arXiv subjects

Alexander Mead

Publications and source records attributed to Alexander Mead.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

On constraining Cosmology and the Halo Mass Function with Weak Gravitational Lensing

The discrepancy between the weak lensing (WL) and the {\it Planck} measurements of $S_8$ has been a subject of several studies. These studies tend to show that a suppression of the amplitude of the mass power spectrum $P(k)$ at high $k$ could resolve it. The WL signal at small-scale is sensitive to various effects, such as baryonic effects and intrinsic alignment. The accuracy of $P(k)$ depends on the modelling precision of these effects. A common approach for calculating $P(k)$ relies on a halo model. Amongst the various components necessary for the construction of $P(k)$, the halo mass function (HMF) is an important one. Traditionally, the HMF has been assumed to follow a fixed model. Recent literature shows that baryonic physics, amongst several other factors, could affect the HMF. In this study, we investigate the impact of allowing the HMF to vary. This provides a way of testing the validity of the halo model-HMF calibration using data. We find that the {\it Planck} cosmology is not compatible with the vanilla HMF for both the DES-y3 and the KiDS-1000 data. When the cosmology and the HMF parameters are allowed to vary, the {\it Planck} cosmology is no longer in tension. The modified HMF predicts a matter power spectrum with a $\sim 25\%$ power loss at $k\sim 1~{\rm h/Mpc}$, in agreement with the recent studies. We show that Stage IV surveys will be able to measure the HMF parameters with a few percent accuracy.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Uncertain Evidence in Probabilistic Models and Stochastic Simulators

We consider the problem of performing Bayesian inference in probabilistic models where observations are accompanied by uncertainty, referred to as "uncertain evidence." We explore how to interpret uncertain evidence, and by extension the importance of proper interpretation as it pertains to inference about latent variables. We consider a recently-proposed method "distributional evidence" as well as revisit two older methods: Jeffrey's rule and virtual evidence. We devise guidelines on how to account for uncertain evidence and we provide new insights, particularly regarding consistency. To showcase the impact of different interpretations of the same uncertain evidence, we carry out experiments in which one interpretation is defined as "correct." We then compare inference results from each different interpretation illustrating the importance of careful consideration of uncertain evidence.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2022

KiDS-1000: Combined halo-model cosmology constraints from galaxy abundance, galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing

We present constraints on the flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model through a joint analysis of galaxy abundance, galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing observables with the Kilo-Degree Survey. Our theoretical model combines a flexible conditional stellar mass function, to describe the galaxy-halo connection, with a cosmological N-body simulation-calibrated halo model to describe the non-linear matter field. Our magnitude-limited bright galaxy sample combines 9-band optical-to-near-infrared photometry with an extensive and complete spectroscopic training sample to provide accurate redshift and stellar mass estimates. Our faint galaxy sample provides a background of accurately calibrated lensing measurements. We constrain the structure growth parameter $S_8=\sigma_8\sqrt{\Omega_{\mathrm{m}}/0.3}=0.773^{+0.028}_{-0.030}$, and the matter density parameter $\Omega_{\mathrm{m}}=0.290^{+0.021}_{-0.017}$. The galaxy-halo connection model adopted in the work is shown to be in agreement with previous studies. Our constraints on cosmological parameters are comparable to, and consistent with, joint $3\times2{\mathrm{pt}}$ clustering-lensing analyses that additionally include a cosmic shear observable. This analysis therefore brings attention to the significant constraining power in the often-excluded non-linear scales for galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing observables. By adopting a theoretical model that accounts for non-linear halo bias, halo exclusion, scale-dependent galaxy bias and the impact of baryon feedback, this work demonstrates the potential and a way forward to include non-linear scales in cosmological analyses. Varying the width of the satellite galaxy distribution with an additional parameter yields a strong preference for sub-Poissonian variance, improving the goodness of fit by 0.18 in reduced $\chi^{2}$ value compared to a fixed Poisson distribution.

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arXiv2022

The halo model with beyond-linear halo bias: unbiasing cosmological constraints from galaxy-galaxy lensing and clustering

We determine the error introduced in a joint halo model analysis of galaxy-galaxy lensing and galaxy clustering observables when adopting the standard approximation of linear halo bias. Considering the Kilo-Degree Survey, we forecast that ignoring the non-linear halo bias would result in up to 5$\sigma$ offsets in the recovered cosmological parameters describing structure growth, $S_8$, and the matter density parameter, $\Omega_{\mathrm{m}}$. We include the scales $10^{-1.3}<r_{\rm{p}} \ / h^{-1}\, \mathrm{Mpc}<10$ in the data vector, and the direction of these offsets are shown to depend on the freedom afforded to the halo model through other nuisance parameters. We conclude that a beyond-linear halo bias correction must therefore be included in future cosmological halo model analyses of large-scale structure observables on non-linear scales.

