mock is in agreement with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) at low redshifts and the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey at high redshifts. A Monte Carlo method is used to assign a 0.1(g-r) colour to each galaxy, and the colour distribution of galaxies at different redshifts agrees with measurements from GAMA. The clustering of galaxies in the mock for galaxies in different magnitude and redshift bins is in good agreement with measurements from SDSS and GAMA, and the colour-dependent clustering is in reasonable agreement. We show that the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) can be measured in the mock catalogue, and the redshift space distortions (RSDs) are in agreement with measurements from SDSS, illustrating that this catalogue will be useful for upcoming surveys.

Next non-Gaussianity frontier: What can a measurement with σ(fNL)≲1 tell us about multifield inflation?

Future galaxy surveys promise to probe local primordial non-Gaussianity at unprecedented precision, $\sigma(f_{\rm NL}) \lesssim 1$. We study the implications for multifield inflation by considering spectator models, where inflation is driven by the inflaton field, but the primordial perturbations are (partially) generated by a second, spectator field. We perform an MCMC likelihood analysis using Planck data to study quantitative predictions for $f_{\rm NL}$ and other observables for a range of such spectator models. We show that models where the primordial perturbations are dominated by the spectator field, while fine-tuned within the broader parameter space, typically predict $f_{\rm NL}$ of order unity. Therefore, upcoming galaxy clustering measurements will constitute a stringent test of whether or not the generation of primordial perturbations and the accelerated expansion in the inflationary universe are due to separate phenomena.

Differential neutrino condensation onto cosmic structure

Astrophysical techniques have pioneered the discovery of neutrino mass properties. Current cosmological observations give an upper bound on neutrino masses by attempting to disentangle the small neutrino contribution from the sum of all matter using precise theoretical models. We discover the differential neutrino condensation effect in our TianNu N-body simulation. Neutrino masses can be inferred using this effect by comparing galaxy properties in regions of the universe with different neutrino relative abundance (i.e. the local neutrino to cold dark matter density ratio). In "neutrino-rich"' regions, more neutrinos can be captured by massive halos compared to "neutrino-poor" regions. This effect differentially skews the halo mass function and opens up the path to independent neutrino mass measurements in current or future galaxy surveys.

Recovering a redshift-extended varying speed of light signal from galaxy surveys

We investigate a new method to recover (if any) a possible varying speed of light (VSL) signal from cosmological data. It comes as an upgrade of [1,2], where it was argued that such signal could be detected at a single redshift location only. Here, we show how it is possible to extract information on a VSL signal on an extended redshift range. We use mock cosmological data from future galaxy surveys (BOSS, DESI, \emph{WFirst-2.4} and SKA): the sound horizon at decoupling imprinted in the clustering of galaxies (BAO) as an angular diameter distance, and the expansion rate derived from those galaxies recognized as cosmic chronometers. We find that, given the forecast sensitivities of such surveys, a $\sim1\%$ VSL signal can be detected at $3\sigma$ confidence level in the redshift interval $z \in [0.,1.55]$. Smaller signals $(\sim0.1\%)$ will be hardly detected (even if some lower possibility for a $1\sigma$ detection is still possible). Finally, we discuss the degeneration between a VSL signal and a non-null spatial curvature; we show that, given present bounds on curvature, any signal, if detected, can be attributed to a VSL signal with a very high confidence. On the other hand, our method turns out to be useful even in the classical scenario of a constant speed of light: in this case, the signal we reconstruct can be totally ascribed to spatial curvature and, thus, we might have a method to detect a $0.01$-order curvature in the same redhift range with a very high confidence.

Multitracer technique for galaxy bispectrum: An application to constraints on nonlocal primordial non-Gaussianities

We explore the use of galaxy bispectra with multitracer technique as a possible probe of primordial non-Gaussianities. We forecast future constraints on non-linearity parameters, $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm eq}$ and $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm orth}$, which respectively characterize the equilateral- and orthogonal-types primordial bispectra, and show that the multitracer analysis would be effective with reducing the cosmic-variance noise if the number density of galaxies is high enough. We find that the measurement of galaxy bispectrum by future galaxy surveys can reach the constraints on the non-local type primordial non-Gaussianities to the level severer than current one which has been obtained by cosmic microwave background observations.

