ISW Effect Research Articles

Structure formation in various dynamical dark energy scenarios

This research investigates the impact of the nature of Dark Energy (DE) on structure formation, focusing on the matter power spectrum and the Integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect (ISW). By analyzing the matter power spectrum at redshifts z=0 and z=5, as well as the ISW effect on the scale of ℓ=10−100, the study provides valuable insights into the influence of DE equations of state (EoS) on structure formation. The findings reveal that dynamical DE models exhibit a stronger matter power spectrum compared to constant DE models, with the JBP model demonstrating the highest amplitude and the CPL model the weakest. Additionally, the study delves into the ISW effect, highlighting the time evolution of the ISW source term F(a) and its derivative dF(a)/da, and demonstrating that models with constant DE EoS exhibit a stronger amplitude of F(a) overall, while dynamical models such as CPL exhibit the highest amplitude among the dynamical models, whereas JBP has the lowest. The study also explores the ISW auto-correlation power spectrum and the ISW cross-correlation power spectrum, revealing that dynamical DE models dominate over those with constant DE EoS across various surveys. Moreover, it emphasizes the potential of studying the non-linear matter power spectrum and incorporating datasets from the small scales to further elucidate the dynamical nature of dark energy. This comprehensive analysis underscores the significance of both the matter power spectrum and the ISW signal in discerning the nature of dark energy, paving the way for future research to explore the matter power spectrum at higher redshifts and in the non-linear regime, providing deeper insights into the dynamical nature of dark energy.

Cosmological evolution in bimetric gravity: observational constraints and LSS signatures

Bimetric gravity is an interesting alternative to standard GR given its potential to provide a concrete theoretical framework for a ghost-free massive gravity theory. Here we investigate a class of Bimetric gravity models for their cosmological implications. We study the background expansion as well as the growth of matter perturbations at linear and second order. We use low-redshift observations from SnIa (Pantheon+ and SH0ES), Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO), the growth (fsigma _{8}) measurements and the measurement from Megamaser Cosmology Project to constrain the Bimetric model. We find that the Bimetric models are consistent with the present data alongside the Lambda CDM model. We reconstructed the “ effective dark energy equation of state”(omega _{de}) and “Skewness”(S_{3}) parameters for the Bimetric model from the observational constraints and show that the current low-redshift data allow significant deviations in omega _{de} and S_{3} parameters with respect to the Lambda CDM behaviour. We also look at the ISW effect via galaxy-temperature correlations and find that the best fit Bimetric model behaves similarly to Lambda CDM in this regard.

Constraining Deceleration, Jerk and Transition Redshift Using Cosmic Chronometers, Type Ia Supernovae and the ISW Effect

Constraining Deceleration, Jerk and Transition Redshift Using Cosmic Chronometers, Type Ia Supernovae and the ISW Effect

Accurate relativistic observables from postprocessing light cone catalogs

We introduce and study a new scheme to construct relativistic observables from post-processing light cone data. This construction is based on a novel approach, LC-Metric, which takes general light cone or snapshot output generated by arbitrary N-body simulations or emulations and solves the linearized Einstein equations to determine the spacetime metric on the light cone. We find that this scheme is able to determine the metric to high precision, and subsequently generate accurate mock cosmological observations sensitive to effects such as post-Born lensing and nonlinear ISW contributions. By comparing to conventional methods in quantifying those general relativistic effects, we show that this scheme is able to accurately construct the lensing convergence signal. We also find the accuracy of this method in quantifying the ISW effects in the highly nonlinear regime outperforms conventional methods by an order of magnitude. This scheme opens a new path for exploring and modeling higher-order and nonlinear general relativistic contributions to cosmological observables, including mock observations of gravitational lensing and the moving lens and Rees-Sciama effects.