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arXiv2021

Constraining AGN feedback model with SZ profile

Relativistic jets from AGN have a wide range of impacts on galaxy groups and clusters and are key for understanding their formation and physical properties. However, this non-gravitational process is not well understood. Galaxy groups with shallow gravitational potentials are ideal laboratories to study and constrain the AGN feedback model. We studied hot gas in ~66,000 SDSS LRG halos with an average halo mass of 3 x 10^13 Msun using the Planck tSZ map. We have detected their average tSZ radial profile at ~17 sigma and compared it with the cosmo-OWLS cosmological hydrodynamical simulations with different AGN feedback models. The best agreement has been obtained for the AGN 8.0 model in the simulations. We have also compared our measured tSZ profile with the prediction from the universal pressure profile assuming the self-similar relation and found them consistent if the model accounts for the clustering of neighboring haloes via a two-halo term.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Probing galaxy bias and intergalactic gas pressure with KiDS Galaxies-tSZ-CMB lensing cross-correlations

We constrain the redshift dependence of gas pressure bias $\left\langle b_{y} P_{\mathrm{e}}\right\rangle$ (bias-weighted average electron pressure), which characterises the thermodynamics of intergalactic gas, through a combination of cross-correlations between galaxy positions and the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect, as well as galaxy positions and the gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The galaxy sample is from the fourth data release of the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS). The tSZ $y$ map and the CMB lensing map are from the {\textit{Planck}} 2015 and 2018 data releases, respectively. The measurements are performed in five redshift bins with $z\lesssim1$. With these measurements, combining galaxy-tSZ and galaxy-CMB lensing cross-correlations allows us to break the degeneracy between galaxy bias and gas pressure bias, and hence constrain them simultaneously. In all redshift bins, the best-fit values of $\bpe$ are at a level of $\sim 0.3\, \mathrm{meV/cm^3}$ and increase slightly with redshift. The galaxy bias is consistent with unity in all the redshift bins. Our results are not sensitive to the non-linear details of the cross-correlation, which are smoothed out by the {\textit{Planck}} beam. Our measurements are in agreement with previous measurements as well as with theoretical predictions. We also show that our conclusions are not changed when CMB lensing is replaced by galaxy lensing, which shows the consistency of the two lensing signals despite their radically different redshift ranges. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using CMB lensing to calibrate the galaxy distribution such that the galaxy distribution can be used as a mass proxy without relying on the precise knowledge of the matter distribution.

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arXiv2020

Including beyond-linear halo bias in halo models

We derive a simple prescription for including beyond-linear halo bias within the standard, analytical halo-model power spectrum calculation. This results in a corrective term that is added to the usual two-halo term. We measure this correction using data from $N$-body simulations and demonstrate that it can boost power in the two-halo term by a factor of $\sim2$ at scales $k\sim0.7\,h Mpc^{-1}$, with the exact magnitude of the boost determined by the specific pair of fields in the two-point function. How this translates to the full power spectrum depends on the relative strength of the one-halo term, which can mask the importance of this correction to a greater or lesser degree, again depending on the fields. Generally we find that our correction is more important for signals that arise from lower-mass haloes. When comparing our calculation to simulated data we find that the under-prediction of power in the transition region between the two- and one-halo terms, which typically plagues halo-model calculations, is almost completely eliminated when including the full non-linear halo bias. We show improved results for the auto and cross spectra of galaxies, haloes and matter. In the specific case of matter-matter or matter-halo power we note that a large fraction of the improvement comes from the non-linear biasing between low- and high-mass haloes. We envisage our model being useful in the analytical modelling of cross correlation signals. Our non-linear bias halo-model code is available at https://github.com/alexander-mead/BNL

