Beecroft Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

Abstract:

We study the generation and propagation of gravitational waves in scalar-tensor gravity using numerical relativity simulations of scalar field collapses beyond spherical symmetry. This allows us to compare the tensor and additional massive scalar waves that are excited. As shown in previous work in spherical symmetry, massive propagating scalar waves decay faster than 1/r and disperse, resulting in an inverse chirp. These effects obscure the ringdown in any extracted signal by mixing it with the transient responses of the collapse during propagation. In this paper we present a simple method to rewind the extracted signals to horizon formation, which allows us to clearly identify the ringdown phase and extract the amplitudes of the scalar quasinormal modes, quantifying their excitation in strong gravity events and verifying the frequencies to perturbative calculations. The effects studied are relevant to any theories in which the propagating waves have a dispersion relation, including the tensor case.

Abstract:

With the advent of high-resolution, low-noise CMB measurements, the ability to extract cosmological information from thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect will be limited not by statistical uncertainties but rather by systematic and theoretical uncertainties. The theoretical uncertainty is driven by the lack of knowledge about the electron pressure and density. Thus, we explore the electron pressure and density distributions in the IllustrisTNG hydrodynamical simulations, and we demonstrate that the cluster properties exhibit a strong dependence on the halo concentration - providing some of the first evidence of cluster assembly bias in the electron pressure and density. Further, our work shows evidence for a broken power-law mass dependence, with lower pressure in lower mass haloes than previous work and a strong evolution with mass of the radial correlations in the electron density and pressure. Both of these effects highlight the differing impact of active galactic nuclei and supernova feedback on the gas in galaxy groups compared to massive clusters. We verified that we see qualitatively similar features in the SIMBA hydrodynamical simulations, suggesting these effects could be generic features. Finally, we provide a parametric formula for the electron pressure and density profile as a function of dark matter halo mass, halo concentration, and redshift. Despite our extensions, the best-fitting formulae are not able to fully capture the features seen in certain mass, radius, and redshift regimes, thereby highlighting the challenges of precision modelling gas profiles.