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Annis, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Annis, J..

31 records · Page 2

Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: Constraints on extensions to Λ CDM with weak lensing and galaxy clustering

We constrain six possible extensions to the Λ cold dark matter (CDM) model using measurements from the Dark Energy Survey’s first three years of observations, alone and in combination with external cosmological probes. The DES data are the two-point correlation functions of weak gravitational lensing, galaxy clustering, and their cross-correlation. We use simulated data vectors and blind analyses of real data to validate the robustness of our results to astrophysical and modeling systematic errors. In many cases, constraining power is limited by the absence of theoretical predictions beyond the linear regime that are reliable at our required precision. The Λ CDM extensions are dark energy with a time-dependent equation of state, nonzero spatial curvature, additional relativistic degrees of freedom, sterile neutrinos with eV-scale mass, modifications of gravitational physics, and a binned σ 8 ( z ) model which serves as a phenomenological probe of structure growth. For the time-varying dark energy equation of state evaluated at the pivot redshift we find ( w p , w a ) = ( - 0.9 9 - 0.17 + 0.28 , - 0.9 ± 1.2 ) at 68% confidence with z p = 0.24 from the DES measurements alone, and ( w p , w a ) = ( - 1.0 3 - 0.03 + 0.04 , - 0. 4 - 0.3 + 0.4 ) with z p = 0.21 for the combination of all data considered. Curvature constraints of Ω k = 0.0009 ± 0.0017 and effective relativistic species N eff = 3.1 0 - 0.16 + 0.15 are dominated by external data, though adding DES information to external low-redshift probes tightens the Ω k constraints that can be made without cosmic microwave background observables by 20%. For massive sterile neutrinos, DES combined with external data improves the upper bound on the mass m eff by a factor of 3 compared to previous analyses, giving 95% limits of ( Δ N eff , m eff ) ≤ ( 0.28 , 0.20 eV ) when using priors matching a comparable Planck analysis. For modified gravity, we constrain changes to the lensing and Poisson equations controlled by functions Σ ( k , z ) = Σ 0 Ω Λ ( z ) / Ω Λ , 0 and μ ( k , z ) = μ 0 Ω Λ ( z ) / Ω Λ , 0 , respectively, to Σ 0 = 0. 6 - 0.5 + 0.4 from DES alone and ( Σ 0 , μ 0 ) = ( 0.04 ± 0.05 , 0.0 8 - 0.19 + 0.21 ) for the combination of all data, both at 68% confidence. Overall, we find no significant evidence for physics beyond Λ CDM .

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Non-local contribution from small scales in galaxy–galaxy lensing: comparison of mitigation schemes

ABSTRACT Recent cosmological analyses with large-scale structure and weak lensing measurements, usually referred to as 3 × 2pt, had to discard a lot of signal to noise from small scales due to our inability to accurately model non-linearities and baryonic effects. Galaxy–galaxy lensing, or the position–shear correlation between lens and source galaxies, is one of the three two-point correlation functions that are included in such analyses, usually estimated with the mean tangential shear. However, tangential shear measurements at a given angular scale θ or physical scale R carry information from all scales below that, forcing the scale cuts applied in real data to be significantly larger than the scale at which theoretical uncertainties become problematic. Recently, there have been a few independent efforts that aim to mitigate the non-locality of the galaxy–galaxy lensing signal. Here, we perform a comparison of the different methods, including the Y-transformation, the point-mass marginalization methodology, and the annular differential surface density statistic. We do the comparison at the cosmological constraints level in a combined galaxy clustering and galaxy–galaxy lensing analysis. We find that all the estimators yield equivalent cosmological results assuming a simulated Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Year 1 like set-up and also when applied to DES Y3 data. With the LSST Y1 set-up, we find that the mitigation schemes yield ∼1.3 times more constraining S8 results than applying larger scale cuts without using any mitigation scheme.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Robust sampling for weak lensing and clustering analyses with the Dark Energy Survey

Recent cosmological analyses rely on the ability to accurately sample from high-dimensional posterior distributions. A variety of algorithms have been applied in the field, but justification of the particular sampler choice and settings is often lacking. Here, we investigate three such samplers to motivate and validate the algorithm and settings used for the Dark Energy Survey (DES) analyses of the first 3 yr (Y3) of data from combined measurements of weak lensing and galaxy clustering. We employ the full DES Year 1 likelihood alongside a much faster approximate likelihood, which enables us to assess the outcomes from each sampler choice and demonstrate the robustness of our full results. We find that the ellipsoidal nested sampling algorithm multinest reports inconsistent estimates of the Bayesian evidence and somewhat narrower parameter credible intervals than the sliced nested sampling implemented in polychord. We compare the findings from multinest and polychord with parameter inference from the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm, finding good agreement. We determine that polychord provides a good balance of speed and robustness for posterior and evidence estimation, and recommend different settings for testing purposes and final chains for analyses with DES Y3 data. Our methodology can readily be reproduced to obtain suitable sampler settings for future surveys.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Characterizing the intracluster light over the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.8 in the DES-ACT overlap

