arXiv subjects

A. Carnero Rosell

Publications and source records attributed to A. Carnero Rosell.

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arXiv2025

DESI 2024 V: Full-Shape Galaxy Clustering from Galaxies and Quasars

We present the measurements and cosmological implications of the galaxy two-point clustering using over 4.7 million unique galaxy and quasar redshifts in the range $0.1<z<2.1$ divided into six redshift bins over a $\sim 7,500$ square degree footprint, from the first year of observations with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI Data Release 1). By fitting the full power spectrum, we extend previous DESI DR1 baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements to include redshift-space distortions and signals from the matter-radiation equality scale. For the first time, this Full-Shape analysis is blinded at the catalogue-level to avoid confirmation bias and the systematic errors are accounted for at the two-point clustering level, which automatically propagates them into any cosmological parameter. When analysing the data in terms of compressed model-agnostic variables, we obtain a combined precision of 4.7\% on the amplitude of the redshift space distortion signal reaching similar precision with just one year of DESI data than with 20 years of observation from previous generation surveys. We analyse the data to directly constrain the cosmological parameters within the $Λ$CDM model using perturbation theory and combine this information with the reconstructed DESI DR1 galaxy BAO. Using a Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Gaussian prior on the baryon density parameter, and a Gaussian prior on the spectral index, we constrain the matter density is $Ω_m=0.296\pm 0.010 $ and the Hubble constant $H_0=(68.63 \pm 0.79)[{\rm km\, s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}}]$. Additionally, we measure the amplitude of clustering $σ_8=0.841 \pm 0.034$. The DESI DR1 results are in agreement with the $Λ$CDM model based on general relativity with parameters consistent with those from Planck. The cosmological interpretation of these results in combination with external datasets are presented in a companion paper.

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arXiv2025

The DECADE cosmic shear project IV: cosmological constraints from 107 million galaxies across 5,400 deg$^2$ of the sky

We present cosmological constraints from the Dark Energy Camera All Data Everywhere (DECADE) cosmic shear analysis. This work uses shape measurements for 107 million galaxies measured through Dark Energy Camera (DECam) imaging of $5,\!412$ deg$^2$ of sky that is outside the Dark Energy Survey (DES) footprint. We derive constraints on the cosmological parameters $S_8 = 0.791^{+0.027}_{-0.032}$ and $Ω_{\rm m} =0.269^{+0.034}_{-0.050}$ for the $Λ$CDM model, which are consistent with those from other weak lensing surveys and from the cosmic microwave background. We combine our results with cosmic shear results from DES Y3 at the likelihood level, since the two datasets span independent areas on the sky. The combined measurements, which cover $\approx\! 10,\!000$ deg$^2$, prefer $S_8 = 0.791 \pm 0.023$ and $Ω_{\rm m} = 0.277^{+0.034}_{-0.046}$ under the $Λ$CDM model. These results are the culmination of a series of rigorous studies that characterize and validate the DECADE dataset and the associated analysis methodologies (Anbajagane et. al 2025a,b,c). Overall, the DECADE project demonstrates that the cosmic shear analysis methods employed in Stage-III weak lensing surveys can provide robust cosmological constraints for fairly inhomogeneous datasets. This opens the possibility of using data that have been previously categorized as ``unusable'' for cosmic shear analyses, thereby increasing the statistical power of upcoming weak lensing surveys.

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arXiv2025

DESI DR2 Results II: Measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and Cosmological Constraints

