Observational cosmology

The main strands of observation in cosmology are presented. These are redshift surveys using standard candles; galaxy distributions; age estimates drawing on a number of strands of evidence; and the CMB radiation. The chapter begins with a discussion of systemtic and statistical error in measurements, and explains the terminology of “Lambda CDM” model. Observations are combined with the Friedman equation in order to constrain the density parameters in a LCDM model. Data from supernova surveys are used to obtain the Hubble parameter and the deceleration parameter, and hence evidence of an accelerating expansion. Evidence of the BAO process is deduced from sky surveys, and used to constrain the spatial curvature. The CMB radiation is discussed at length. The Sachs-Wolfe effect is obtained by a simple calculation,. The method to deduce spatial curvature from the position of the acoustic peaks is outlined. Further features such as spectal index and polarization are briefly discussed.

Unified galaxy power spectrum measurements from 6dFGS, BOSS, and eBOSS

We make use of recent developments in the analysis of galaxy redshift surveys to present an easy to use matrix-based analysis framework for the galaxy power spectrum multipoles, including wide-angle effects and the survey window function. We employ this framework to derive the deconvolved power spectrum multipoles of 6dFGS DR3, BOSS DR12 and the eBOSS DR16 quasar sample. As an alternative to the standard analysis, the deconvolved power spectrum multipoles can be used to perform a data analysis agnostic of survey specific aspects, like the window function. We show that in the case of the BOSS dataset, the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) analysis using the deconvolved power spectra results in the same likelihood as the standard analysis. To facilitate the analysis based on both the convolved and deconvolved power spectrum measurements, we provide the window function matrices, wide-angle matrices, covariance matrices and the power spectrum multipole measurements for the datasets mentioned above. Together with this paper we publish a Python-based toolbox to calculate the different analysis components. The appendix contains a detailed user guide with examples for how a cosmological analysis of these datasets could be implemented. We hope that our work makes the analysis of galaxy survey datasets more accessible to the wider cosmology community.

BIRTH of the COSMOS field: primordial and evolved density reconstructions during cosmic high noon

ABSTRACT This work presents the first comprehensive study of structure formation at the peak epoch of cosmic star formation over 1.4 ≤ z ≤ 3.6 in the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field, including the most massive high-redshift galaxy proto-clusters at that era. We apply the extended COSMIC BIRTH algorithm to account for a multitracer and multisurvey Bayesian analysis at Lagrangian initial cosmic times. Combining the data of five different spectroscopic redshift surveys (zCOSMOS-deep, VUDS, MOSDEF, ZFIRE, and FMOS–COSMOS), we show that the corresponding unbiased primordial density fields can be inferred, if a proper survey completeness computation from the parent photometric catalogues, and a precise treatment of the non-linear and non-local evolution on the light-cone is taken into account, including (i) gravitational matter displacements, (ii) peculiar velocities, and (iii) galaxy bias. The reconstructions reveal a holistic view on the known proto-clusters in the COSMOS field and the growth of the cosmic web towards lower redshifts. The inferred distant dark matter density fields concurrently with other probes like tomographic reconstructions of the intergalactic medium will explore the interplay of gas and dark matter and are ideally suited to study structure formation at high redshifts in the light of upcoming deep surveys.

Redshift-space effects in voids and their impact on cosmological tests. Part I: the void size function

ABSTRACT Voids are promising cosmological probes. Nevertheless, every cosmological test based on voids must necessarily employ methods to identify them in redshift space. Therefore, redshift-space distortions (RSD) and the Alcock–Paczyński effect (AP) have an impact on the void identification process itself generating distortion patterns in observations. Using a spherical void finder, we developed a statistical and theoretical framework to describe physically the connection between the identification in real and redshift space. We found that redshift-space voids above the shot noise level have a unique real-space counterpart spanning the same region of space, they are systematically bigger and their centres are preferentially shifted along the line of sight. The expansion effect is a by-product of RSD induced by tracer dynamics at scales around the void radius, whereas the off-centring effect constitutes a different class of RSD induced at larger scales by the global dynamics of the whole region containing the void. The volume of voids is also altered by the fiducial cosmology assumed to measure distances, this is the AP change of volume. These three systematics have an impact on cosmological statistics. In this work, we focus on the void size function. We developed a theoretical framework to model these effects and tested it with a numerical simulation, recovering the statistical properties of the abundance of voids in real space. This description depends strongly on cosmology. Hence, we lay the foundations for improvements in current models of the abundance of voids in order to obtain unbiased cosmological constraints from redshift surveys.

Testing gravity using galaxy-galaxy lensing and clustering amplitudes in KiDS-1000, BOSS, and 2dFLenS

The physics of gravity on cosmological scales affects both the rate of assembly of large-scale structure and the gravitational lensing of background light through this cosmic web. By comparing the amplitude of these different observational signatures, we can construct tests that can distinguish general relativity from its potential modifications. We used the latest weak gravitational lensing dataset from the Kilo-Degree Survey, KiDS-1000, in conjunction with overlapping galaxy spectroscopic redshift surveys, BOSS and 2dFLenS, to perform the most precise existing amplitude-ratio test. We measured the associated EG statistic with 15 − 20% errors in five Δz = 0.1 tomographic redshift bins in the range 0.2 < z < 0.7 on projected scales up to 100 h−1 Mpc. The scale-independence and redshift-dependence of these measurements are consistent with the theoretical expectation of general relativity in a Universe with matter density Ωm = 0.27 ± 0.04. We demonstrate that our results are robust against different analysis choices, including schemes for correcting the effects of source photometric redshift errors, and we compare the performance of angular and projected galaxy-galaxy lensing statistics.

Characterising filaments in the SDSS volume from the galaxy distribution

Detecting the large-scale structure of the Universe based on the galaxy distribution and characterising its components is of fundamental importance in astrophysics but is also a difficult task to achieve. Wide-area spectroscopic redshift surveys are required to accurately measure galaxy positions in space that also need to cover large areas of the sky. It is also difficult to create algorithms that can extract cosmic web structures (e.g. filaments). Moreover, these detections will be affected by systematic uncertainties that stem from the characteristics of the survey used (e.g. its completeness and coverage) and from the unique properties of the specific method adopted to detect the cosmic web (i.e. the assumptions it relies on and the free parameters it may employ). For these reasons, the creation of new catalogues of cosmic web features on wide sky areas is important, as this allows users to have at their disposal a well-understood sample of structures whose systematic uncertainties have been thoroughly investigated. In this paper we present the filament catalogues created using the discrete persistent structure extractor tool in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and we fully characterise them in terms of their dependence on the choice of parameters pertaining to the algorithm, and with respect to several systematic issues that may arise in the skeleton as a result of the properties of the galaxy distribution (such as Finger-of-God redshift distortions and defects of the density field that are due to the boundaries of the survey).