ABSTRACT We characterize the properties and evolution of bright central galaxies (BCGs) and the surrounding intracluster light (ICL) in galaxy clusters identified in the Dark Energy Survey and Atacama Cosmology Telescope Survey (DES-ACT) overlapping regions, covering the redshift range 0.20 < z < 0.80. Over this redshift range, we measure no change in the ICL’s stellar content (between 50 and 300 kpc) in clusters with log10(M200m,SZ/M⊙) >14.4. We also measure the stellar mass–halo mass (SMHM) relation for the BCG+ICL system and find that the slope, β, which characterizes the dependence of M200m,SZ on the BCG+ICL stellar mass, increases with radius. The outskirts are more strongly correlated with the halo than the core, which supports that the BCG+ICL system follows a two-phase growth, where recent growth (z < 2) occurs beyond the BCG’s core. Additionally, we compare our observed SMHM relation results to the IllustrisTNG300-1 cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and find moderate qualitative agreement in the amount of diffuse light. However, the SMHM relation’s slope is steeper in TNG300-1 and the intrinsic scatter is lower, likely from the absence of projection effects in TNG300-1. Additionally, we find that the ICL exhibits a colour gradient such that the outskirts are bluer than the core. Moreover, for the lower halo mass clusters (log10(M200m,SZ/M⊙) < 14.59), we detect a modest change in the colour gradient’s slope with lookback time, which combined with the absence of stellar mass growth may suggest that lower mass clusters have been involved in growth via tidal stripping more recently than their higher mass counterparts.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data and CMB lensing from SPT and Planck . I. Construction of CMB lensing maps and modeling choices

Joint analyses of cross-correlations between measurements of galaxy positions, galaxy lensing, and lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) offer powerful constraints on the large-scale structure of the Universe. In a forthcoming analysis, we will present cosmological constraints from the analysis of such cross-correlations measured using Year 3 data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), and CMB data from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck. Here we present two key ingredients of this analysis: (1) an improved CMB lensing map in the SPT-SZ survey footprint and (2) the analysis methodology that will be used to extract cosmological information from the cross-correlation measurements. Relative to previous lensing maps made from the same CMB observations, we have implemented techniques to remove contamination from the thermal Sunyaev Zel’dovich effect, enabling the extraction of cosmological information from smaller angular scales of the cross-correlation measurements than in previous analyses with DES Year 1 data. We describe our model for the cross-correlations between these maps and DES data, and validate our modeling choices to demonstrate the robustness of our analysis. We then forecast the expected cosmological constraints from the galaxy survey-CMB lensing auto and cross-correlations. We find that the galaxy-CMB lensing and galaxy shear-CMB lensing correlations will on their own provide a constraint on S 8 =σ 8 $\sqrt{Ωm/0.3}$ at the few percent level, providing a powerful consistency check for the DES-only constraints. Finally, we explore scenarios where external priors on shear calibration are removed, finding that the joint analysis of CMB lensing cross-correlations can provide constraints on the shear calibration amplitude at the 5% to 10% level.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data and CMB lensing from SPT and P l a n c k . II. Cross-correlation measurements and cosmological constraints

Cross-correlations of galaxy positions and galaxy shears with maps of gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are sensitive to the distribution of large-scale structure in the Universe. Such cross-correlations are also expected to be immune to some of the systematic effects that complicate correlation measurements internal to galaxy surveys. We present measurements and modeling of the cross-correlations between galaxy positions and galaxy lensing measured in the first three years of data from the Dark Energy Survey with CMB lensing maps derived from a combination of data from the 2500 deg 2 SPT-SZ survey conducted with the South Pole Telescope and full-sky data from the Planck satellite. The CMB lensing maps used in this analysis have been constructed in a way that minimizes biases from the thermal Sunyaev Zel’dovich effect, making them well suited for cross-correlation studies. The total signal-to-noise of the cross-correlation measurements is 23.9 (25.7) when using a choice of angular scales optimized for a linear (nonlinear) galaxy bias model. Here we use the cross-correlation measurements to obtain constraints on cosmological parameters. For our fiducial galaxy sample, which consist of four bins of magnitude-selected galaxies, we find constraints of Ω m =0.272$^{+0.032}_{-0.052}$ and S 8 ≡σ8$\sqrt{Ω_m/0.3}$=0.736$^{+0.032}_{-0.028}$ (Ω m =0.245$^{+0.026}_{-0.044}$ and S 8 =0.734$^{+0.035}_{-0.028}$) when assuming linear (nonlinear) galaxy bias in our modeling. Considering only the cross-correlation of galaxy shear with CMB lensing, we find Ω m =0.270$^{+0.043}_{-0.061}$ and S 8 =0.740$^{+0.034}_{-0.029}$. Our constraints on S8 are consistent with recent cosmic shear measurements, but lower than the values preferred by primary CMB measurements from Planck.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data and CMB lensing from SPT and Planck . III. Combined cosmological constraints