We present baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements from more than 14 million galaxies and quasars drawn from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Data Release 2 (DR2), based on three years of operation. For cosmology inference, these galaxy measurements are combined with DESI Lyman-$α$ forest BAO results presented in a companion paper. The DR2 BAO results are consistent with DESI DR1 and SDSS, and their distance-redshift relationship matches those from recent compilations of supernovae (SNe) over the same redshift range. The results are well described by a flat $Λ$CDM model, but the parameters preferred by BAO are in mild, $2.3σ$ tension with those determined from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), although the DESI results are consistent with the acoustic angular scale $θ_*$ that is well-measured by Planck. This tension is alleviated by dark energy with a time-evolving equation of state parametrized by $w_0$ and $w_a$, which provides a better fit to the data, with a favored solution in the quadrant with $w_0>-1$ and $w_a<0$. This solution is preferred over $Λ$CDM at $3.1σ$ for the combination of DESI BAO and CMB data. When also including SNe, the preference for a dynamical dark energy model over $Λ$CDM ranges from $2.8-4.2σ$ depending on which SNe sample is used. We present evidence from other data combinations which also favor the same behavior at high significance. From the combination of DESI and CMB we derive 95% upper limits on the sum of neutrino masses, finding $\sum m_ν<0.064$ eV assuming $Λ$CDM and $\sum m_ν<0.16$ eV in the $w_0w_a$ model. Unless there is an unknown systematic error associated with one or more datasets, it is clear that $Λ$CDM is being challenged by the combination of DESI BAO with other measurements and that dynamical dark energy offers a possible solution.

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arXiv2025

Constraints on Neutrino Physics from DESI DR2 BAO and DR1 Full Shape

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Collaboration has obtained robust measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the redshift range, $0.1 < z < 4.2$, based on the Lyman-$α$ forest and galaxies from Data Release 2 (DR2). We combine these measurements with external cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from Planck and ACT to place our tightest constraints yet on the sum of neutrino masses. Assuming the cosmological $Λ$CDM model and three degenerate neutrino states, we find $\sum m_ν<0.0642$ eV (95%) with a marginalized error of $σ(\sum m_ν)=0.020$ eV. We also constrain the effective number of neutrino species, finding $N_\rm{eff} = 3.23^{+0.35}_{-0.34}$ (95%), in line with the Standard Model prediction. When accounting for neutrino oscillation constraints, we find a preference for the normal mass ordering and an upper limit on the lightest neutrino mass of $m_l < 0.023$ eV (95%). However, we determine using frequentist and Bayesian methods that our constraints are in tension with the lower limits derived from neutrino oscillations. Correcting for the physical boundary at zero mass, we report a 95% Feldman-Cousins upper limit of $\sum m_ν<0.053$ eV, breaching the lower limit from neutrino oscillations. Considering a more general Bayesian analysis with an effective cosmological neutrino mass parameter, $\sum m_{ν,\rm{eff}}$, that allows for negative energy densities and removes unsatisfactory prior weight effects, we derive constraints that are in $3σ$ tension with the same oscillation limit. In the absence of unknown systematics, this finding could be interpreted as a hint of new physics not necessarily related to neutrinos. The preference of DESI and CMB data for an evolving dark energy model offers one possible solution. In the $w_0w_a$CDM model, we find $\sum m_ν<0.163$ eV (95%), relaxing the neutrino tension. [Abridged]

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arXiv2025

The Dark Energy Survey: Cosmology Results With ~1500 New High-redshift Type Ia Supernovae Using The Full 5-year Dataset

We present cosmological constraints from the sample of Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) discovered during the full five years of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Supernova Program. In contrast to most previous cosmological samples, in which SN are classified based on their spectra, we classify the DES SNe using a machine learning algorithm applied to their light curves in four photometric bands. Spectroscopic redshifts are acquired from a dedicated follow-up survey of the host galaxies. After accounting for the likelihood of each SN being a SN Ia, we find 1635 DES SNe in the redshift range $0.10 0.5$ SNe compared to the previous leading compilation of Pantheon+, and results in the tightest cosmological constraints achieved by any SN data set to date. To derive cosmological constraints we combine the DES supernova data with a high-quality external low-redshift sample consisting of 194 SNe Ia spanning $0.025<z<0.10$. Using SN data alone and including systematic uncertainties we find $Ω_{\rm M}=0.352\pm 0.017$ in flat $Λ$CDM. Supernova data alone now require acceleration ($q_0<0$ in $Λ$CDM) with over $5σ$ confidence. We find $(Ω_{\rm M},w)=(0.264^{+0.074}_{-0.096},-0.80^{+0.14}_{-0.16})$ in flat $w$CDM. For flat $w_0w_a$CDM, we find $(Ω_{\rm M},w_0,w_a)=(0.495^{+0.033}_{-0.043},-0.36^{+0.36}_{-0.30},-8.8^{+3.7}_{-4.5})$. Including Planck CMB data, SDSS BAO data, and DES $3\times2$-point data gives $(Ω_{\rm M},w)=(0.321\pm0.007,-0.941\pm0.026)$. In all cases dark energy is consistent with a cosmological constant to within $\sim2σ$. In our analysis, systematic errors on cosmological parameters are subdominant compared to statistical errors; paving the way for future photometrically classified supernova analyses.

