Cannibalism's lingering imprint on the matter power spectrum

The early universe may have contained internally thermalized dark sectors that were decoupled from the Standard Model. In such scenarios, the relic dark thermal bath, composed of the lightest particle in the dark sector, can give rise to an epoch of early matter domination prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, which has a potentially observable impact on the smallest dark matter structures. This lightest dark particle can easily and generically have number-changing self-interactions that give rise to “cannibal” behavior. We consider cosmologies where an initially sub-dominant cannibal species comes to temporarily drive the expansion of the universe, and we provide a simple map between the particle properties of the cannibal species and the key features of the enhanced dark matter perturbation growth in such cosmologies. We further demonstrate that cannibal self-interactions can determine the small-scale cutoff in the matter power spectrum even when the cannibal self-interactions freeze out prior to cannibal domination.

Accelerating Large-Scale-Structure data analyses by emulating Boltzmann solvers and Lagrangian Perturbation Theory

The linear matter power spectrum is an essential ingredient in all theoretical models for interpreting large-scale-structure observables. Although Boltzmann codes such as CLASS or CAMB are very efficient at computing the linear spectrum, the analysis of data usually requires 104-106 evaluations, which means this task can be the most computationally expensive aspect of data analysis. Here, we address this problem by building a neural network emulator that provides the linear theory (total and cold) matter power spectrum in about one millisecond with ≈0.2%(0.5%) accuracy over redshifts z ≤ 3 (z ≤ 9), and scales10-4 ≤ k [h Mpc-1] < 50. We train this emulator with more than 200,000 measurements, spanning a broad cosmological parameter space that includes massive neutrinos and dynamical dark energy. We show that the parameter range and accuracy of our emulator is enough to get unbiased cosmological constraints in the analysis of a Euclid-like weak lensing survey. Complementing this emulator, we train 15 other emulators for the cross-spectra of various linear fields in Eulerian space, as predicted by 2nd-order Lagrangian Perturbation theory, which can be used to accelerate perturbative bias descriptions of galaxy clustering. Our emulators are specially designed to be used in combination with emulators for the nonlinear matter power spectrum and for baryonic effects, all of which are publicly available at http://www.dipc.org/bacco.

One-Point Statistics Matter in Extended Cosmologies

The late universe contains a wealth of information about fundamental physics and gravity, wrapped up in non-Gaussian fields. To make use of as much information as possible it is necessary to go beyond two-point statistics. Rather than going to higher order N-point correlation functions, we demonstrate that the probability distribution function (PDF) of spheres in the matter field (a one-point function) already contains a significant amount of this non-Gaussian information. The matter PDF dissects different density environments which are lumped together in two-point statistics, making it particularly useful for probing modifications of gravity or expansion history. Our approach in Cataneo et. al. 2021 extends the success of Large Deviation Theory for predicting the matter PDF in &Lambda;CDM in these &ldquo;extended&rdquo; cosmologies. A Fisher forecast demonstrates the information content in the matter PDF via constraints for a Euclid-like survey volume combining the 3D matter PDF with the 3D matter power spectrum. Adding the matter PDF halves the uncertainties on parameters in an evolving dark energy model, relative to the power spectrum alone. Additionally, the matter PDF contains enough non-linear information to substantially increase the detection significance of departures from General Relativity, with improvements up to six times the power spectrum alone. This analysis demonstrates that the matter PDF is a promising non-Gaussian statistic for extracting cosmological information, particularly for beyond &Lambda;CDM models.

Emulation of baryonic effects on the matter power spectrum and constraints from galaxy cluster data

Baryonic feedback effects consist of a major systematic for upcoming weak-lensing and galaxy-clustering surveys. In this paper, we present an emulator for the baryonic suppression of the matter power spectrum. The emulator is based on the baryonification model, containing seven free parameters that are connected to the gas profiles and stellar abundances in haloes. We show that with the baryonic emulator, we can not only recover the power spectra of hydro-dynamical simulations at sub-percent precision, but also establish a connection between the baryonic suppression of the power spectrum and the gas and stellar fractions in haloes. This connection allows us to predict the expected deviation from a dark-matter-only power spectrum using measured X-ray gas fractions of galaxy groups and clusters. With these measurements, we constrain the suppression to exceed the percent-level at k=0.1-0.4 h/Mpc and to reach a maximum of 20-28 percent at around k∼ 7 h/Mpc (68 percent confidence level). As a further step, we also perform a detailed parameter study and we present a minimum set of four baryonic parameters that are required to recover the scale and redshift dependence observed in hydro-dynamical simulations. The baryonic emulator can be found at https://github.com/sambit-giri/BCemu.