Fluid approach of linear cosmological Nash–Greene perturbations

In this paper, we obtain numerical solutions of the linear cosmological Nash-Greene perturbation equations in an embedded four dimensional space-time. We propose an effective fluid approach with the full anisotropic stresses to interpret the consequences of the extrinsic curvature on the cosmic dynamics. The effective Newtonian function G e f f is used to estimate the model parameters once it must obey Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and solar constraints. To obtain sufficiently accurate precision on the cosmic fluid parameter w , we use the Dynamic Nested Sampling algorithm with DYNESTY code to the obtainment of viable solutions of numerical evolutions of the matter growth rate, scalar fluid velocity, anisotropic quantities and on the analysis of effective sound speed. By means of a modified version of CLASS Einstein-Boltzmann solver, called EFCLASS , we obtain prospects on the resulting CMB TT angular spectra with the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, which is weakened on low- l scales as compared with the Λ CDM profile. Moreover, the obtained linear matter power spectrum P ( k ) profiles are compatible with Λ CDM standard results. • Dynamical approach for extrinsic curvature by means of Nash-Greene theorem. • Subhorizon linear perturbations in the embedding context. • A fluid approach for the extrinsic curvature with the full presence of anisotropic stresses. • The related ISW effect is suppressed as compared with the Λ CDM profiles.

Sub-horizon modes and growth index in a linear scalar cosmological perturbations

We test a four dimensional cosmological model embedded in a five dimensional bulk space by means of the dynamical Nash-Greene theorem. In a fluid approach, we apply a joint likelihood analysis to the data with the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method for cosmological parameter estimation. We use recent datasets as the “Gold 2018” growth-rate data, the Planck2018/varLambda CDM data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies, the Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) measurements, the Pantheon Supernovae type Ia and the data on the Hubble parameter H(z) with redshift ranging from 0.01< z < 2.3. Performing the Information Criterion (IC) analysis, we find that the present model is in very good agreement with observations with a close statistical equivalence with wCDM cosmologies at 1-sigma level with a slightly larger growth profiles. By modifications of CLASS(EFCLASS) code, we make a comparison between the models on their unlensed CMB TT temperature spectra. Moreover, the proposed model presents a low power spectrum by the reduction of the ISW effect at lower multipoles. We also find that the overall percentage relative difference of the growth index varDelta gamma (%) is up to 1.4% as compared to wCDM pattern in sub-horizon scales.

Fast lightcones for combined cosmological probes

The combination of different cosmological probes offers stringent tests of the ΛCDM model and enhanced control of systematics. For this purpose, we present an extension of the lightcone generator UFALCON first introduced in Sgier et al. [1], enabling the simulation of a self-consistent set of maps for different cosmological probes. Each realization is generated from the same underlying simulated density field, and contains full-sky maps of different probes, namely weak lensing shear, galaxy overdensity including RSD, CMB lensing, and CMB temperature anisotropies from the ISW effect. The lightcone generation performed by UFALCON is parallelized and based on the replication of a large periodic volume simulated with the GPU-accelerated N-Body code PKDGRAV3. The post-processing to construct the lightcones requires only a runtime of about 1 walltime-hour corresponding to about 100 CPU-hours. We use a randomization procedure to increase the number of quasi-independent full-sky UFALCON map-realizations, which enables us to compute an accurate multi-probe covariance matrix. Using this framework, we forecast cosmological parameter constraints by performing a multi-probe likelihood analysis for a combination of simulated future stage-IV-like surveys. We find that the inclusion of the cross-correlations between the probes significantly increases the information gain in the parameter constraints. We also find that the use of a non-Gaussian covariance matrix is increasingly important, as more probes and cross-correlation power spectra are included. A version of the UFALCON package currently including weak gravitational lensing is publicly available.

ISW in ΛCDM or something else?

ABSTRACT We investigate a correlation between the Planck’s CMB temperature map and statistics based on the space density of quasars in the SDSS catalogue. It is shown that the amplitude of the positive correlation imposes a lower limit on the amplitude of the Integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect independent of the quasar bias factor. Implications of this constraint for the ISW effect in the Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model are examined. Strength of the correlation indicates that the rms of temperature fluctuations associated with the quasars distributed between 1500 and 3000 Mpc likely exceeds $11{\!-\!}12\, \mu$K. The signal seems to be related to an overall space distribution of quasars rather than to a few exceptionally dominant structures like supervoids. Although, the present estimates are subject to sizable uncertainties, the signal apparently exceeds the model predictions of the ISW effect for the standard ΛCDM cosmology. This conclusion is consistent with several other investigations that also claim some disparity between the observed ISW signal and the theoretical predictions.