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arXiv2025

The final WaZP galaxy cluster catalog of the Dark Energy Survey and comparison with SZE data

In this work, we present and characterize the galaxy cluster catalog detected by the WaZP cluster finder, which is not based on red-sequence identification, on the full six years of observations of the Dark Energy Survey (DES-Y6). The full catalog contains over 400k detected clusters with richnesses, Ngals, above 5 and that reach redshifts up to 1.3. We also provide a version of the catalog where the observation depth and richness computation are homogenized to be used for cosmology, containing 33k rich (Ngals >25) clusters. We compare our results with the previous WaZP catalog obtained from the DES first-year data release (DES-Y1). We find that essentially all clusters within the common footprint and depth limit are recovered. The deeper observations on DES-Y6 and the more complete available spectroscopic redshift sample lead to improvements in the redshifts of the clusters, resulting in an average scatter of 1.4% and offset of 0.2%. The optical clusters are also cross-matched with Sunyaev Zel'dovich Effect (SZE) cluster samples detected by the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). We find that essentially all SZE clusters with reasonable overlapping footprint have a corresponding WaZP cluster. Conversely, 90% of the optical detections with richness greater than 150 have a counterpart in the deeper regions of the SZE surveys. Based on cross-match with the SZE catalogs, we also find that 15-20% of the SZE matched systems have more than one possible WaZP counterpart at the same redshift and within the SZE R500c, indicating possible interacting or unrelaxed systems. Finally, given the optical and SZE beams, WaZP and SZE centerings are found to be consistent. A more detailed study of the SZE-WaZP mass-richness relation will be presented in a separate paper.

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arXiv2025

DESI DR2 Results I: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from the Lyman Alpha Forest

We present the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) measurements with the Lyman-alpha (LyA) forest from the second data release (DR2) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey. Our BAO measurements include both the auto-correlation of the LyA forest absorption observed in the spectra of high-redshift quasars and the cross-correlation of the absorption with the quasar positions. The total sample size is approximately a factor of two larger than the DR1 dataset, with forest measurements in over 820,000 quasar spectra and the positions of over 1.2 million quasars. We describe several significant improvements to our analysis in this paper, and two supporting papers describe improvements to the synthetic datasets that we use for validation and how we identify damped LyA absorbers. Our main result is that we have measured the BAO scale with a statistical precision of 1.1% along and 1.3% transverse to the line of sight, for a combined precision of 0.65% on the isotropic BAO scale at $z_{eff} = 2.33$. This excellent precision, combined with recent theoretical studies of the BAO shift due to nonlinear growth, motivated us to include a systematic error term in LyA BAO analysis for the first time. We measure the ratios $D_H(z_{eff})/r_d = 8.632 \pm 0.098 \pm 0.026$ and $D_M(z_{eff})/r_d = 38.99 \pm 0.52 \pm 0.12$, where $D_H = c/H(z)$ is the Hubble distance, $D_M$ is the transverse comoving distance, $r_d$ is the sound horizon at the drag epoch, and we quote both the statistical and the theoretical systematic uncertainty. The companion paper presents the BAO measurements at lower redshifts from the same dataset and the cosmological interpretation.