Cosmological constraints with clustering-based redshifts

We demonstrate that observations lacking reliable redshift information, such as photometric and radio continuum surveys, can produce robust measurements of cosmological parameters when empowered by clustering-based redshift estimation. This method infers the redshift distribution based on the spatial clustering of sources, using cross-correlation with a reference dataset with known redshifts. Applying this method to the existing SDSS photometric galaxies, and projecting to future radio continuum surveys, we show that sources can be efficiently divided into several redshift bins, increasing their ability to constrain cosmological parameters. We forecast constraints on the dark-energy equation-of-state and on local non-gaussianity parameters. We explore several pertinent issues, including the tradeoff between including more sources versus minimizing the overlap between bins, the shot-noise limitations on binning, and the predicted performance of the method at high redshifts. Remarkably, we find that, once this technique is implemented, constraints on dynamical dark energy from the SDSS imaging catalog can be competitive with, or better than, those from the spectroscopic BOSS survey and even future planned experiments. Further, constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity from future large-sky radio-continuum surveys can outperform those from the Planck CMB experiment, and rival those from future spectroscopic galaxy surveys. The application of this method thus holds tremendous promise for cosmology.

Anomalous Galactic Dynamics by Collusion of Rindler and Cosmological Horizons

Abstract In holography, the dimensional reduction of phase space to two dimensions defines a dynamical dark energy of , associated with the cosmological horizon at a Hubble radius of , and inertia m of baryonic matter at acceleration α in terms of a thermodynamic potential of Rindler horizons at . Here, H is the Hubble parameter with deceleration q and c is the velocity of light. In weak gravity, m drops below Newton’s value m 0 as , when Rindler horizons fall beyond the cosmological horizon. The onset to weak gravity across is sharp by causality. Striking evidence is found in galaxy rotation curves, whose asymptotic dynamics is parameterized by Milgrom’s scale of acceleration . This onset presents a new challenge for canonical dark matter distributions on galactic scales in ΛCDM. Instead, future galaxy surveys may determine , to provide a direct test of dynamical dark energy ( ) versus ΛCDM ( ) and establish a bound of on the mass of the putative dark matter particle with clustering limited to galaxy clusters.

Large-scale structure topology in non-standard cosmologies: impact of dark sector physics

Even as our measurements of cosmological parameters improve, the physical nature of the dark sector of the universe largely remains a mystery. Many effects of dark sector models are most prominent at very large scales and will rely on future galaxy surveys to elucidate. In this paper we compare the topological properties of the large scale dark matter distribution in a number of cosmological models using hydrodynamical simulations and the cosmological genus statistic. Genus curves are computed from z = 11 to z = 0 for {\Lambda}CDM, Quintessence and Warm Dark Matter models, over a scale range of 1 to 20 Mpc/h. The curves are analysed in terms of their Hermite spectra to describe the power contained in non-Gaussian deformations to the cosmological density field. We find that the {\Lambda}CDM and {\Lambda}WDM models produce nearly identical genus curves indicating no topological differences in structure formation. The Quintessence model, which differs solely in its expansion history, produces significant differences in the strength and redshift evolution of non-Gaussian modes associated with higher cluster abundances and lower void abundances. These effects are robust to cosmic variance and are characteristically different from those produced by tweaking the parameters of a {\Lambda}CDM model. Given the simplicity and similarity of the models, detecting these discrepancies represents a promising avenue for understanding the effect of non-standard cosmologies on large-scale structure.

Marginalized Fisher forecast for Horndeski dark energy models

We use effective field theory (EFT) formalism to forecast the constraint on Horndeski class of dark energy models with future supernova and galaxy surveys. Previously, Gleyzes et al. computed unmarginalized constraints (68% CL error [Formula: see text]–[Formula: see text]) on EFT dark energy parameters by fixing all other parameters. We extend the previous work by allowing all cosmological parameters and nuisance parameters to vary and marginalize over them. We find that (i) the constraints on EFT dark energy parameters are typically worsen by a factor of few after marginalization, and (ii) the constraint on the dark energy equation-of-state [Formula: see text] is not significantly affected by the inclusion of EFT dark energy parameters.

Squeezed bispectrum in the δ N formalism: local observer effect in field space

The prospects of future galaxy surveys for non-Gaussianity measurements call for the development of robust techniques for computing the bispectrum of primordial cosmological perturbations. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to the calculation of the squeezed bispectrum in multiple-field inflation. With use of the δ N formalism, our framework sheds new light on the recently pointed out difference between the squeezed bispectrum for global observers and that for local observers, while allowing one to calculate both. For local observers in particular, the squeezed bispectrum is found to vanish in single-field inflation. Furthermore, our framework allows one to go beyond the near-equilateral (“small hierarchy”) limit, and to automatically include intrinsic non-Gaussianities that do not need to be calculated separately. The explicit computational programme of our method is given and illustrated with a few examples.

