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Niz, Gustavo

Publications and source records attributed to Niz, Gustavo.

Measuring σ 8 using DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys Emission-Line galaxies and Planck CMB lensing, and the impact of dust on parameter inference

Measuring the growth of structure is a powerful probe for studying the dark sector, especially in light of the σ 8 tension between primary CMB anisotropy and low-redshift surveys. This paper provides a new measurement of the amplitude of the matter power spectrum, σ 8 , using galaxy-galaxy and galaxy-CMB lensing power spectra of Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Legacy Imaging Surveys Emission-Line Galaxies and the Planck 2018 CMB lensing map. We create an ELG catalog composed of 24 million galaxies and with a purity of 85%, covering a redshift range 0 < z < 3, with z mean = 1.09. We implement several novel systematic corrections, such as jointly modeling the contribution of imaging systematics and photometric redshift uncertainties to the covariance matrix. We also study the impacts of various dust maps on cosmological parameter inference. We measure the cross-power spectra over f sky = 0.25 with a signal-to-background ratio of up to 30σ. We find that the choice of dust maps to account for imaging systematics in estimating the ELG overdensity field has a significant impact on the final estimated values of σ 8 and Ω M , with far-infrared emission-based dust maps preferring σ 8 to be as low as 0.702 ± 0.030, and stellar-reddening-based dust maps preferring as high as 0.719 ± 0.030. The highest preferred value is at ∼ 3 σ tension with the Planck primary anisotropy results. These findings indicate a need for tomographic analyses at high redshifts and joint modeling of systematics.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Detection of the large-scale tidal field with galaxy multiplet alignment in the DESI Y1 spectroscopic survey

We explore correlations between the orientations of small galaxy groups, or ‘multiplets’, and the large-scale gravitational tidal field. Using data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Y1 survey, we detect the intrinsic alignment (IA) of multiplets to the galaxy-traced matter field out to separations of $100\,h^{-1}$ Mpc. Unlike traditional IA measurements of individual galaxies, this estimator is not limited by imaging of galaxy shapes and allows for direct IA detection beyond redshift $z=1$. Multiplet alignment is a form of higher order clustering, for which the scale-dependence traces the underlying tidal field and amplitude is a result of small-scale ($\lt 1h^{-1}$ Mpc) dynamics. Within samples of bright galaxies, luminous red galaxies (LRG) and emission-line galaxies, we find similar scale-dependence regardless of intrinsic luminosity or colour. This is promising for measuring tidal alignment in galaxy samples that typically display no IA. DESI’s LRG mock galaxy catalogues created from the A BACUS S UMMIT N -body simulations produce a similar alignment signal, though with a 33 per cent lower amplitude at all scales. An analytic model using a non-linear power spectrum (NLA) only matches the signal down to 20 $h^{-1}$ Mpc. Our detection demonstrates that galaxy clustering in the non-linear regime of structure formation preserves an interpretable memory of the large-scale tidal field. Multiplet alignment complements traditional two-point measurements by retaining directional information imprinted by tidal forces, and contains additional line-of-sight information compared to weak lensing. This is a more effective estimator than the alignment of individual galaxies in dense, blue, or faint galaxy samples.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