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arXiv2025

Constraints on cosmology and baryonic feedback with joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 lensing data and ACT DR6 thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect observations

We present a joint analysis of weak gravitational lensing (shear) data obtained from the first three years of observations by the Dark Energy Survey and thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect measurements from a combination of Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and Planck data. A combined analysis of shear (which traces the projected mass) with the tSZ effect (which traces the projected gas pressure) can jointly probe both the distribution of matter and the thermodynamic state of the gas, accounting for the correlated effects of baryonic feedback on both observables. We detect the shear$~\times~$tSZ cross-correlation at a 21$σ$ significance, the highest to date, after minimizing the bias from cosmic infrared background leakage in the tSZ map. By jointly modeling the small-scale shear auto-correlation and the shear$~\times~$tSZ cross-correlation, we obtain $S_8 = 0.811^{+0.015}_{-0.012}$ and $Ω_{\rm m} = 0.263^{+0.023}_{-0.030}$, results consistent with primary CMB analyses from Planck and P-ACT. We find evidence for reduced thermal gas pressure in dark matter halos with masses $M < 10^{14} \, M_{\odot}/h$, supporting predictions of enhanced feedback from active galactic nuclei on gas thermodynamics. A comparison of the inferred matter power suppression reveals a $2-4σ$ tension with hydrodynamical simulations that implement mild baryonic feedback, as our constraints prefer a stronger suppression. Finally, we investigate biases from cosmic infrared background leakage in the tSZ-shear cross-correlation measurements, employing mitigation techniques to ensure a robust inference. Our code is publicly available on GitHub.

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arXiv2025

Full-Shape analysis of the power spectrum and bispectrum of DESI DR1 LRG and QSO samples

We present the first joint analysis of the power spectrum and bispectrum using the Data Release 1 (DR1) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), focusing on Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) and quasars (QSOs) across a redshift range of $0.4\leq z\leq2.1$. By combining the two- and three-point statistics, we are able to partially break the degeneracy between the logarithmic growth rate, $f(z)$, and the amplitude of dark matter fluctuations, $σ_\textrm{s8}(z)$, which cannot be measured separately in analyses that only involve the power spectrum. In comparison with the (fiducial) Planck $Λ$CDM cosmology we obtain $f/f^\textrm{fid}=\{0.888_{-0.089}^{+0.186},0.977_{-0.220}^{+0.182},1.030_{-0.085}^{+0.368}\}$, $σ_{s8}/σ^\textrm{fid}_\textrm{s8}=\{1.224_{-0.133}^{+0.091},1.071_{-0.163}^{+0.278},1.000_{-0.223}^{+0.088}\}$ respectively for the three LRG redshift bins, corresponding to a cumulative 10.1\% constraint on $f$, and of 8.4\% on $σ_\textrm{s8}$, including the systematic error budget. The cumulative constraints for the ShapeFit compressed parameters from our joint power spectrum-bispectrum analysis are respectively $σ_{α_\textrm{iso}}=0.9\%$ (9\% improvement with respect to our power spectrum-only analysis); $σ_{α_\textrm{AP}}=2.3\%$ (no improvement with respect to power spectrum-only analysis, which is expected given that the bispectrum monopole has no significant anisotropic signal); $σ_{fσ_\textrm{s8}}=5.1\%$ (9\% improvement); $σ_{m+n}=2.3\%$ (11\% improvement). These results are fully consistent with the main DESI power spectrum analysis, demonstrating the robustness of the DESI cosmological constraints, and compatible with Planck $Λ$CDM cosmology.

