Cosmology

Abstract:

The cosmic dipole anomaly -- the observation of a significant mismatch between the dipole observed in the matter distribution and that expected given the kinematic interpretation of the cosmic microwave background dipole -- poses a serious challenge to the Cosmological Principle upon which the standard model of cosmology rests. Measurements of the dipole in a given sample crucially depend on having control over other large-scale power so as to avoid biases, in particular those potentially caused by correlations among multipoles during fitting, and those by local source clustering. Currently, the most powerful catalogue that exhibits the cosmic dipole anomaly is the sample of 1.6 million mid-infrared quasars derived from CatWISE2020. We therefore analyse clustering properties of this catalogue by performing an inference analysis of large-scale multipoles in real space, and by computing its angular power spectrum on small scales to test for convergence with LCDM. After accounting for the known trend of the quasar number counts with ecliptic latitude, we find that any other large-scale power is consistent with noise, find no evidence for the presence of an octupole ( ) in the data, and quantify the clustering dipole's proportion to be marginal. Our results therefore reaffirm the anomalously high dipole in the distribution of quasars.

Abstract:

The Cosmological Principle, which states that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic (when averaged on large scales), is the foundational assumption of Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmologies such as the current standard Lambda-Cold-Dark-Matter (ΛCDM) model. This simplification yields an exact solution to the Einstein field equations that relates space and time through a single time-dependent scale factor, which defines cosmological observables such as the Hubble parameter and the cosmological redshift. The validity of the Cosmological Principle, which underpins modern cosmology, can now be rigorously tested with the advent of large, nearly all-sky catalogs of radio galaxies and quasars. Surprisingly, the dipole anisotropy in the large-scale distribution of matter is found to be inconsistent with the expectation from kinematic aberration and Doppler boosting effects in a perturbed FLRW universe, which is the standard interpretation of the observed dipole in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Although the matter dipole agrees in direction with that of the CMB dipole, it is anomalously larger, demonstrating that either the rest frames in which matter and radiation appear isotropic are not the same, or that there is an unexpected intrinsic anisotropy in at least one of them. This discrepancy now exceeds 5σ in significance. We review these recent findings, as well as the potential biases, systematic issues, and alternate interpretations that have been suggested to help alleviate the tension. We conclude that the cosmic dipole anomaly poses a serious challenge to FLRW cosmology, and the standard ΛCDM model in particular, as an adequate description of our Universe.

Abstract:

We present a comparison of nine galaxy formation models, eight semi-analytical and one halo occupation distribution model, run on the same underlying cold dark matter simulation (cosmological box of co-moving width 125$h^{-1}$ Mpc, with a dark-matter particle mass of $1.24\times 10^9 h^{-1}$ Msun) and the same merger trees. While their free parameters have been calibrated to the same observational data sets using two approaches, they nevertheless retain some 'memory' of any previous calibration that served as the starting point (especially for the manually-tuned models). For the first calibration, models reproduce the observed z = 0 galaxy stellar mass function (SMF) within 3-{\sigma}. The second calibration extended the observational data to include the z = 2 SMF alongside the z~0 star formation rate function, cold gas mass and the black hole-bulge mass relation. Encapsulating the observed evolution of the SMF from z = 2 to z = 0 is found to be very hard within the context of the physics currently included in the models. We finally use our calibrated models to study the evolution of the stellar-to-halo mass (SHM) ratio. For all models we find that the peak value of the SHM relation decreases with redshift. However, the trends seen for the evolution of the peak position as well as the mean scatter in the SHM relation are rather weak and strongly model dependent. Both the calibration data sets and model results are publicly available.

Abstract:

We present a public suite of weak lensing mock data, extending the Scinet Light Cone Simulations (SLICS) to simulate cross-correlation analyses with different cosmological probes. These mocks include KiDS-450- and LSST-like lensing data, cosmic microwave background lensing maps and simulated spectroscopic surveys that emulate the GAMA, BOSS and 2dFLenS galaxy surveys. With 817 independent realisations, our mocks are optimised for combined-probe covariance estimation, which we illustrate for the case of a joint measurement involving cosmic shear, galaxy-galaxy lensing and galaxy clustering from KiDS-450 and BOSS data. With their high spatial resolution, the SLICS are also optimal for predicting the signal for novel lensing estimators, for the validation of analysis pipelines, and for testing a range of systematic effects such as the impact of neighbour-exclusion bias on the measured tomographic cosmic shear signal. For surveys like KiDS and DES, where the rejection of neighbouring galaxies occurs within ~2 arcseconds, we show that the measured cosmic shear signal will be biased low, but by less than a percent on the angular scales that are typically used in cosmic shear analyses. The amplitude of the neighbour-exclusion bias doubles in deeper, LSST-like data. The simulation products described in this paper are made available at http://slics.roe.ac.uk/.

Abstract:

Formation des structures cosmologiques avec des simulations à N-corps : tester la précision avec des modèles sans échelle Les simulations à N-corps sont actuellement la seule technique disponible pour résoudre le clustering à échelles non-linéaires. Avec les mesures à venir des satellites de phase IV (telles que Euclid, DESI ou LSST), qui apporteront une précision sans précédent, comprendre la résolution et les limites des simulations est devenue une nécessité urgente. Dans cette thèse, nous exploitons une nouvelle technique pour évaluer la résolution des simulations à N-corps dans le régime non-linéaire de formation de structures. Pour cela, nous utilisons un ensemble particulier de cosmologies avec une évolution d'Einstein de-Sitter (Ωm = 1) et un spectre de perturbations en loi de puissance (Pk ∝ kn), connues sous le nom de cosmologies sans échelle. Une propriété importante est leur évolution auto-similaire (c'est-à-dire, à des coordonnées correctement redimensionnées, toute statistique de regroupement est constante dans le temps). Il s'agit d'un outil excellent pour déterminer la résolution à laquelle nous pouvons mesurer les dites statistiques. Nous exploitons le fait que tous les écarts par rapport à un comportement auto-similaire doivent être dus à des échelles non physiques introduites par le système à N corps, et donc l'extrapolation à la limite du continuum n'est plus une bonne approximation pour la simulation. Comme échantillon de test pour les principaux résultats de cette thèse, nous exploitons une suite de grandes simulations à N-corps (jusqu'à N = 4096^3) réalisées avec Abacus. Nous exécutons une variété d'indices spectraux n, pour faciliter l'extrapolation de nos résultats aux cosmologies de type ΛCDM. Nous exécutons également des ensembles de simulations différant par un seul paramètre de discrétisation, afin d'étudier comment la résolution pourrait en dépendre. Nous commençons par présenter l'analyse des statistiques de champ de matière. Dans un premier temps, nous étudions l'échelle résolue minimale pour le spectre de puissance, et sa dépendance sur la distance interparticulaire de la configuration initiale. Nous continuons en examinant la résolution de vitesses par paires, et leur connexion à celle de la corrélation de densité à 2 points. De plus, comme sous-produit de ces études, nous avons également pu revisiter l'hypothèse de clustering stable, en estimant sa compatibilité avec les données. Enfin, nous fournissons une analyse des statistiques de halo pour différents détecteurs de halo populaires (FoF, Rockstar et CompaSO). Nous étudions la convergence de la fonction de masse du halo, le halo-halo vitesse relative par paires et leur fonction de corrélation à deux points, déterminant les limites de résolution en fonction de l'échelle et du nombre de particules par halo.