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At least 19 records

Informational approach to cosmological parameter estimation

Here, we introduce a new approach for cosmological parameter estimation based on the information-theoretical Jensen-Shannon divergence ($\mathscr{D}$ JS ), calculating it for models in the restricted parameter space {H 0 , w 0 , w a }, where H 0 is the value of the Hubble constant today, and w 0 and w a are dark energy parameters, with the other parameters held fixed at their best-fit values from the Planck 2018 data. As an application, we investigate the H 0 tension between the Planck temperature power spectrum data (TT) and the local astronomical data by comparing the ΛCDM model with the wCDM and the w 0 w a CDM dynamic dark energy models. We find agreement with other works using the standard Bayesian inference for parameter estimation; in addition, we show that while the $\mathscr{D}$ JS is equally minimized for both values of H 0 along the (w 0 , w a ) plane, the lines of degeneracy are different for each value of H 0 . This allows for distinguishing between the two, once the value of either w 0 or w a is known.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

On the impact of the galaxy window function on cosmological parameter estimation

One important source of systematics in galaxy redshift surveys comes from the estimation of the galaxy window function. Up until now, the impact of the uncertainty in estimating the galaxy window function on parameter inference has not been properly studied. In this paper, we show that the uncertainty and the bias in estimating the galaxy window function will be salient for ongoing and next-generation galaxy surveys using a simulation-based approach. With a specific case study of cross-correlating emission-line galaxies from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and the Planck cosmic microwave background lensing map, we show that neural network-based regression approaches to modelling the window function are superior in comparison to linear regression-based models. Here, we additionally show that the definition of the galaxy overdensity estimator can impact the overall signal-to-noise of observed power spectra. Finally, we show that the additive biases coming from the window functions can significantly bias the modes of the inferred parameters and also degrade their precision. Thus, a careful understanding of the window functions will be essential to conduct cosmological experiments.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Cosmological parameter estimation with a joint-likelihood analysis of the cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis

Here, we present a joint-likelihood analysis of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, consistently combining likelihoods and taking into account uncertainties in nuclear reaction rates for the first time. Bayesian inference is performed on the baryon abundance and the effective number of neutrino species, 𝑁 eff , using a CMB Boltzmann solver in combination with LINX , a new flexible and efficient BBN code. We marginalize over Planck nuisance parameters and nuclear rates to find 𝑁 eff =3.0⁢8$^{+0.15}_{−0.14}$, 2.9⁢4$^{+0.16}_{−0.15}$, or 2.96$^{+0.13}_{−0.14}$, for three separate reaction networks. This framework enables robust testing of the lambda cold dark matter paradigm and its variants with CMB and BBN data.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Are light curve classification metrics good proxies for SN Ia cosmological constraining power?

Context. When selecting a light curve classifier for use as part of a photometric supernova Ia (SN Ia) cosmological analysis, it is common to make decisions based on metrics of classification performance, such as the contamination within the photometrically classified SN Ia sample, rather than a measure of cosmological constraining power. If the former is an appropriate proxy for the latter, this practice would eliminate the computational expense of a full cosmology forecast in the analysis pipeline design process. Aims. This study tests the assumption that light curve classification metrics are an appropriate proxy for cosmology metrics. Methods. We emulated photometric SN Ia cosmology light curve samples with controlled contamination rates of individual contaminant classes and evaluated each of them under a set of classification metrics. We then derived cosmological parameter constraints from all samples under two common analysis approaches and quantified the impact of contamination by each contaminant class on the resulting cosmological parameter estimates. Results. We observe that cosmology metrics are sensitive to both the contamination rate and the class of the contaminating population, whereas the classification metrics are shown to be insensitive to the latter. Conclusions. Based on these findings, we discourage any exclusive reliance on light curve classification-based metrics for analysis design decisions, which (counterintuitively) include but are not limited to the classifier choice. Instead, we recommend optimising science analysis pipeline design choices using a metric of the information gained about the physical parameters of interest.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Quasar UV/X-ray relation luminosity distances are shorter than reverberation-measured radius–luminosity relation luminosity distances