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arXiv2025

Dark Energy Survey Year 6 Results: Synthetic-source Injection Across the Full Survey Using Balrog

Synthetic source injection (SSI), the insertion of sources into pixel-level on-sky images, is a powerful method for characterizing object detection and measurement in wide-field, astronomical imaging surveys. Within the Dark Energy Survey (DES), SSI plays a critical role in characterizing all necessary algorithms used in converting images to catalogs, and in deriving quantities needed for the cosmology analysis, such as object detection rates, galaxy redshift estimation, galaxy magnification, star-galaxy classification, and photometric performance. We present here a source injection catalog of $146$ million injections spanning the entire 5000 deg$^2$ DES footprint, generated using the Balrog SSI pipeline. Through this sample, we demonstrate that the DES Year 6 (Y6) image processing pipeline provides accurate estimates of the object properties, for both galaxies and stars, at the percent-level, and we highlight specific regimes where the accuracy is reduced. We then show the consistency between SSI and data catalogs, for all galaxy samples developed within the weak lensing and galaxy clustering analyses of DES Y6. The consistency between the two catalogs also extends to their correlations with survey observing properties (seeing, airmass, depth, extinction, etc.). Finally, we highlight a number of applications of this catalog to the DES Y6 cosmology analysis. This dataset is the largest SSI catalog produced at this fidelity and will serve as a key testing ground for exploring the utility of SSI catalogs in upcoming surveys such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time.

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arXiv2025

Improving Galaxy Cluster Selection with the Outskirt Stellar Mass of Galaxies

The number density and redshift evolution of optically selected galaxy clusters offer an independent measurement of the amplitude of matter fluctuations, $S_8$. However, recent results have shown that clusters chosen by the redMaPPer algorithm show richness-dependent biases that affect the weak lensing signals and number densities of clusters, increasing uncertainty in the cluster mass calibration and reducing their constraining power. In this work, we evaluate an alternative cluster proxy, outskirt stellar mass, $M_{\textrm{out}}$, defined as the total stellar mass within a $[50,100]$ kpc envelope centered on a massive galaxy. This proxy exhibits scatter comparable to redMaPPer richness, $λ$, but is less likely to be subject to projection effects. We compare the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 redMaPPer cluster catalog with a $M_{\textrm{out}}$ selected cluster sample from the Hyper-Suprime Camera survey. We use weak lensing measurements to quantify and compare the scatter of $M_{\textrm{out}}$ and $λ$ with halo mass. Our results show $M_{\textrm{out}}$ has a scatter consistent with $λ$, with a similar halo mass dependence, and that both proxies contain unique information about the underlying halo mass. We find $λ$-selected samples introduce features into the measured $ΔΣ$ signal that are not well fit by a log-normal scatter only model, absent in $M_{\textrm{out}}$ selected samples. Our findings suggest that $M_{\textrm{out}}$ offers an alternative for cluster selection with more easily calibrated selection biases, at least at the generally lower richnesses probed here. Combining both proxies may yield a mass proxy with a lower scatter and more tractable selection biases, enabling the use of lower mass clusters in cosmology. Finally, we find the scatter and slope in the $λ-M_{\textrm{out}}$ scaling relation to be $0.49 \pm 0.02$ and $0.38 \pm 0.09$.

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arXiv2025

Fiducial-Cosmology-dependent systematics for the DESI 2024 BAO Analysis

When measuring the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) scale from galaxy surveys, one typically assumes a fiducial cosmology when converting redshift measurements into comoving distances and also when defining input parameters for the reconstruction algorithm. A parameterised template for the model to be fitted is also created based on a (possibly different) fiducial cosmology. This model reliance can be considered a form of data compression, and the data is then analysed allowing that the true answer is different from the fiducial cosmology assumed. In this study, we evaluate the impact of the fiducial cosmology assumed in the BAO analysis of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey Data Release 1 (DR1) on the final measurements in DESI 2024 III. We utilise a suite of mock galaxy catalogues with survey realism that mirrors the DESI DR1 tracers: the bright galaxy sample (BGS), the luminous red galaxies (LRG), the emission line galaxies (ELG) and the quasars (QSO), spanning a redshift range from 0.1 to 2.1. We compare the four secondary AbacusSummit cosmologies against DESI's fiducial cosmology (Planck 2018). The secondary cosmologies explored include a lower cold dark matter density, a thawing dark energy universe, a higher number of effective species, and a lower amplitude of matter clustering. The mocks are processed through the BAO pipeline by consistently iterating the grid, template, and reconstruction reference cosmologies. We determine a conservative systematic contribution to the error of $0.1\%$ for both the isotropic and anisotropic dilation parameters $α_{\rm iso}$ and $α_{\rm AP}$. We then directly test the impact of the fiducial cosmology on DESI DR1 data.

