Dr Deaglan Bartlett

Abstract:

We study the displacements between the centres of galaxies and their supermassive black holes (BHs) in the cosmological hydrodynamical simulation Horizon-AGN, and in a variety of observations from the literature. The BHs in Horizon-AGN feel a subgrid dynamical friction force, sourced by the surrounding gas, which prevents recoiling BHs being ejected from the galaxy. We find that (i) the fraction of spatially offset BHs increases with cosmic time, (ii) BHs live on prograde orbits in the plane of the galaxy with an orbital radius that decays with time but stalls near z = 0, and (iii) the magnitudes of offsets from the galaxy centres are substantially larger in the simulation than in observations. We attribute the stalling of the infall and excessive offset magnitudes to the fact that dynamical friction from stars and dark matter is not modelled in the simulation, and hence provide a way to improve the BH dynamics of future simulations.

Abstract:

Galactic scale tests have proven to be powerful tools in constraining fundamental physics in previously under-explored regions of parameter space. The astrophysical regime which they probe is inherently complicated, and the inference methods used to make these constraints should be robust to baryonic effects. Previous analyses have assumed simple empirical models for astrophysical noise without detailed calibration or justification. We outline a framework for assessing the reliability of such methods by constructing and testing more advanced baryonic models using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. As a case study, we use the Horizon-AGN simulation to investigate warping of stellar disks and offsets between gas and stars within galaxies, which are powerful probes of screened fifth forces. We show that the degree of `U'-shaped warping of galaxies is well modelled by Gaussian random noise, but that the magnitude of the gas-star offset is correlated with the virial radius of the host halo. By incorporating this correlation we confirm recent results ruling out astrophysically relevant Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ gravity, and identify a $\sim 30\%$ systematic uncertainty due to baryonic physics. Such an analysis must be performed case-by-case for future galactic tests of fundamental physics.

Abstract:

Galactic-scale tests have proven to be powerful tools in constraining fundamental physics in previously under-explored regions of parameter space. In this thesis we use astrophysical systems to test some of the fundamental principles governing our current theories of the Universe, through the development of source-by-source, Monte Carlo-based forward models.

We consider modifications to the propagation of light by one of three effects: quantum gravity (QG), a non-zero photon mass and a violation of the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP). We use spectral lag data of Gamma Ray Bursts from the BATSE satellite to constrain the photon mass to be $m_\gamma < 4.0 \times 10^{-5} \, h \, {\rm eV}/c^2$ and the QG length scale to be $\ell_{\rm QG} < 5.3 \times 10^{-18} \, h \, {\rm \, GeV^{-1}}$ at 95\% confidence, WEP to $\Delta \gamma < 2.1 \times 10^{-15}$ at $1 \sigma$ confidence between photon energies of $25 {\rm \, keV}$ and $325 {\rm \, keV}$, and we demonstrate that these constraints are robust to how one models other contributions to the signal.

We investigate Galileon modified gravity theories by studying the offsets between the centre of a galaxy and its host supermassive black hole (BH). We constrain the Galileon coupling to be $\Delta G / G_{\rm N} < 0.16$ at $1\sigma$ confidence for Galileons with crossover scale $r_{\rm C} \gtrsim H_0^{-1}$. Inspired by the aforementioned test of modified gravity, we study spatially offset BHs in the Horizon-AGN simulation and compare these to observations, finding i) the fraction of spatially offset BHs increases with cosmic time, ii) BHs live on prograde orbits in the plane of the galaxy with an orbital radius that decays with time but stalls near $z=0$, and iii) the magnitudes of offsets from the galaxy centres are substantially larger in the simulation than in observations.

By cross-correlating dark matter density fields inferred from the spatial distribution of galaxies with gamma ray data from the \textit{Fermi} Large Area Telescope, marginalising over uncertainties in this reconstruction, small-scale structure and parameters describing astrophysical contributions to the observed gamma ray sky, we place constraints on the dark matter annihilation cross-sections and decay rates. We rule out the thermal relic cross-section or $s$-wave annihilation for all $m_\chi \lesssim 7 {\rm \, GeV}/c^2$ at 95\% confidence if the annihilation produces $Z$ bosons, gluons or quarks less massive than the bottom quark. We infer a contribution to the gamma ray sky with the same spatial distribution as dark matter decay at $3.3\sigma$. Although this could be due to dark matter decay via these channels with a decay rate $\Gamma \approx 3 \times 10^{-28} {\rm \, s^{-1}}$, we find that a power-law spectrum of index $p=-2.75^{+0.71}_{-0.46}$ is preferred by the data.

Finally, we outline a framework for assessing the reliability of the methods used in this thesis by constructing and testing more advanced models using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. As a case study, we use the Horizon-AGN simulation to investigate warping of stellar disks and offsets between gas and stars within galaxies, which are powerful probes of screened fifth-forces.