Modified gravitational-wave propagation and standard sirens

Studies of dark energy at advanced gravitational-wave (GW) interferometers normally focus on the dark energy equation of state $w_{\rm DE}(z)$. However, modified gravity theories that predict a non-trivial dark energy equation of state generically also predict deviations from general relativity in the propagation of GWs across cosmological distances, even in theories where the speed of gravity is equal to $c$. We find that, in generic modified gravity models, the effect of modified GW propagation dominates over that of $w_{\rm DE}(z)$, making modified GW propagation a crucial observable for dark energy studies with standard sirens. We present a convenient parametrization of the effect in terms of two parameters $(\Xi_0,n)$, analogue to the $(w_0,w_a)$ parametrization of the dark energy equation of state, and we give a limit from the LIGO/Virgo measurement of $H_0$ with the neutron star binary GW170817. We then perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis to estimate the sensitivity of the Einstein Telescope (ET) to the cosmological parameters, including $(\Xi_0,n)$, both using only standard sirens, and combining them with other cosmological datasets. In particular, the Hubble parameter can be measured with an accuracy better than $1\%$ already using only standard sirens while, when combining ET with current CMB+BAO+SNe data, $\Xi_0$ can be measured to $0.8\%$ . We discuss the predictions for modified GW propagation of a specific nonlocal modification of gravity, recently developed by our group, and we show that they are within the reach of ET. Modified GW propagation also affects the GW transfer function, and therefore the tensor contribution to the ISW effect.

Impact of SZ cluster residuals in CMB maps and CMB–LSS cross-correlations

Residual foreground contamination in cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps, such as the residual contamination from thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect in the direction of galaxy clusters, can bias the cross-correlation measurements between CMB and large-scale structure optical surveys. It is thus essential to quantify those residuals and, if possible, to null out SZ cluster residuals in CMB maps. We quantify for the first time the amount of SZ cluster contamination in the released Planck 2015 CMB maps through (i) the stacking of CMB maps in the direction of the clusters, and (ii) the computation of cross-correlation power spectra between CMB maps and the SDSS-IV large-scale structure data. Our cross-power spectrum analysis yields a $30\sigma$ detection at the cluster scale ($\ell=1500-2500$) and a $39\sigma$ detection on larger scales ($\ell=500-1500$) due to clustering of SZ clusters, giving an overall $54\sigma$ detection of SZ cluster residuals in the Planck CMB maps. The Planck 2015 NILC CMB map is shown to have $44\pm4\%$ of thermal SZ foreground emission left in it. Using the 'Constrained ILC' component separation technique, we construct an alternative Planck CMB map, the 2D-ILC map, which is shown to have negligible SZ contamination, at the cost of being slightly more contaminated by Galactic foregrounds and noise. We also discuss the impact of the SZ residuals in CMB maps on the measurement of the ISW effect, which is shown to be negligible based on our analysis.

H i and cosmological constraints from intensity mapping, optical and CMB surveys

We forecast constraints on neutral hydrogen (HI) and cosmological parameters using near-term intensity mapping surveys with instruments such as BINGO, MeerKAT, and the SKA, and Stage III and IV optical galaxy surveys. If foregrounds and systematic effects can be controlled - a problem which becomes much easier in cross-correlation - these surveys will provide exquisite measurements of the HI density and bias, as well as measurements of the growth of structure, the angular diameter distance, and the Hubble rate, over a wide range of redshift. We also investigate the possibility of detecting the late time ISW effect using the Planck satellite and forthcoming intensity mapping surveys, finding that a large sky survey with Phase 1 of the SKA can achieve a near optimal detection.