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arXiv2025

Characterization of DESI fiber assignment incompleteness effect on 2-point clustering and mitigation methods for DR1 analysis

We present an in-depth analysis of the fiber assignment incompleteness in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Data Release 1 (DR1). This incompleteness is caused by the restricted mobility of the robotic fiber positioner in the DESI focal plane, which limits the number of galaxies that can be observed at the same time, especially at small angular separations. As a result, the observed clustering amplitude is suppressed in a scale-dependent manner, which, if not addressed, can severely impact the inference of cosmological parameters. We discuss the methods adopted for simulating fiber assignment on mocks and data. In particular, we introduce the fast fiber assignment (FFA) emulator, which was employed to obtain the power spectrum covariance adopted for the DR1 full-shape analysis. We present the mitigation techniques, organised in two classes: measurement stage and model stage. We then use high fidelity mocks as a reference to quantify both the accuracy of the FFA emulator and the effectiveness of the different measurement-stage mitigation techniques. This complements the studies conducted in a parallel paper for the model-stage techniques, namely the $θ$-cut approach. We find that pairwise inverse probability (PIP) weights with angular upweighting recover the "true" clustering in all the cases considered, in both Fourier and configuration space. Notably, we present the first ever power spectrum measurement with PIP weights from real data.

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arXiv2025

Cosmological implications of DESI DR2 BAO measurements in light of the latest ACT DR6 CMB data

We report cosmological results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) when combined with recent data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). By jointly analyzing ACT and Planck data and applying conservative cuts to overlapping multipole ranges, we assess how different Planck+ACT dataset combinations affect consistency with DESI. While ACT alone exhibits a tension with DESI exceeding 3$σ$ within the $Λ$CDM model, this discrepancy is reduced when ACT is analyzed in combination with Planck. For our baseline DESI DR2 BAO+Planck PR4+ACT likelihood combination, the preference for evolving dark energy over a cosmological constant is about 3$σ$, increasing to over 4$σ$ with the inclusion of Type Ia supernova data. While the dark energy results remain quite consistent across various combinations of Planck and ACT likelihoods with those obtained by the DESI collaboration, the constraints on neutrino mass are more sensitive, ranging from $\sum m_ν< 0.061$ eV in our baseline analysis, to $\sum m_ν< 0.077$ eV (95\% confidence level) in the CMB likelihood combination chosen by ACT when imposing the physical prior $\sum m_ν>0$ eV.

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arXiv2025

Discovering Strong Gravitational Lenses in the Dark Energy Survey with Interactive Machine Learning and Crowd-sourced Inspection with Space Warps

We conduct a search for strong gravitational lenses in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 6 imaging data. We implement a pre-trained Vision Transformer (ViT) for our machine learning (ML) architecture and adopt Interactive Machine Learning to construct a training sample with multiple classes to address common types of false positives. Our ML model reduces 236 million DES cutout images to 22,564 targets of interest, including around 85% of previously reported galaxy-galaxy lens candidates discovered in DES. These targets were visually inspected by citizen scientists, who ruled out approximately 90% as false positives. Of the remaining 2,618 candidates, 149 were expert-classified as 'definite' lenses and 516 as 'probable' lenses, with 147 of these candidates being newly identified. Additionally, we trained a second ViT to find double-source plane lens systems, finding at least one double-source system. Our main ViT excels at identifying galaxy-galaxy lenses, consistently assigning high scores to candidates with high confidence. The top 800 ViT-scored images include around 100 of our `definite' lens candidates. This selection is an order of magnitude higher in purity than previous convolutional neural network-based lens searches and demonstrates the feasibility of applying our methodology for discovering large samples of lenses in future surveys.