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arXiv2020

KiDS-1000 Cosmology: constraints beyond flat $\Lambda$CDM

We present constraints on extensions to the flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model by varying the spatial curvature $\Omega_K$, the sum of the neutrino masses $\sum m_\nu$, the dark energy equation of state parameter $w$, and the Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ gravity $f_{R0}$ parameter. With the combined $3\times2$pt measurements of cosmic shear from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS-1000), galaxy clustering from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), and galaxy-galaxy lensing from the overlap between KiDS-1000, BOSS, and the spectroscopic 2-degree Field Lensing Survey (2dFLenS), we find results that are fully consistent with a flat $\Lambda$CDM model with $\Omega_K=0.011^{+0.054}_{-0.057}$, $\sum m_\nu<1.76$ eV (95% CL), and $w=-0.99^{+0.11}_{-0.13}$. The $f_{R0}$ parameter is unconstrained in our fully non-linear $f(R)$ cosmic shear analysis. Considering three different model selection criteria, we find no clear preference for either the fiducial flat $\Lambda$CDM model or any of the considered extensions. Besides extensions to the flat $\Lambda$CDM parameter space, we also explore restrictions to common subsets of the flat $\Lambda$CDM parameter space by fixing the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum to the Planck best-fit value, as well as adding external data from supernovae and lensing of the CMB. Neither the beyond-$\Lambda$CDM models nor the imposed restrictions explored in this analysis are able to resolve the $\sim 3\sigma$ tension in $S_8$ between the $3\times2$pt constraints and Planck, with the exception of $w$CDM, where the $S_8$ tension is resolved. The tension in the $w$CDM case persists, however, when considering the joint $S_8$-$w$ parameter space. The joint flat $\Lambda$CDM CMB lensing and $3\times2$pt analysis is found to yield tight constraints on $\Omega_{\rm m}=0.307^{+0.008}_{-0.013}$, $\sigma_8=0.769^{+0.022}_{-0.010}$, and $S_8=0.779^{+0.013}_{-0.013}$.

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arXiv2020

Impact of cosmological signatures in two-point statistics beyond the linear regime

Some beyond $\Lambda$CDM cosmological models have dark-sector energy densities that suffer phase transitions. Fluctuations entering the horizon during such a transition can receive enhancements that ultimately show up as a distinctive bump in the power spectrum relative to a model with no phase transition. In this work, we study the non-linear evolution of such signatures in the matter power spectrum and correlation function using N-body simulations, perturbation theory and HMcode - a halo-model based method. We focus on modelling the response, computed as the ratio of statistics between a model containing a bump and one without it, rather than in the statistics themselves. Instead of working with a specific theoretical model, we inject a parametric family of Gaussian bumps into otherwise standard $\Lambda$CDM spectra. We find that even when the primordial bump is located at linear scales, non-linearities tend to produce a second bump at smaller scales. This effect is understood within the halo model due to a more efficient halo formation. In redshift space these nonlinear signatures are partially erased because of the damping along the line-of-sight direction produced by non-coherent motions of particles at small scales. In configuration space, the bump modulates the correlation function reflecting as oscillations in the response, as it is clear in linear Eulerian theory; however, they become damped because large scale coherent flows have some tendency to occupy regions more depleted of particles. This mechanism is explained within Lagrangian Perturbation Theory and well captured by our simulations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

HMcode-2020: Improved modelling of non-linear cosmological power spectra with baryonic feedback

We present an updated version of the HMcode augmented halo model that can be used to make accurate predictions of the non-linear matter power spectrum over a wide range of cosmologies. Major improvements include modelling of BAO damping in the power spectrum and an updated treatment of massive neutrinos. We fit our model to simulated power spectra and show that we can match the results with an RMS error of 2.5 per cent across a range of cosmologies, scales $k < 10\,h\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$, and redshifts $z<2$. The error rarely exceeds 5 per cent and never exceeds 16 per cent. The worst-case errors occur at $z\simeq2$, or for cosmologies with unusual dark-energy equations of state. This represents a significant improvement over previous versions of HMcode, and over other popular fitting functions, particularly for massive-neutrino cosmologies with high neutrino mass. We also present a simple halo model that can be used to model the impact of baryonic feedback on the power spectrum. This six-parameter physical model includes gas expulsion by AGN feedback and encapsulates star formation. By comparing this model to data from hydrodynamical simulations we demonstrate that the power spectrum response to feedback is matched at the $<1$ per cent level for $z<1$ and $k<20\,h\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$. We also present a single-parameter variant of this model, parametrized in terms of feedback strength, which is only slightly less accurate. We make code available for our non-linear and baryon models at https://github.com/alexander-mead/HMcode and it is also available within CAMB and soon within CLASS.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Axion Quark Nugget Dark Matter: Time Modulations and Amplifications