ABSTRACT We use measurements of 59/58 quasars (QSOs), over a redshift range 0.0041 ≤ z ≤ 1.686, to do a comparative study of the radius–luminosity (R − L) and X-ray−UV luminosity (LX − LUV) relations and the implication of these relations for cosmological parameter estimation. By simultaneously determining R − L or LX − LUV relation parameters and cosmological parameters in six different cosmological models, we find that both R − L and LX − LUV relations are standardizable but provide only weak cosmological parameter constraints, with LX − LUV relation data favouring larger current non-relativistic matter density parameter Ωm0 values than R − L relation data and most other available data. We derive LX − LUV and R − L luminosity distances for each of the sources in the six cosmological models and find that LX − LUV relation luminosity distances are shorter than R − L relation luminosity distances as well as standard flat ΛCDM model luminosity distances. This explains why LX − LUV relation QSO data favour larger Ωm0 values than do R − L relation QSO data or most other cosmological measurements. While our sample size is small and only spans a small z range, these results indicate that more work is needed to determine whether the LX − LUV relation can be used as a cosmological probe.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Towards constraining cosmological parameters with SPT-3G observations of 25% of the sky

The South Pole Telescope (SPT), using its third-generation camera, SPT-3G, is conducting observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in temperature and polarization across approximately 10 000 deg$^2$ of the sky at 95, 150, and 220 GHz. This comprehensive dataset should yield stringent constraints on cosmological parameters. In this work, we explore its potential to address the Hubble tension by forecasting constraints from temperature, polarization, and CMB lensing on early dark energy (EDE) and the variation in electron mass in spatially flat and curved universes. For this purpose, we investigate first whether analyzing the distinct SPT-3G observation fields independently, as opposed to as a single, unified region, results in a loss of information relevant to cosmological parameter estimation. We develop a realistic temperature and polarization likelihood pipeline capable of analyzing these fields in these two ways, and subsequently forecast constraints on cosmological parameters. Our findings indicate that any loss of constraining power from analyzing the fields separately is primarily concentrated at low multipoles ($\ell$ < 50) and the overall impact on the relative uncertainty on standard $Λ$ cold dark matter parameters is minimal (< 3%). Our forecasts suggest that SPT-3G data should improve by more than a factor of 90 and 190 the figure of merit of the EDE and the varying electron mass models, respectively, when combined with Planck data. The likelihood pipeline developed and used in this work is made publicly available online.

Vitrier, A. [Paris, Inst. Astrophys.]↗

Hyper Suprime-Cam Year 3 results: Cosmology from galaxy clustering and weak lensing with HSC and SDSS using the emulator based halo model

