The galaxy–environment connection revealed by constrained simulations
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (OUP) (2026) stag108
Abstract:
Abstract The evolution of galaxies is known to be connected to their position within the large-scale structure and their local environmental density. We investigate the relative importance of these using the underlying dark matter density field extracted from the Constrained Simulations in BORG (CSiBORG) suite of constrained cosmological simulations. We define cosmic web environment through both dark matter densities averaged on a scale up to 16 Mpc/h, and through cosmic web location identified by applying DisPerSE to the CSiBORG haloes. We correlate these environmental measures with the properties of observed galaxies in large surveys using optical data (from the NASA-Sloan Atlas) and 21-cm radio data (from ALFALFA). We find statistically significant correlations between environment and colour, neutral hydrogen gas ($\mathrm{H}\scriptstyle \mathrm{I}$) mass fraction, star formation rate and Sérsic index. Together, these correlations suggest that bluer, star-forming, $\mathrm{H}\scriptstyle \mathrm{I}$ rich, and disk-type galaxies tend to reside in lower density areas, further from filaments, while redder, more elliptical galaxies with lower star formation rates tend to be found in higher density areas, closer to filaments. We find analogous trends with the quenching of galaxies, but notably find that the quenching of low mass galaxies has a greater dependence on environment than the quenching of high mass galaxies. We find that the relationship between galaxy properties and the environmental density is stronger than that with distance to filament, suggesting that environmental density has a greater impact on the properties of galaxies than their location within the larger-scale cosmic web.Constraints from CMB lensing tomography with projected bispectra
The Open Journal of Astrophysics Maynooth University 9 (2026)
Abstract:
We measure the angular power spectrum and bispectrum of the projected overdensity of photometric DESI luminous red galaxies, and its cross-correlation with maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background lensing convergence from Planck. This analysis is enabled by the use of the “filtered-squared bispectrum” approach, introduced in previous work, which we generalise here to the case of cross-correlations between multiple fields. The projected galaxy bispectrum is detected at very high significance (above <math display="inline"> <mrow> <mn>30</mn> <mi>σ</mi> </mrow> </math> in all redshift bins), and the galaxy-galaxy-convergence bispectrum is detected above <math display="inline"> <mrow> <mn>5</mn> <mi>σ</mi> </mrow> </math> in the three highest-redshift bins. We find that the bispectrum is reasonably well described over a broad range of scales by a tree-level prediction using the linear galaxy bias measured from the power spectrum. We carry out the first cosmological analysis combining projected power spectra and bispectra under a relatively simple model, and show that the galaxy bispectrum can be used in combination with the power spectrum to place a constraint on the amplitude of matter fluctuations, <math display="inline"> <msub> <mi>σ</mi> <mn>8</mn> </msub> </math> , an on the non-relativistic matter fraction <math display="inline"> <msub> <mi>Ω</mi> <mi>m</mi> </msub> </math> . We find that data combinations involving the galaxy bispectrum recover constraints on these parameters that are in good agreement with those found from the traditional “2 <math display="inline"> <mo>×</mo> </math> 2-point” combination of galaxy-galaxy and galaxy-convergence power spectra, across all redshift bins.Tomographic constraints on the high-energy cosmic neutrino emission rate
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (OUP) 546:3 (2026) stag084
Abstract:
ABSTRACT Despite growing efforts to find the sources of high-energy neutrinos measured by IceCube, the bulk of the neutrinos remain with unknown origins. In this work, we aim to constrain the emissivity of cosmic high-energy neutrinos from extragalactic sources through their correlation with the large-scale structure. We use cross-correlations between the IceCube 10-year data set and tomographic maps of the galaxy overdensity to place constraints on the bias-weighted high-energy neutrino emissivity out to redshift $z\sim 3$. We test two different models to describe the evolution of neutrino emissivity with redshift, a power-law model $\propto (1+z)^a$, and a model tracking the star formation history, assuming a simple power-law model for the energy injection spectrum. We also consider a non-parametric reconstruction of the astrophysical neutrino emissivity as a function of redshift. We do not find any significant correlation, with our strongest results corresponding to a $1.9 \sigma$ deviation with respect to a model with zero signal. We use our measurements to place upper bounds on the bias-weighted astrophysical high-energy neutrino emission rate as a function of redshift for different source models. This analysis provides a new probe to test extragalactic neutrino source models. With future neutrino and galaxy data sets, we expect the constraining and detection power of this type of analysis to increase.First Constraints from Marked Angular Power Spectra with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey First-Year Data
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (OUP) (2026) stag033
Abstract:
Abstract We present the first application of marked power spectra to weak lensing data, using maps from the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Year 1 (HSC-Y1) survey. Marked convergence fields, constructed by weighting the convergence field with non-linear functions of its smoothed version, are designed to encode higher-order information while remaining computationally tractable. Using simulations tailored to the HSC-Y1 data, we test three mark functions that up- or down-weight different density environments. Our results show that combining multiple types of marked auto- and cross-spectra improves constraints on the clustering amplitude parameter $S_8\equiv \sigma _8\sqrt{\Omega _{\rm m}/0.3}$ by ≈43 percnt compared to standard two-point power spectra. When applied to the HSC-Y1 data, this translates into a constraint on S8 = 0.807 ± 0.024. We assess the sensitivity of the marked power spectra to systematics, including baryonic effects, intrinsic alignment, photometric redshifts, and multiplicative shear bias. We note that some of the additional information introduced by the marked field originates from scales smaller than the scale cut, and is partly Gaussian in nature. This does not invalidate our systematic tests. These results demonstrate the promise of marked statistics as a practical and powerful tool for extracting non-Gaussian information from weak lensing surveys.Detailed theoretical modelling of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich stacking power spectrum
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics IOP Publishing 2026:01 (2026) 015