Precision cosmology with baryons: non-radiative hydrodynamics of galaxy groups

The effect of baryons on the matter power spectrum is likely to have an observable effect for future galaxy surveys, like Euclid or LSST. As a first step towards a fully predictive theory, we investigate the effect of non-radiative hydrodynamics on the structure of galaxy groups sized halos, which contribute the most to the weak lensing power spectrum. We perform high resolution (more than one million particles per halo and one kilo-parsec resolution) non-radiative hydrodynamical zoom-in simulations of a sample of 16 halos, comparing the profiles to popular analytical models. We find that the total mass profile is well fitted by a Navarro, Frenk & White model, with parameters slightly modified from the dark matter only simulation. We also find that the Komatsu & Seljak hydrostatic solution provides a good fit to the gas profiles, with however significant deviations, arising from strong turbulent mixing in the core and from non-thermal, turbulent pressure support in the outskirts. The turbulent energy follows a shallow, rising linear profile with radius, and correlates with the halo formation time. Using only three main structural halo parameters as variables (total mass, concentration parameter and central gas density), we can predict with an accuracy better than 20% the individual gas density and temperature profiles. For the average total mass profile, which is relevant for power spectrum calculations, we even reach an accuracy of 1%. The robustness of these predictions has been tested against resolution effects, different types of initial conditions and hydrodynamical schemes.

Information Content of the Angular Multipoles of Redshift-Space Galaxy Bispectrum

The redshift-space bispectrum (three point statistics) of galaxies depends on the expansion rate, the growth rate and the geometry of the Universe, and hence can be used to measure key cosmological parameters. In a homogeneous Universe, the bispectrum is a function of five variables and unlike its two point statistics counterpart – the power spectrum – which is a function of only two variables – is difficult to analyse unless the information is somehow reduced. The most commonly considered reduction schemes rely on computing angular integrals over possible orientations of the bispectrum triangle, thus reducing it to sets of function of only three variables describing the triangle shape. We use Fisher information formalism to study the information loss associated with this angular integration. Without any reduction, the bispectrum alone can deliver constraints on the growth rate parameter f that are better by a factor of 2.5 compared with the power spectrum, for a sample of luminous red galaxies expected from near future galaxy surveys at a redshift of z ∼ 0.65 if we consider all the wavenumbers up to k ≤ 0.2 h Mpc−1. At lower redshifts the improvement could be up to a factor of 3. We find that most of the information is in the azimuthal averages of the first three even multipoles. This suggests that the bispectrum of every configuration can be reduced to just three numbers (instead of a 2D function) without significant loss of cosmologically relevant information.

Numerical evaluation of the bispectrum in multiple field inflation—the transport approach with code

We present a complete framework for numerical calculation of the power spectrum and bispectrum in canonical inflation with an arbitrary number of light or heavy fields. Our method includes all relevant effects at tree-level in the loop expansion, including (i) interference between growing and decaying modes near horizon exit; (ii) correlation and coupling between species near horizon exit and on superhorizon scales; (iii) contributions from mass terms; and (iv) all contributions from coupling to gravity. We track the evolution of each correlation function from the vacuum state through horizon exit and the superhorizon regime, with no need to match quantum and classical parts of the calculation; when integrated, our approach corresponds exactly with the tree-level Schwinger or `in-in' formulation of quantum field theory. In this paper we give the equations necessary to evolve all two- and three-point correlation functions together with suitable initial conditions. The final formalism is suitable to compute the amplitude, shape, and scale dependence of the bispectrum in models with |fNL| of order unity or less, which are a target for future galaxy surveys such as Euclid, DESI and LSST. As an illustration we apply our framework to a number of examples, obtaining quantitatively accurate predictions for their bispectra for the first time. Two accompanying reports describe publicly-available software packages that implement the method.

Subhalo Abundance Matching in f(R) Gravity.

Using the liminality N-body simulations of Shi etal., we present the first predictions for galaxy clustering in f(R) gravity using subhalo abundance matching. We find that, for a given galaxy density, even for an f(R) model with f_{R0}=-10^{-6}, for which the cold dark matter clustering is very similar to the cold dark matter model with a cosmological constant (ΛCDM), the predicted clustering of galaxies in the f(R) model is very different from ΛCDM. The deviation can be as large as 40% for samples with mean densities close to that of L_{*} galaxies. This large deviation is testable given the accuracy that future large-scale galaxy surveys aim to achieve. Our result demonstrates that galaxy surveys can provide a stringent test of general relativity on cosmological scales, which is comparable to the tests from local astrophysical observations.