We present cosmology results from a blinded joint analysis of cosmic shear, galaxy-galaxy weak lensing, and projected galaxy clustering, measured from the Hyper Suprime-Cam three-year (HSC-Y3) shape catalog and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR11 spectroscopic galaxy catalog—a cosmology analysis. We define luminosity-cut, and therefore nearly volume-limited, samples of SDSS galaxies to serve as the tracers of w p and as the lens samples for Δ⁢Σ in three spectroscopic redshift bins spanning the range 0.15± and Δ⁢Σ measurements, we use a single sample of about seven million source galaxies over 416 deg 2 , selected from HSC-Y3 based on having photometric redshifts (photo-z) greater than 0.75. The deep, high-quality HSC-Y3 data enable significant detections of the Δ⁢Σ signals, with integrated signal-to-noise ratio S/N~24 in the range 3≤R/[ℎ –1 Mpc]≤30 over the three lens samples. ξ ± has S/N ~19 in the range 8' ≤$\theta$ ≤5⁢0' and 30' ≤$\theta$ ≤15⁢0' for ξ + and ξ – , respectively. For cosmological parameter inference, we use the dark emulator package, combined with a halo occupation distribution prescription for the relation between galaxies and halos, to model w p and Δ⁢Σ down to quasinonlinear scales, and we estimate cosmological parameters after marginalizing over nuisance parameters. In our baseline analysis we employ an uninformative flat prior of the residual photo-z error, given by Π⁡(Δz ph )=$U$⁡(–1,1), to model a residual bias in the mean redshift of HSC source galaxies. Comparing the relative lensing amplitudes for Δ⁢Σ in the three redshift bins and for ξ ± with the single HSC source galaxy sample allows us to calibrate the photo-z parameter Δ⁢z ph to the precision of σ⁡(Δ⁢z ph )≃0.09. With these methods, we obtain a robust constraint on the cosmological parameters for the flat Λ⁢CDM model: S 8 =σ 8 ⁢(Ω m /0.3) 0.5 =$0.763^{+0.040}_{–0.036}$, or the best-constrained parameter given by $S^{'}_{8}$ = σ 8 ⁢(Ω m /0.3) 0.22 =0.721±0.028, determined with about 4% fractional precision. Based on multidimensional tension metrics, HSC-Y3 data exhibits about 2.5σ tension with the cosmological constraint inferred by Planck for the Λ⁢CDM model, and hints at a nonzero residual photo-z bias implying that the true mean redshift of the HSC galaxies at z ≳0.75 is higher than that implied by the original photo-z estimates.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

BeyondPlanck: V. Minimal ADC Corrections for Planck LFI

We describe the correction procedure for Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) differential non-linearities (DNL) adopted in the Bayesian end-to-end BEYONDPLANCK analysis framework. This method is nearly identical to that developed for the official Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) Data Processing Center (DPC) analysis, and relies on the binned rms noise profile of each detector data stream. However, rather than building the correction profile directly from the raw rms profile, we first fit a Gaussian to each significant ADC-induced rms decrement, and then derive the corresponding correction model from this smooth model. The main advantage of this approach is that only samples which are significantly affected by ADC DNLs are corrected, as opposed to the DPC approach in which the correction is applied to all samples, filtering out signals not associated with ADC DNLs. The new corrections are only applied to data for which there is a clear detection of the non-linearities, and for which they perform at least comparably with the DPC corrections. Out of a total of 88 LFI data streams (sky and reference load for each of the 44 detectors) we apply the new minimal ADC corrections in 25 cases, and maintain the DPC corrections in 8 cases. All these corrections are applied to 44 or 70 GHz channels, while, as in previous analyses, none of the 30 GHz ADCs show significant evidence of non-linearity. By comparing the BEYONDPLANCK and DPC ADC correction methods, we estimate that the residual ADC uncertainty is about two orders of magnitude below the total noise of both the 44 and 70 GHz channels, and their impact on current cosmological parameter estimation is small. However, we also show that non-idealities in the ADC corrections can generate sharp stripes in the final frequency maps, and these could be important for future joint analyses with the Planck High Frequency Instrument (HFI), Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), or other datasets. We therefore conclude that, although the existing corrections are adequate for LFI-based cosmological parameter analysis, further work on LFI ADC corrections is still warranted.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Catalog-level blinding on the bispectrum for DESI-like galaxy surveys

We evaluate the performance of the catalog-level blind analysis technique (blinding) presented in Brieden et al. (2020) in the context of a fixed template power spectrum and bispectrum analysis. This blinding scheme, which is tailored for galaxy redshift surveys similar to the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), has two components: the so-called “AP blinding” (concerning the dilation parameters α$_{∥}$, α$_{⊥}$) and “RSD blinding” (redshift space distortions, affecting the growth rate parameter f). Through extensive testing, including checks for the RSD part in cubic boxes, the impact of AP blinding on mocks with realistic survey sky coverage, and the implementation of a full AP+RSD blinding pipeline, our analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of the technique in preserving the integrity of cosmological parameter estimation when the analysis includes the bispectrum statistic. We emphasize the critical role of sophisticated — and difficult to accidentally unblind — blinding methods in precision cosmology.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Breaking the degeneracy between polarization efficiency and cosmological parameters in CMB experiments