We study the new mechanism of the axion production suggested recently in [1,2]. This mechanism is based on the so-called Axion Quark Nugget (AQN) dark matter model, which was originally invented to explain the similarity of the dark and visible cosmological matter densities. We perform numerical simulations to evaluate the axion flux on the Earth's surface. We examine annual and daily modulations, which have been studied previously and are known to occur for any type of dark matter. We also discuss a novel type of short time enhancements which are unique to the AQN model: the statistical fluctuations and burst-like amplification, both of which can drastically amplify the axion signal, up to a factor $\sim10^2-10^3$ for a very short period of time. The present work studies the AQN-induced axions within the mass window $10^{-6}{\rm\,eV}\lesssim m_a\lesssim10^{-3}\rm\,eV$ with typical velocities $\langle v_a\rangle\sim0.6c$. We also comment on the broadband detection strategy to search for such relativistic axions by studying the daily and annual time modulations as well as random burst-like amplifications.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Gravitationally trapped axions on Earth

We advocate for the idea that there is a fundamentally new mechanism for axion production on Earth, as recently suggested in Fischer et al. (2018) and Liang & Zhitnitsky (2018). We specifically focus on production of axions within Earth, with low velocities such that they will be trapped in the gravitational field. Our computations are based on the so-called Axion Quark Nugget (AQN) dark matter model, which was originally invented to explain the similarity of the dark and visible cosmological matter densities. This occurs in the model irrespective of the axion mass $m_\mathrm{a}$ or initial misalignment angle $\theta_0$. Annihilation of antimatter AQNs with visible matter inevitably produce axions when AQNs hit Earth. The emission rate of axions with velocities below escape velocity is very tiny compared to the overall emission, however these axions will be accumulated over the 4.5 billion year life time of the Earth, which greatly enhances the discovery potential. We perform numerical simulations with a realistically modeled incoming AQN velocity and mass distribution, and explore how AQNs interact as they travel through the interior of the Earth. We use this to estimate the axion flux on the surface of the Earth, the velocity-spectral features of trapped axions, the typical annihilation pattern of AQN, and the density profile of the axion halo around the Earth. Knowledge of these properties is necessary to make predictions for the observability of trapped axions using CAST, ADMX, MADMAX, CULTASK, ORPHEUS, ARIADNE, CASPEr, ABRACADABRA, QUAX, DM Radio.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Probing hot gas around luminous red galaxies through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect

We construct the mean thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) Comptonization y profile around Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) in the redshift range 0.16 < z < 0.47 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7) using the Planck y map. The mean central tSZ signal for the full sample is y ~ 1.8 * 10^(-7) and we detect tSZ emission out to ~30 arcmin, which is well beyond the 10 arcmin angular resolution of the y map and well beyond the virial radii of the LRGs. We compare the measured profile with predictions from the cosmo-OWLS suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. This comparison agrees well for models that include feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN), but not with hydrodynamic models without this energetic feedback mechanism. This suggests that an additional heating mechanism is required over SNe feedback and star formation to explain the y data profile. We also compare our results with predictions based on the halo model with a universal pressure profile (UPP) giving the y signal. The predicted profile is consistent with the data, but only if we account for the clustering of haloes via a two-halo term and if halo masses are estimated using the mean stellar-to-halo mass (SHM) relation of Coupon et al. (2015) or Wang et al.(2016) estimated from gravitational lensing measurements. We also discuss the importance of scatter in the SHM relation on the model predictions.

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arXiv2018

Core Cosmology Library: Precision Cosmological Predictions for LSST

The Core Cosmology Library (CCL) provides routines to compute basic cosmological observables to a high degree of accuracy, which have been verified with an extensive suite of validation tests. Predictions are provided for many cosmological quantities, including distances, angular power spectra, correlation functions, halo bias and the halo mass function through state-of-the-art modeling prescriptions available in the literature. Fiducial specifications for the expected galaxy distributions for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) are also included, together with the capability of computing redshift distributions for a user-defined photometric redshift model. A rigorous validation procedure, based on comparisons between CCL and independent software packages, allows us to establish a well-defined numerical accuracy for each predicted quantity. As a result, predictions for correlation functions of galaxy clustering, galaxy-galaxy lensing and cosmic shear are demonstrated to be within a fraction of the expected statistical uncertainty of the observables for the models and in the range of scales of interest to LSST. CCL is an open source software package written in C, with a python interface and publicly available at https://github.com/LSSTDESC/CCL.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

On the road to percent accuracy: nonlinear reaction of the matter power spectrum to dark energy and modified gravity