High redshift LBGs from deep broadband imaging for future spectroscopic surveys

Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) are promising probes for clustering measurements at high redshift, z > 2, a region only covered so far by Lyman-α forest measurements. Here, in this paper, we investigate the feasibility of selecting LBGs by exploiting the existence of a strong deficit of flux shortward of the Lyman limit, due to various absorption processes along the line of sight. The target selection relies on deep imaging data from the HSC and CLAUDS surveys in the g, r, z and u bands, respectively, with median depths reaching 27 AB in all bands. The selections were validated by several dedicated spectroscopic observation campaigns with DESI. Visual inspection of spectra has enabled us to develop an automated spectroscopic typing and redshift estimation algorithm specific to LBGs. Based on these data and tools, we assess the efficiency and purity of target selections optimised for different purposes. Selections providing a wide redshift coverage retain 57% of the observed targets after spectroscopic confirmation with DESI, and provide an efficiency for LBGs of 83 ± 3%, for a purity of the selected LBG sample of 90 ± 2%. This would deliver a confirmed LBG density of ~ 620 deg$^{-2}$ in the range 2.3 < z < 3.5 for a r-band limiting magnitude r < 24.2. Selections optimised for high redshift efficiency retain 73% of the observed targets after spectroscopic confirmation, with 89 ± 4% efficiency for 97 ± 2% purity. This would provide a confirmed LBG density of ~ 470 deg$^{-2}$ in the range 2.8 < z < 3.5 for a r-band limiting magnitude r < 24.5.A preliminary study of the LBG sample 3d-clustering properties is also presented and used to estimate the LBG linear bias. A value of b$_{LBG}$ = 3.3 ± 0.2 (stat.) is obtained for a mean redshift of 2.9 and a limiting magnitude in r of 24.2, in agreement with results reported in the literature.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Towards testing the theory of gravity with DESI: summary statistics, model predictions and future simulation requirements

Shortly after its discovery, General Relativity (GR) was applied to predict the behavior of our Universe on the largest scales, and later became the foundation of modern cosmology. Its validity has been verified on a range of scales and environments from the Solar system to merging black holes. However, experimental confirmations of GR on cosmological scales have so far lacked the accuracy one would hope for — its applications on those scales being largely based on extrapolation and its validity there sometimes questioned in the shadow of the discovery of the unexpected cosmic acceleration. Future astronomical instruments surveying the distribution and evolution of galaxies over substantial portions of the observable Universe, such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), will be able to measure the fingerprints of gravity and their statistical power will allow strong constraints on alternatives to GR. In this paper, based on a set of N-body simulations and mock galaxy catalogs, we study the predictions of a number of traditional and novel summary statistics beyond linear redshift distortions in two well-studied modified gravity models — chameleon f(R) gravity and a braneworld model — and the potential of testing these deviations from GR using DESI. These summary statistics employ a wide array of statistical properties of the galaxy and the underlying dark matter field, including two-point and higher-order statistics, environmental dependence, redshift space distortions and weak lensing. We find that they hold promising power for testing GR to unprecedented precision. The major future challenge is to make realistic, simulation-based mock galaxy catalogs for both GR and alternative models to fully exploit the statistic power of the DESI survey (by matching the volumes and galaxy number densities of the mocks to those in the real survey) and to better understand the impact of key systematic effects. Using these, we identify future simulation and analysis needs for gravity tests using DESI.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Clustering in massive neutrino cosmologies via Eulerian Perturbation Theory

We introduce an Eulerian Perturbation Theory to study the clustering of tracers for cosmologies in the presence of massive neutrinos. Our approach is based on mapping recently-obtained Lagrangian Perturbation Theory results to the Eulerian framework. We add Effective Field Theory counterterms, IR-resummations and a biasing scheme to compute the one-loop redshift-space power spectrum. To assess our predictions, we compare the power spectrum multipoles against synthetic halo catalogues from the QUIJOTE simulations, finding excellent agreement on scales k ≲ 0.25 h Mpc-1. One can obtain the same fitting accuracy using higher wave-numbers, but then the theory fails to give a correct estimation of the linear bias parameter. We further discuss the implications for the tree-level bispectrum. Finally, calculating loop corrections is computationally costly, hence we derive an accurate approximation wherein we retain only the main features of the kernels, as produced by changes to the growth rate. As a result, we show how FFTLog methods can be used to further accelerate the loop computations with these reduced kernels.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Inflation and Dark Energy from spectroscopy at $\mathcal{z} > 2$