Accurate cosmological parameter estimates using polarization data of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) put stringent requirements on map calibration, as highlighted in the recent results from the Planck satellite. In this paper, we point out that a model-dependent determination of polarization calibration can be achieved by the joint fit of the temperature-E-mode cross-power spectrum (TE) and E-mode auto-power spectrum (EE). This provides a valuable cross-check to band-averaged polarization efficiency measurements determined using other approaches. We demonstrate that, in ΛCDM, the combination of the TE and EE constrain polarization calibration with sub-percent uncertainty with Planck data and 2% uncertainty with sptpol data. We arrive at similar conclusions when extending ΛCDM to include the amplitude of lensing A L , the number of relativistic species N eff , or the sum of the neutrino masses Σm ν . Furthermore, the uncertainties on cosmological parameters are minimally impacted when marginalizing over polarization calibration, except, as can be expected, for the uncertainty on the amplitude of the primordial scalar power spectrum ln(10 10 A s ), which increases by 20–50%. However, this information can be fully recovered by adding temperature auto-power spectrum (TT) information. For current and future ground-based experiments, SPT-3G and CMB-S4, we forecast the cosmological parameter uncertainties to be minimally degraded when marginalizing over polarization calibration parameters. In addition, CMB-S4 could constrain its polarization calibration at the level of ~0.2% by combining TE and EE, and reach ~0.06% by also including TT. We therefore conclude that relying on calibrating against Planck polarization maps, whose statistical uncertainty is limited to ~0.5%, would be insufficient for upcoming experiments.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Constraining Cosmology with Simulation-based inference and Optical Galaxy Cluster Abundance

We test the robustness of simulation-based inference (SBI) in the context of cosmological parameter estimation from galaxy cluster counts and masses in simulated optical datasets. We construct ``simulations'' using analytical models for the galaxy cluster halo mass function (HMF) and for the observed richness (number of observed member galaxies) to train and test the SBI method. We compare the SBI parameter posterior samples to those from an MCMC analysis that uses the same analytical models to construct predictions of the observed data vector. The two methods exhibit comparable performance, with reliable constraints derived for the primary cosmological parameters, ($\Omega_m$ and $\sigma_8$), and richness-mass relation parameters. We also perform out-of-domain tests with observables constructed from galaxy cluster-sized halos in the Quijote simulations. Again, the SBI and MCMC results have comparable posteriors, with similar uncertainties and biases. Unsurprisingly, upon evaluating the SBI method on thousands of simulated data vectors that span the parameter space, SBI exhibits worsened posterior calibration metrics in the out-of-domain application. We note that such calibration tests with MCMC is less computationally feasible and highlight the potential use of SBI to stress-test limitations of analytical models, such as in the use for constructing models for inference with MCMC.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Galaxy blending effects in deep imaging cosmic shear probes of cosmology

ABSTRACT Upcoming deep imaging surveys such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time will be confronted with challenges that come with increased depth. One of the leading systematic errors in deep surveys is the blending of objects due to higher surface density in the more crowded images; a considerable fraction of the galaxies which we hope to use for cosmology analyses will overlap each other on the observed sky. In order to investigate these challenges, we emulate blending in a mock catalogue consisting of galaxies at a depth equivalent to 1.3 yr of the full 10-yr Rubin Observatory that includes effects due to weak lensing, ground-based seeing, and the uncertainties due to extraction of catalogues from imaging data. The emulated catalogue indicates that approximately 12 per cent of the observed galaxies are ‘unrecognized’ blends that contain two or more objects but are detected as one. Using the positions and shears of half a billion distant galaxies, we compute shear–shear correlation functions after selecting tomographic samples in terms of both spectroscopic and photometric redshift bins. We examine the sensitivity of the cosmological parameter estimation to unrecognized blending employing both jackknife and analytical Gaussian covariance estimators. An ∼0.025 decrease in the derived structure growth parameter S8 = σ8(Ωm/0.3)0.5 is seen due to unrecognized blending in both tomographies with a slight additional bias for the photo-z-based tomography. This bias is greater than the 2σ statistical error in measuring S8.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Blinded challenge for precision cosmology with large-scale structure: Results from effective field theory for the redshift-space galaxy power spectrum