Unbiased pseudo-Cℓpower spectrum estimation with mode projection

With the steadily improving sensitivity afforded by current and future galaxy surveys, a robust extraction of two-point correlation function measurements may become increasingly hampered by the presence of astrophysical foregrounds or observational systematics. The concept of mode projection has been introduced as a means to remove contaminants for which it is possible to construct a spatial map reflecting the expected signal contribution. Owing to its computational efficiency compared to minimum-variance methods, the sub-optimal pseudo-Cl (PCL) power spectrum estimator is a popular tool for the analysis of high-resolution data sets. Here, we integrate mode projection into the framework of PCL power spectrum estimation. In contrast to results obtained with optimal estimators, we show that the uncorrected projection of template maps leads to biased power spectra. Based on analytical calculations, we find exact closed-form expressions for the expectation value of the bias and demonstrate that they can be recast in a form that allows a numerically efficient evaluation, preserving the favorable O(l_max^3) time complexity of PCL estimator algorithms. Using simulated data sets, we assess the scaling of the bias with various analysis parameters and demonstrate that it can be reliably removed. We conclude that in combination with mode projection, PCL estimators allow for a fast and robust computation of power spectra in the presence of systematic effects -- properties in high demand for the analysis of ongoing and future large scale structure surveys.

Probing primordial features with future galaxy surveys

We study the capability of future measurements of the galaxy clustering power spectrum to probe departures from a power-law spectrum for primordial fluctuations. On considering the information from the galaxy clustering power spectrum up to quasi-linear scales, i.e. k < 0.1 h Mpc−1, we present forecasts for DESI, Euclid and SPHEREx in combination with CMB measurements. As examples of departures in the primordial power spectrum from a simple power-law, we consider four Planck 2015 best-fits motivated by inflationary models with different breaking of the slow-roll approximation. At present, these four representative models provide an improved fit to CMB temperature anisotropies, although not at statistical significant level. As for other extensions in the matter content of the simplest ΛCDM model, the complementarity of the information in the resulting matter power spectrum expected from these galaxy surveys and in the primordial power spectrum from CMB anisotropies can be effective in constraining cosmological models. We find that the three galaxy surveys can add significant information to CMB to better constrain the extra parameters of the four models considered.

Optimal redshift weighting for redshift-space distortions

The low statistical errors on cosmological parameters promised by future galaxy surveys will only be realised with the development of new, fast, analysis methods that reduce potential systematic problems to low levels. We present an efficient method for measuring the evolution of the growth of structure using Redshift Space Distortions (RSD), that removes the need to make measurements in redshift shells. We provide sets of galaxy-weights that cover a wide range in redshift, but are optimised to provide differential information about cosmological evolution. These are derived to optimally measure the coefficients of a parameterisation of the redshift-dependent matter density, which provides a framework to measure deviations from the concordance $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, allowing for deviations in both geometric and/or growth. We test the robustness of the weights by comparing with alternative schemes and investigate the impact of galaxy bias. We extend the results to measure the combined anisotropic Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) and RSD signals.

The global 21-cm signal in the context of the high-zgalaxy luminosity function

Motivated by recent progress in studies of the high-$z$ Universe, we build a new model for the global 21-cm signal that is explicitly calibrated to measurements of the galaxy luminosity function (LF) and further tuned to match the Thomson scattering optical depth of the cosmic microwave background, $\tau_e$. Assuming that the $z \lesssim 8$ galaxy population can be smoothly extrapolated to higher redshifts, the recent decline in best-fit values of $\tau_e$ and the inefficient heating induced by X-ray binaries (HMXBs; the presumptive sources of the X-ray background at high-$z$) imply that the entirety of cosmic reionization and reheating occurs at redshifts $z \lesssim 12$. In contrast to past global 21-cm models, whose $z \sim 20$ ($\nu \sim 70$ MHz) absorption features and strong $\sim 25$ mK emission features were driven largely by the assumption of efficient early star-formation and X-ray heating, our new fiducial model peaks in absorption at $\nu \sim 110$ MHz at a depth of $\sim -160$ mK and has a negligible emission component. As a result, a strong emission signal would provide convincing evidence that HMXBs are not the only drivers of cosmic reheating. Shallow absorption troughs should accompany strong heating scenarios, but could also be caused by a low escape fraction of Lyman-Werner photons. Generating signals with troughs at $\nu \lesssim 95$ MHz requires a floor in the star-formation efficiency in halos below $\sim 10^{9} M_{\odot}$, which is equivalent to steepening the faint-end of the galaxy LF. These findings demonstrate that the global 21-cm signal is a powerful complement to current and future galaxy surveys and efforts to better understand the interstellar medium in high-$z$ galaxies.