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arXiv2025

High-Significance Detection of Correlation Between the Unresolved Gamma-Ray Background and the Large Scale Cosmic Structure

Our understanding of the $γ$-ray sky has improved dramatically in the past decade, however, the unresolved $γ$-ray background (UGRB) still has a potential wealth of information about the faintest $γ$-ray sources pervading the Universe. Statistical cross-correlations with tracers of cosmic structure can indirectly identify the populations that most characterize the $γ$-ray background. In this study, we analyze the angular correlation between the $γ$-ray background and the matter distribution in the Universe as traced by gravitational lensing, leveraging more than a decade of observations from the Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) and 3 years of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We detect a correlation at signal-to-noise ratio of 8.9. Most of the statistical significance comes from large scales, demonstrating, for the first time, that a substantial portion of the UGRB aligns with the mass clustering of the Universe as traced by weak lensing. Blazars provide a plausible explanation for this signal, especially if those contributing to the correlation reside in halos of large mass ($\sim 10^{14} M_{\odot}$) and account for approximately 30-40 % of the UGRB above 10 GeV. Additionally, we observe a preference for a curved $γ$-ray energy spectrum, with a log-parabolic shape being favored over a power-law. We also discuss the possibility of modifications to the blazar model and the inclusion of additional $gamma$-ray sources, such as star-forming galaxies or particle dark matter.

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arXiv2025

Superclustering with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Dark Energy Survey: II. Anisotropic large-scale coherence in hot gas, galaxies, and dark matter

Statistics that capture the directional dependence of the baryon distribution in the cosmic web enable unique tests of cosmology and astrophysical feedback. We use constrained oriented stacking of thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) maps to measure the anisotropic distribution of hot gas $2.5-40$ Mpc away from galaxy clusters embedded in massive filaments and superclusters. The cluster selection and orientation (at a scale of $\sim15$ Mpc) use Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 3 data, while expanded tSZ maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Data Release 6 enable a $\sim3\times$ more significant measurement of the extended gas compared to the technique's proof-of-concept. Decomposing stacks into cosine multipoles of order $m$, we detect a dipole ($m=1$) and quadrupole ($m=2$) at $8-10σ$, as well as evidence for $m=4$ signal at up to $6σ$, indicating sensitivity to late-time non-Gaussianity. We compare to the Cardinal simulations with spherical gas models pasted onto dark matter halos. The fiducial tSZ data can discriminate between two models that deplete pressure differently in low-mass halos (mimicking astrophysical feedback), preferring higher average pressure in extended structures. However, uncertainty in the amount of cosmic infrared background contamination reduces the constraining power. Additionally, we apply the technique to DES galaxy density and weak lensing to study for the first time their oriented relationships with tSZ. In the tSZ-to-lensing relation, averaged on 7.5 Mpc (transverse) scales, we observe dependence on redshift but not shape or radial distance. Thus, on large scales, the superclustering of gas pressure, galaxies, and total matter is coherent in shape and extent.

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arXiv2025

Extended Dark Energy analysis using DESI DR2 BAO measurements

We conduct an extended analysis of dark energy constraints, in support of the findings of the DESI DR2 cosmology key paper, including DESI data, Planck CMB observations, and three different supernova compilations. Using a broad range of parametric and non-parametric methods, we explore the dark energy phenomenology and find consistent trends across all approaches, in good agreement with the $w_0w_a$CDM key paper results. Even with the additional flexibility introduced by non-parametric approaches, such as binning and Gaussian Processes, we find that extending $Λ$CDM to include a two-parameter $w(z)$ is sufficient to capture the trends present in the data. Finally, we examine three dark energy classes with distinct dynamics, including quintessence scenarios satisfying $w \geq -1$, to explore what underlying physics can explain such deviations. The current data indicate a clear preference for models that feature a phantom crossing; although alternatives lacking this feature are disfavored, they cannot yet be ruled out. Our analysis confirms that the evidence for dynamical dark energy, particularly at low redshift ($z \lesssim 0.3$), is robust and stable under different modeling choices.

astro-ph.CO↗