Evidence against a supervoid causing the CMB Cold Spot

We report the results of the 2dF-VST ATLAS Cold Spot galaxy redshift survey (2CSz) based on imaging from VST ATLAS and spectroscopy from 2dF AAOmega over the core of the CMB Cold Spot. We sparsely surveyed the inner 5$^{\circ}$ radius of the Cold Spot to a limit of $i_{AB} \le 19.2$, sampling $\sim7000$ galaxies at $z<0.4$. We have found voids at $z=$ 0.14, 0.26 and 0.30 but they are interspersed with small over-densities and the scale of these voids is insufficient to explain the Cold Spot through the $\Lambda$CDM ISW effect. Combining with previous data out to $z\sim1$, we conclude that the CMB Cold Spot could not have been imprinted by a void confined to the inner core of the Cold Spot. Additionally we find that our 'control' field GAMA G23 shows a similarity in its galaxy redshift distribution to the Cold Spot. Since the GAMA G23 line-of-sight shows no evidence of a CMB temperature decrement we conclude that the Cold Spot may have a primordial origin rather than being due to line-of-sight effects.

The lensing and temperature imprints of voids on the cosmic microwave background

We have searched for the signature of cosmic voids in the CMB, in both the Planck temperature and lensing-convergence maps; voids should give decrements in both. We use zobov voids from the DR12 SDSS CMASS galaxy sample. We base our analysis on N-body simulations, to avoid a posteriori bias. For the first time, we detect the signature of voids in CMB lensing: the significance is $3.2\sigma$, close to $\Lambda$CDM in both amplitude and projected density-profile shape. A temperature dip is also seen, at modest significance ($2.3\sigma$), with amplitude about 6 times the prediction. This temperature signal is induced mostly by voids with radius between 100 and 150 Mpc/h, while the lensing signal is mostly contributed by smaller voids -- as expected; lensing relates directly to density, while ISW depends on gravitational potential. The void abundance in observations and simulations agree, as well. We also repeated the analysis excluding lower-significance voids: no lensing signal is detected, with an upper limit of about twice the $\Lambda$CDM prediction. But the mean temperature decrement now becomes non-zero at the $3.7\sigma$ level (similar to that found by Granett et al.), with amplitude about 20 times the prediction. However, the observed dependence of temperature on void size is in poor agreement with simulations, whereas the lensing results are consistent with $\Lambda$CDM theory. Thus, the overall tension between theory and observations does not favour non-standard theories of gravity, despite the hints of an enhanced amplitude for the ISW effect from voids.

Planck2015 results

This paper presents a study of the ISW effect from the Planck 2015 temperature and polarization data release. The CMB is cross-correlated with different LSS tracers: the NVSS, SDSS and WISE catalogues, and the Planck 2015 lensing map. This cross-correlation yields a detection at $4\,\sigma$, where most of the signal-to-noise is due to the Planck lensing and NVSS. In fact, the ISW effect is detected only from the Planck data (through the ISW-lensing bispectrum) at $\approx 3\,\sigma$, which is similar to the detection level achieved by combining the cross-correlation signal coming from all the catalogues. The ISW signal allow us to detect $\Omega_\Lambda$ at more than $3\,\sigma$. This cross-correlation analysis is performed only with the Planck temperature data, since the polarization scales available in the 2015 release do not permit significant improvement of the CMB-LSS cross-correlation detectability. Nevertheless, polarization data is used to study the anomalously large ISW signal previously reported through the stacking of CMB features at the locations of known superstructures. We find that the current Planck polarization data do not exclude that this signal could be caused by the ISW effect. In addition, the stacking of the Planck lensing map on the locations of superstructures exhibits a positive cross-correlation with these large-scale structures. Finally, we have improved our previous reconstruction of the ISW temperature fluctuations by combining the information encoded in all the previously mentioned LSS tracers. In particular, we construct a map of the ISW secondary anisotropies and the corresponding uncertainties map, obtained from simulations. We also explore the reconstruction of the ISW anisotropies caused by the LSS traced by the 2MPZ survey by directly inverting the density field into the gravitational potential field.