Here we present cosmological constraints from the analysis of two-point correlation functions between galaxy positions and galaxy lensing measured in Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 3 data and measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing from the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and Planck. When jointly analyzing the DES-only two-point functions and the DES cross-correlations with SPT+Planck CMB lensing, we find Ω m = 0.344 ± 0.030 and S 8 ≡ σ 8 (Ω m /0.3) 0.5 = 0.773 ± 0.016, assuming ΛCDM. When additionally combining with measurements of the CMB lensing autospectrum, we find Ω m = 0.306$^{+0.018}_{-0.021}$ and S 8 = 0.792 ± 0.012. The high signal-to-noise of the CMB lensing cross-correlations enables several powerful consistency tests of these results, including comparisons with constraints derived from cross-correlations only, and comparisons designed to test the robustness of the galaxy lensing and clustering measurements from DES. Applying these tests to our measurements, we find no evidence of significant biases in the baseline cosmological constraints from the DES-only analyses or from the joint analyses with CMB lensing cross-correlations. However, the CMB lensing cross-correlations suggest possible problems with the correlation function measurements using alternative lens galaxy samples, in particular the redMaGiC galaxies and high-redshift MagLim galaxies, consistent with the findings of previous studies. We use the CMB lensing cross-correlations to identify directions for further investigating these problems.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Core-collapse supernovae in the Dark Energy Survey: luminosity functions and host galaxy demographics

ABSTRACT We present the luminosity functions and host galaxy properties of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) core-collapse supernova (CCSN) sample, consisting of 69 Type II and 50 Type Ibc spectroscopically and photometrically confirmed supernovae over a redshift range 0.045 < z < 0.25. We fit the observed DES griz CCSN light curves and K-correct to produce rest-frame R-band light curves. We compare the sample with lower redshift CCSN samples from Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS). Comparing luminosity functions, the DES and ZTF samples of SNe II are brighter than that of LOSS with significances of 3.0σ and 2.5σ, respectively. While this difference could be caused by redshift evolution in the luminosity function, simpler explanations such as differing levels of host extinction remain a possibility. We find that the host galaxies of SNe II in DES are on average bluer than in ZTF, despite having consistent stellar mass distributions. We consider a number of possibilities to explain this – including galaxy evolution with redshift, selection biases in either the DES or ZTF samples, and systematic differences due to the different photometric bands available – but find that none can easily reconcile the differences in host colour between the two samples and thus its cause remains uncertain.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Concerning colour: The effect of environment on type Ia supernova colour in the dark energy survey

ABSTRACT Recent analyses have found intriguing correlations between the colour (c) of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) and the size of their ‘mass-step’, the relationship between SN Ia host galaxy stellar mass (Mstellar) and SN Ia Hubble residual, and suggest that the cause of this relationship is dust. Using 675 photometrically classified SNe Ia from the Dark Energy Survey 5-yr sample, we study the differences in Hubble residual for a variety of global host galaxy and local environmental properties for SN Ia subsamples split by their colour. We find a 3σ difference in the mass-step when comparing blue (c < 0) and red (c > 0) SNe. We observe the lowest r.m.s. scatter (∼0.14 mag) in the Hubble residual for blue SNe in low mass/blue environments, suggesting that this is the most homogeneous sample for cosmological analyses. By fitting for c-dependent relationships between Hubble residuals and Mstellar, approximating existing dust models, we remove the mass-step from the data and find tentative ∼2σ residual steps in rest-frame galaxy U − R colour. This indicates that dust modelling based on Mstellar may not fully explain the remaining dispersion in SN Ia luminosity. Instead, accounting for a c-dependent relationship between Hubble residuals and global U − R, results in ≤1σ residual steps in Mstellar and local U − R, suggesting that U − R provides different information about the environment of SNe Ia compared to Mstellar, and motivating the inclusion of galaxy U − R colour in SN Ia distance bias correction.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A Dark Energy Camera Search for Missing Supergiants in the LMC After the Advanced LIGO Gravitational-Wave Event GW150914