An accurate theoretical template for the galaxy power spectrum is key for the success of ongoing and future spectroscopic surveys. We examine to what extent the effective field theory (EFT) of large-scale structure is able to provide such a template and correctly estimate cosmological parameters. To that end, we initiate a blinded challenge to infer cosmological parameters from the redshift-space power spectrum of high-resolution mock catalogs mimicking the BOSS galaxy sample but covering a 100 times larger cumulative volume. This gigantic simulation volume allows us to separate systematic bias due to theoretical modeling from the statistical error due to sample variance. The challenge is to measure three unknown input parameters used in the simulation: the Hubble constant, the matter density fraction, and the clustering amplitude. We present analyses done by two independent teams, who have fitted the mock simulation data generated by yet another independent group. This allows us to avoid any confirmation bias by analyzers and to pin down possible tuning of the specific EFT implementations. Both independent teams have recovered the true values of the input parameters within subpercent statistical errors corresponding to the total simulation volume.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Non-Gaussian estimates of tensions in cosmological parameters

We discuss how to efficiently and reliably estimate the level of agreement and disagreement on parameter determinations from different experiments, fully taking into account non-Gaussianities in the parameter posteriors. We develop two families of scalable algorithms that allow us to perform this type of calculations in increasing number of dimensions and for different levels of tensions. One family of algorithms rely on kernel density estimates of posterior distributions while the other relies on machine learning modeling of the posterior distribution with normalizing flows. We showcase their effectiveness and accuracy with a set of benchmark examples and find both methods agree with each other and the true tension within 0.5σ in difficult cases and generally to 0.2σ or better. This allows us to study the level of internal agreement between different measurements of the clustering of cosmological structures from the Dark Energy Survey and their agreement with measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background from the Planck satellite.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Characterizing the Sample Selection for Supernova Cosmology

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are used as distance indicators to infer the cosmological parameters that specify the expansion history of the universe. Parameter inference depends on the criteria by which the analysis SN sample is selected. Only for the simplest selection criteria and population models can the likelihood be calculated analytically, otherwise it needs to be determined numerically, a process that inherently has error. Numerical errors in the likelihood lead to errors in parameter inference. This article presents toy examples where the distance modulus is inferred given a set of SNe at a single redshift. Parameter estimators and their uncertainties are calculated using Monte Carlo techniques. The relationship between the number of Monte Carlo realizations and numerical errors is presented. The procedure can be applied to more realistic models and used to determine the computational and data management requirements of the transient analysis pipeline.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

BeyondPlanck: XII. Cosmological parameter constraints with end-to-end error propagation