Mixed dark matter: matter power spectrum and halo mass function

We investigate and quantify the impact of mixed (cold and warm) dark matter models on large-scale structure observables. In this scenario, dark matter comes in two phases, a cold one (CDM) and a warm one (WDM): the presence of the latter causes a suppression in the matter power spectrum which is allowed by current constraints and may be detected in present-day and upcoming surveys. We run a large set of N-body simulations in order to build an efficient and accurate emulator to predict the aforementioned suppression with percent precision over a wide range of values for the WDM mass, Mwdm, and its fraction with respect to the totality of dark matter, fwdm. The suppression in the matter power spectrum is found to be independent of changes in the cosmological parameters at the 2% level for k≲ 10 h/Mpc and z≤ 3.5. In the same ranges, by applying a baryonification procedure on both ΛCDM and CWDM simulations to account for the effect of feedback, we find a similar level of agreement between the two scenarios. We examine the impact that such suppression has on weak lensing and angular galaxy clustering power spectra. Finally, we discuss the impact of mixed dark matter on the shape of the halo mass function and which analytical prescription yields the best agreement with simulations. We provide the reader with an application to galaxy cluster number counts.

Contributions from primordial non-Gaussianity and general relativity to the galaxy power spectrum

We compute the real space galaxy power spectrum, including the leading order effects of General Relativity and primordial non-Gaussianity from the f NL and g NL parameters. Such contributions come from the one-loop matter power spectrum terms dominant at large scales, and from the factors of the non-linear bias parameter b NL (akin to the Newtonian b ϕ). We assess the detectability of these contributions in Stage-IV surveys. In particular, we note that specific values of the bias parameter may erase the primordial and relativistic contributions to the configuration space power spectrum.

Cosmological simulations of number counts

In this paper we present for the first time the angular power spectra C ℓ(z,z') for number counts from relativistic N-body simulations. We use the relativistic N-body code gevolution with its exact integration of lightlike geodesics which include all relativistic scalar contributions to the number counts. We compare our non-perturbative numerical results with the results from class using the hmcode approximation for the non-linear matter power spectrum. We find that this simple description is excellent for both, the density and the convergence. On the other hand, the current implementation of redshift-space distortions in Boltzmann codes is not accurate. We also find that the largest contribution to the unequal-redshift power spectra is the cross-correlation of the density and the lensing contribution to the number counts, especially for redshift bins that are far apart. Correlating the number counts with the convergence map we find that the signal is dominated by the lensing-lensing term when the convergence field redshift is not higher than the number counts one, while it is dominated by the density-lensing term in the opposite case. In the present study, the issue of galaxy bias is deliberately left aside by considering only unbiased samples of matter particles from the simulations.

Analytical warm dark matter power spectrum on small scales

Using the Reduced Relativistic Gas (RRG) model, we analytically determine the matter power spectrum for Warm Dark Matter (WDM) on small scales, k > 1 h/Mpc. The RRG is a simplified model for the ideal relativistic gas, but very accurate in the cosmological context. In another work, we have shown that, for typical allowed masses for dark matter particles, m>5 keV, the higher order multipoles, ℓ ≥ 2, in the Einstein-Boltzmann system of equations are negligible on scales k < 10 h/Mpc. Hence, we can follow the perturbations of WDM using the ideal fluid framework, with equation of state and sound speed of perturbations given by the RRG model. We derive a Mészáros-like equation for WDM and solve it analytically in radiation, matter and dark energy dominated eras. Joining these solutions, we get an expression that determines the value of WDM perturbations as a function of redshift and wavenumber. Then we construct the matter power spectrum and transfer function of WDM on small scales and compare it to some results coming from Lyman-α forest observations. Besides being a clear and pedagogical analytical development to understand the evolution of WDM perturbations, our power spectrum results are consistent with the observations considered and the other determinations of the degree of warmness of dark matter particles.

Probing dark matter clumps, strings and domain walls with gravitational wave detectors

Gravitational wave astronomy has recently emerged as a new way to study our Universe. In this work, we survey the potential of gravitational wave interferometers to detect macroscopic astrophysical objects comprising the dark matter. Starting from the well-known case of clumps we expand to cosmic strings and domain walls. We also consider the sensitivity to measure the dark matter power spectrum on small scales. Our analysis is based on the fact that these objects, when traversing the vicinity of the detector, will exert a gravitational pull on each node of the interferometer, in turn leading to a differential acceleration and corresponding Doppler signal, that can be measured. As a prototypical example of a gravitational wave interferometer, we consider signals induced at LISA. We further extrapolate our results to gravitational wave experiments sensitive in other frequency bands, including ground-based interferometers, such as LIGO, and pulsar timing arrays, e.g. ones based on the Square Kilometer Array. Assuming moderate sensitivity improvements beyond the current designs, clumps, strings and domain walls may be within reach of these experiments.