The collapse of a stellar core is expected to produce gravitational waves (GWs), neutrinos, and in most cases a luminous supernova. Sometimes, however, the optical event could be significantly less luminous than a supernova and a direct collapse to a black hole, where the star just disappears, is possible. The GW event GW150914 was detected by the LIGO Virgo Collaboration via a burst analysis that gave localization contours enclosing the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Shortly thereafter, we used DECam to observe 102 deg(exp.2) of the localization area,including 38 deg(exp. 2) on the LMC for a missing supergiant search. We construct a complete catalog of LMC luminous red supergiants, the best candidates to undergo invisible core collapse, and collected catalogs of other candidates:less luminous red supergiants, yellow supergiants, blue supergiants, luminous blue variable stars, and Wolf-Rayet stars. Of the objects in the imaging region, all are recovered in the images. The timescale for stellar disappearance is set by the free-fall time, which is a function of the stellar radius. Our observations at 4 and 13 days after the event result in a search sensitive to objects of up to about 200 solar radii. We conclude that it is unlikely that GW150914 was caused by the core collapse of a relatively compact supergiant in the LMC, consistent with the LIGO Collaboration analyses of the gravitational waveform as best interpreted as a high mass binary black hole merger. We discuss how to generalize this search for future very nearby core-collapse candidates.

galaxies: individual (LMC) – gravitational waves↗

A Dark Energy Camera Search for an Optical Counterpart to the First Advanced LIGO Gravitational Wave Event GW150914

We report the results of a deep search for an optical counterpart to the gravitational wave (GW) event GW150914, the first trigger from the Advanced LIGO GW detectors. We used the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to image a 102 deg(exp 2) area, corresponding to 38% of the initial trigger high-probability sky region and to 11% of the revised high-probability region. We observed in the i and z bands at 4-5, 7, and 24 days after the trigger. The median 5(sigma) point-source limiting magnitudes of our search images are i = 22.5 and z = 21.8 mag. We processed the images through a difference-imaging pipeline using templates from pre-existing Dark Energy Survey data and publicly available DECam data. Due to missing template observations and other losses, our effective search area subtends 40 deg(exp 2), corresponding to a 12% total probability in the initial map and 3% in the final map. In this area, we search for objects that decline significantly between days 4-5 and day 7, and are undetectable by day 24, finding none to typical magnitude limits of i = 21.5, 21.1, 20.1 for object colors (i-z)= 1, 0, -1, respectively. Our search demonstrates the feasibility of a dedicated search program with DECam and bodes well for future research in this emerging field.

binaries: close – catalogs – gravitational wav↗

The atmosphere of Mars and optical communications

The effects of the Martian atmosphere on an optical communication link are analyzed using Mariner 9, Viking Orbiter, and Viking Lander data. Clouds are found to have minimal effect because of their scarcity and thinness. Dust (from dust storms) has the dominant impact on opacity. However, periods of reduced visibility are infrequent and more closely resemble the effects of thin clouds on the earth. A simple argument is presented which suggests that the Martian atmosphere has fewer turbulence related effects (i.e., Mars has better resolution, lower image wander, and less scintillation) than the best of the earth's ground based locations.

Annis, J.↗

Evaluation of a Reverse Gradient Garment for prevention of bed-rest deconditioning

A Reverse Gradient Garment (RGG) was used to intermittently induce venous pooling in the extremities of a magnitude similar to that seen in going from a lying to standing position during the course of a 15-d period of horizontal bed rest. Venous pooling failed to improve bed-rest-induced losses in +2.5 Gz and +3.0 Gz centrifugation tolerance or to prevent increased heart-rate responses to lower-body negative pressure (LBNP). Four subjects served as controls, four were treated. Tests during the 7-d recovery period showed fluid/electrolyte and body composition values to have returned to pre-bed-rest levels with continued depression of acceleration tolerance times (56% decreased at +2.5 Gz and 74% decreased at +3.0 Gz compared to pre-bed-rest levels) and exaggerated blood insulin response on glucose tolerance testing (blood insulin for treated group increased 95% at 1 h before bed rest and 465% during recovery). This study demonstrates that the physiologic changes after bed rest persist for significant periods of time. Acceleration tolerance time proved to be a sensitive test for the deconditioning process.

Sandler, H.↗