We present cosmological parameter constraints estimated using the Bayesian BEYONDPLANCK analysis framework. This method supports seamless end-to-end error propagation from raw time-ordered data onto final cosmological parameters. As a first demonstration of the method, we analyzed time-ordered Planck LFI observations, combined with selected external data (WMAP 33–61 GHz, Planck HFI DR4 353 and 857 GHz, and Haslam 408 MHz) in the form of pixelized maps that are used to break critical astrophysical degeneracies. Overall, all the results are generally in good agreement with previously reported values from Planck 2018 and WMAP, with the largest relative difference for any parameter amounting about 1σ when considering only temperature multipoles between 30 ≤ ℓ ≤ 600. In cases where there are differences, we note that the BEYONDPLANCK results are generally slightly closer to the high-ℓ HFI-dominated Planck 2018 results than previous analyses, suggesting slightly less tension between low and high multipoles. Using low-ℓ polarization information from LFI and WMAP, we find a best-fit value of τ = 0.066 ± 0.013, which is higher than the low value of τ = 0.052 ± 0.008 derived from Planck 2018 and slightly lower than the value of 0.069 ± 0.011 derived from the joint analysis of official LFI and WMAP products. Most importantly, however, we find that the uncertainty derived in the BEYONDPLANCK processing is about 30 % greater than when analyzing the official products, after taking into account the different sky coverage. We argue that this uncertainty is due to a marginalization over a more complete model of instrumental and astrophysical parameters, which results in more reliable and more rigorously defined uncertainties. We find that about 2000 Monte Carlo samples are required to achieve a robust convergence for a low-resolution cosmic microwave background (CMB) covariance matrix with 225 independent modes, and producing these samples takes about eight weeks on a modest computing cluster with 256 cores.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Cosmic shear in harmonic space from the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Data: compatibility with configuration space results

ABSTRACT We perform a cosmic shear analysis in harmonic space using the first year of data collected by the Dark Energy Survey (DES-Y1). We measure the cosmic weak lensing shear power spectra using the metacalibration catalogue and perform a likelihood analysis within the framework of CosmoSIS. We set scale cuts based on baryonic effects contamination and model redshift and shear calibration uncertainties as well as intrinsic alignments. We adopt as fiducial covariance matrix an analytical computation accounting for the mask geometry in the Gaussian term, including non-Gaussian contributions. A suite of 1200 lognormal simulations is used to validate the harmonic space pipeline and the covariance matrix. We perform a series of stress tests to gauge the robustness of the harmonic space analysis. Finally, we use the DES-Y1 pipeline in configuration space to perform a similar likelihood analysis and compare both results, demonstrating their compatibility in estimating the cosmological parameters S8, σ8, and Ωm. We use the DES-Y1 metacalibration shape catalogue, with photometric redshifts estimates in the range of 0.2−1.3, divided in four tomographic bins finding σ8(Ωm/0.3)0.5 = 0.766 ± 0.033 at 68 per cent CL. The methods implemented and validated in this paper will allow us to perform a consistent harmonic space analysis in the upcoming DES data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The DESI DR1 peculiar velocity survey: Growth rate measurements from the galaxy power spectrum

The large-scale structure of the Universe and its evolution encapsulate a wealth of cosmological information. A powerful means of unlocking this knowledge lies in measuring the auto-power spectrum and/or the cross-power spectrum of the galaxy density and momentum fields, followed by the estimation of cosmological parameters based on these spectrum measurements. In this study, we generalize the cross-power spectrum model to accommodate scenarios in which the density and momentum fields are derived from distinct galaxy surveys. The growth rate of the large-scale structures of the Universe, commonly represented as fσ 8 , was extracted by jointly fitting the monopole and quadrupole moments of the auto-density power spectrum, the monopole of the auto-momentum power spectrum, and the dipole of the cross-power spectrum. Our estimators, theoretical models, and parameter-fitting framework were tested using mocks, confirming their robustness and accuracy in retrieving the fiducial growth rate from simulation. These techniques were then applied to analyse the power spectrum of the DESI Bright Galaxy Survey and Peculiar Velocity Survey. The fit result of the growth rate is fσ8 = 0.440$^{+0.080}_{−0.096}$ at effective redshift zeff = 0.07. By synthesizing the fitting outcomes from correlation functions, maximum likelihood estimation, and the power spectrum, a consensus value is yielded of fσ 8 (z eff = 0.07) = 0.450$^{+0.055}_{−0.055}$, and correspondingly we obtain γ = 0.580$^{+0.110}_{−0.110}$, Ω m = 0.301$^{+0.011}_{−0.011}$, and σ 8 = 0.834$^{+0.032}_{−0.032}$. The measured fσ8 and γ are consistent with the prediction of the Λ cold dark matter model and general relativity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