ISW-galaxy cross correlation: a probe of dark energy clustering and distribution of dark matter tracers

Cross correlation of the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe signal (ISW) with the galaxy distribution in late time is a promising tool for constraining the dark energy properties. Here, we study the effect of dark energy clustering on the ISW-galaxy cross correlation and demonstrate the fact that the bias parameter between the distribution of the galaxies and the underlying dark matter introduces a degeneracy and complications. We argue that as the galaxy's host halo formation time is different from the observation time, we have to consider the evolution of the halo bias parameter. It will be shown that any deviation from ΛCDM model will change the evolution of the bias as well. Therefore, it is deduced that the halo bias depends strongly on the sub-sample of galaxies which is chosen for cross correlation and that the joint kernel of ISW effect and the galaxy distribution has a dominant effect on the observed signal. In this work, comparison is made specifically between the clustered dark energy models using two samples of galaxies. The first one is a sub-sample of galaxies from Sloan Digital Sky Survey, chosen with the r-band magnitude 18 < r < 21 and the dark matter halo host of mass M ∼1012M⊙ and formation redshift of zf ∼ 2.5. The second one is the sub-sample of Luminous Red galaxies with the dark matter halo hosts of mass M ∼ 1013M⊙ and formation redshift of zf ∼ 2.0. Using the evolved bias we improve the χ2 for the ΛCDM which reconciles the ∼1σ-2σ tension of the ISW-galaxy signal with ΛCDM prediction. Finally, we study the parameter estimation of a dark energy model with free parameters w0 and wa in the equation of state wde = w0 +waz/(1+z) with the constant bias parameter and also with an evolved bias model with free parameters of galaxy's host halo mass and the halo formation redshift.

The ISW effect and the lack of large-angle CMB temperature correlations

It is by now well established that the magnitude of the two-point angular-correlation function of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies is anomalously low for angular separations greater than about 60 degrees. Physics explanations of this anomaly typically focus on the properties of the Universe at the surface of last scattering, relying on the fact that large-angle temperature fluctuations are dominated by the Sachs-Wolfe effect (SW). However, these fluctuations also receive important contributions from the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect (ISW) at both early (eISW) and late ($\ell$ISW) times. Here we study the correlations in those large-angle temperature fluctuations and their relative contributions to $S_{1/2}$ -- the standard measure of the correlations on large angular scales. We find that in the best-fitting $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, while the auto-correlation of the early contributions (SW plus eISW) dominates $S_{1/2}$, there are also significant contributions originating from cross-terms between the early and late contributions. In particular, realizations of $\Lambda$CDM with low $S_{1/2}$ are typically produced from a combination of somewhat low pure-early correlations and accidental cancellations among early-late correlations. We also find that if the pure $\ell$ISW auto-correlations were the only contribution to $S_{1/2}$ in $\Lambda$CDM, then the $p$-value of the observed cut-sky $S_{1/2}$ would be unremarkable. This suggests that physical mechanisms operating only at or near the last scattering surface could explain the observed lack of large-angle correlations, though this is not the typical resolution within $\Lambda$CDM.

Gravity at the horizon: on relativistic effects, CMB-LSS correlations and ultra-large scales in Horndeski's theory

We address the impact of consistent modifications of gravity on the largest observable scales, focusing on relativistic effects in galaxy number counts and the cross-correlation between the matter large scale structure (LSS) distribution and the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Our analysis applies to a very broad class of general scalar-tensor theories encoded in the Horndeski Lagrangian and is fully consistent on linear scales, retaining the full dynamics of the scalar field and not assuming quasi-static evolution. As particular examples we consider self-accelerating Covariant Galileons, Brans-Dicke theory and parameterizations based on the effective field theory of dark energy, using the hi class code to address the impact of these models on relativistic corrections to LSS observables. We find that especially effects which involve integrals along the line of sight (lensing convergence, time delay and the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect—ISW) can be considerably modified, and even lead to O(1000%) deviations from General Relativity in the case of the ISW effect for Galileon models, for which standard probes such as the growth function only vary by O(10%). These effects become dominant when correlating galaxy number counts at different redshifts and can lead to ∼ 50% deviations in the total signal that might be observable by future LSS surveys. Because of their integrated nature, these deep-redshift cross-correlations are sensitive to modifications of gravity even when probing eras much before dark energy domination. We further isolate the ISW effect using the cross-correlation between LSS and CMB temperature anisotropies and use current data to further constrain Horndeski models. Forthcoming large-volume galaxy surveys using multiple-tracers will search for all these effects, opening a new window to probe gravity and cosmic acceleration at the largest scales available in our universe.