The expansion of the Universe is understood to have accelerated during two epochs: in its very first moments during a period of Inflation and much more recently, at $\mathcal{z} < 1$, when Dark Energy is hypothesized to drive cosmic acceleration. The undiscovered mechanisms behind these two epochs represent some of the most important open problems in fundamental physics. Most of the processes involved during Inflation impact observations on the very largest spatial scales. Traditionally, these have been accessed through observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). While very powerful, the CMB originates from a 2D surface and the finite number of modes that it contains will largely be measured by experiments over the next decade. Observations of large 3D volumes with large-scale structure (LSS) access similar scales and will dramatically increase the number of available modes. For example, LSS observations in the range $2 \lesssim z \lesssim 5$ can more than triple the volume surveyed at $z \lesssim 2$, and, together with the sufficiently high galaxy number in this interval, strongly motivates a future spectroscopic survey that exploits this opportunity. In addition, tomography allows mapping the growth of structure with redshift, which provides robust constraints on Dark Energy and neutrino masses while relaxing restrictive assumptions such as a power-law primordial power spectrum. Finally, cross-correlation with external tracers, such as CMB lensing, Intensity Mapping or the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest, immunises the constraints to the systematics that make measurement challenging and further improves the precision through ‘sample variance cancellation’ and degeneracy breaking.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Astro2020 Science White Paper: Cosmological Synergies Enabled by Joint Analysis of Multi-probe data from WFIRST, Euclid, and LSST

NASA, NSF, and DOE will collectively spend well over $4B this decade and the next on missions and surveys that have dark energy cosmology as one of their primary drivers. WFIRST, Euclid, and LSST are all missions designed to perform dedicated surveys that offer unprecedented statistical constraining power and control of systematic uncertainties. However, there is a growing realization that these missions will be significantly more powerful when the data are processed and analyzed in unison. This will require coordinated cross-survey and interagency effort. With proper attention to how data are jointly processed and analyzed, the combination of these missions will provide constraints and systematics control that is better than the sum of their individual parts, as stated in the title of Jain, et al. (2015). We advocate for the three relevant US agencies to work together with our international partners to ensure that the synergy from these multi-probe missions is fully realized.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Galileons and strong gravity

In the context of a cubic Galileon model in which the Vainshtein mechanism suppresses the scalar field interactions with matter, we study low-density stars with slow rotation and static relativistic stars. We develop an expansion scheme to find approximated solutions inside the Vainshtein radius, and show that deviations from General Relativity (GR), while considering rotation, are also suppressed by the Vainshtein mechanism. In a quadratic coupling model, in which the scalarisation effect can significantly enhance deviations from GR in normal scalar tensor gravity, the Galileon term successfully suppresses the large deviations away from GR. Moreover, using a realistic equation of state, we construct solutions for a relativistic star, and show that deviations from GR are more suppressed for higher density objects. However, we found that the scalar field solution ceases to exist above a critical density, which roughly corresponds to the maximum mass of a neutron star. This indicates that, for a compact object described by a polytropic equation of state, the configuration that would collapse into a black hole cannot support a non-trivial scalar field.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Stability of the self-accelerating universe in massive gravity

We study linear perturbations around time dependent spherically symmetric solutions in the Λ{sub 3} massive gravity theory, which self-accelerate in the vacuum. We find that the dynamics of the scalar perturbations depend on the choice of the fiducial metric for the background solutions. For particular choice of fiducial metric there is a symmetry enhancement, leaving no propagating scalar degrees of freedom at linear order in perturbations. In contrast, any other choice propagates a single scalar mode. We find that the Hamiltonian of this scalar mode is unbounded from below for all self-accelerating solutions, signalling an instability.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Analytic Solutions in Nonlinear Massive Gravity

We study spherically symmetric solutions in a covariant massive gravity model, which is a candidate for a ghost-free nonlinear completion of the Fierz-Pauli theory. There is a branch of solutions that exhibits the Vainshtein mechanism, recovering general relativity below a Vainshtein radius given by (r{sub g}m{sup 2}){sup 1/3}, where m is the graviton mass and r{sub g} is the Schwarzschild radius of a matter source. Another branch of exact solutions exists, corresponding to de Sitter-Schwarzschild spacetimes where the curvature scale of de Sitter space is proportional to the mass squared of the graviton.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