The cross-correlation between 3D cosmic shear and the integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect

We present the first calculation of the cross-correlation between three-dimensional cosmic shear and the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (iSW) effect. Both signals are combined in a single formalism, which permits the computation of the full covariance matrix. In order to avoid the uncertainties presented by the non-linear evolution of the matter power spectrum and intrinsic alignments of galaxies, our analysis is restricted to large scales, i.e. multipoles below l=1000. We demonstrate in a Fisher analysis that this reduction compared to other studies of three-dimensional weak lensing extending to smaller scales is compensated by the information that is gained if the additional iSW signal and in particular its cross-correlation with lensing data are considered. Given the observational standards of upcoming weak lensing surveys like Euclid, marginal errors on cosmological parameters decrease by ten per cent compared to a cosmic shear experiment if both types of information are combined without a CMB prior. Once the constraining power of CMB data is added, the improvement becomes marginal.

Combined constraints on deviations of dark energy from an ideal fluid fromEuclidandPlanck

Cosmological fluids are commonly assumed to be distributed in a spatially homogeneous way, while their internal properties are described by a perfect fluid. As such, they influence the Hubble-expansion through their respective densities and equation of state parameters. The subject of this paper is an investigation of the fluid-mechanical properties of a dark energy fluid, which is characterised by its sound speed and its viscosity apart from its equation of state. In particular, we compute the predicted spectra for the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect for our generalised fluid, and compare them with the corresponding predictions for weak gravitational lensing and galaxy clustering, which had been computed in previous work. We perform statistical forecasts and show that the integrated Sachs-Wolfe signal obtained by cross correlating Euclid galaxies with Planck temperatures, when joined to galaxy clustering and weak lensing observations, yields a percent sensitivity on the dark energy sound speed and viscosity. We prove that the iSW effect provides strong degeneracy breaking for low sound speeds and large differences between the sound speed and viscosity parameters.

Joint Planck and WMAP assessment of low CMB multipoles

The remarkable progress in cosmic microwave background (CMB) studies over past decade has led to the era of precision cosmology in striking agreement with the ΛCDM model. However, the lack of power in the CMB temperature anisotropies at large angular scales (low-ℓ), as has been confirmed by the recent Planck data also (up to 0ℓ=4), although statistically not very strong (less than 3σ), is still an open problem. One can avoid to seek an explanation for this problem by attributing the lack of power to cosmic variance or can look for explanations i.e., different inflationary potentials or initial conditions for inflation to begin with, non-trivial topology, ISW effect etc. Features in the primordial power spectrum (PPS) motivated by the early universe physics has been the most common solution to address this problem. In the present work we also follow this approach and consider a set of PPS which have features and constrain the parameters of those using WMAP 9 year and Planck data employing Markov-Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis. The prominent feature of all the models of PPS that we consider is an infra-red cut off which leads to suppression of power at large angular scales. We consider models of PPS with maximum three extra parameters and use Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) of model selection to compare the models. For most models, we find good constraints for the cut off scale kc, however, for other parameters our constraints are not that good. We find that sharp cut off model gives best likelihood value for the WMAP 9 year data, but is as good as power law model according to AIC. For the joint WMAP 9 + Planck data set, Starobinsky model is slightly preferred by AIC which is also able to produce CMB power suppression up to 0ℓ⩽3 to some extent. However, using BIC criteria, one finds model(s) with least number of parameters (power law model) are always preferred.