We present a general method to compute the nonlinear matter power spectrum for dark energy and modified gravity scenarios with percent-level accuracy. By adopting the halo model and nonlinear perturbation theory, we predict the reaction of a $\Lambda$CDM matter power spectrum to the physics of an extended cosmological parameter space. By comparing our predictions to $N$-body simulations we demonstrate that with no-free parameters we can recover the nonlinear matter power spectrum for a wide range of different $w_0$-$w_a$ dark energy models to better than 1% accuracy out to $k \approx 1 \, h \, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. We obtain a similar performance for both DGP and $f(R)$ gravity, with the nonlinear matter power spectrum predicted to better than 3% accuracy over the same range of scales. When including direct measurements of the halo mass function from the simulations, this accuracy improves to 1%. With a single suite of standard $\Lambda$CDM $N$-body simulations, our methodology provides a direct route to constrain a wide range of non-standard extensions to the concordance cosmology in the high signal-to-noise nonlinear regime.

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arXiv2017

A Search for Warm/Hot Gas Filaments Between Pairs of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies

We search the Planck data for a thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) signal due to gas filaments between pairs of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG's) taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12 (SDSS/DR12). We identify $\sim$260,000 LRG pairs in the DR12 catalog that lie within 6-10 $h^{-1} \mathrm{Mpc}$ of each other in tangential direction and within 6 $h^{-1} \mathrm{Mpc}$ in radial direction. We stack pairs by rotating and scaling the angular positions of each LRG so they lie on a common reference frame, then we subtract a circularly symmetric halo from each member of the pair to search for a residual signal between the pair members. We find a statistically significant (5.3$\sigma$) signal between LRG pairs in the stacked data with a magnitude $\Delta y = (1.31 \pm 0.25) \times 10^{-8}$. The uncertainty is estimated from two Monte Carlo null tests which also establish the reliability of our analysis. Assuming a simple, isothermal, cylindrical filament model of electron over-density with a radial density profile proportional to $r_c/r$ (as determined from simulations), where $r$ is the perpendicular distance from the cylinder axis and $r_c$ is the core radius of the density profile, we constrain the product of over-density and filament temperature to be $\delta_c \times (T_{\rm e}/10^7 \, {\rm K}) \times (r_c/0.5h^{-1} \, {\rm Mpc}) = 2.7 \pm 0.5$. To our knowledge, this is the first detection of filamentary gas at over-densities typical of cosmological large-scale structure. We compare our result to the BAHAMAS suite of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations (McCarthy et al. 2017) and find a slightly lower, but marginally consistent Comptonization excess, $\Delta y = (0.84 \pm 0.24) \times 10^{-8}$.

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arXiv2017

Perturbative Gaussianizing transforms for cosmological fields

Constraints on cosmological parameters from large-scale structure have traditionally been obtained from two-point statistics. However, non-linear structure formation renders these statistics insufficient in capturing the full information content available, necessitating the measurement of higher-order moments to recover information which would otherwise be lost. We construct quantities based on non-linear and non-local transformations of weakly non-Gaussian fields that Gaussianize the full multivariate distribution at a given order in perturbation theory. Our approach does not require a model of the fields themselves and takes as input only the first few polyspectra, which could be modelled or measured from simulations or data, making our method particularly suited to observables lacking a robust perturbative description such as the weak-lensing shear. We apply our method to simulated density fields, finding a significantly reduced bispectrum and an enhanced correlation with the initial field. We demonstrate that our method reconstructs a large proportion of the linear baryon acoustic oscillations, improving the information content over the raw field by 35%. We apply the transform to toy 21cm intensity maps, showing that our method still performs well in the presence of complications such as redshift-space distortions, beam smoothing, pixel noise, and foreground subtraction. We discuss how this method might provide a route to constructing a perturbative model of the fully non-Gaussian multivariate likelihood function.

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arXiv2017

KiDS-450 + 2dFLenS: Cosmological parameter constraints from weak gravitational lensing tomography and overlapping redshift-space galaxy clustering

We perform a combined analysis of cosmic shear tomography, galaxy-galaxy lensing tomography, and redshift-space multipole power spectra (monopole and quadrupole) using 450 deg$^2$ of imaging data by the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS) overlapping with two spectroscopic surveys: the 2-degree Field Lensing Survey (2dFLenS) and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). We restrict the galaxy-galaxy lensing and multipole power spectrum measurements to the overlapping regions with KiDS, and self-consistently compute the full covariance between the different observables using a large suite of $N$-body simulations. We methodically analyze different combinations of the observables, finding that galaxy-galaxy lensing measurements are particularly useful in improving the constraint on the intrinsic alignment amplitude (by 30%, positive at $3.5\sigma$ in the fiducial data analysis), while the multipole power spectra are useful in tightening the constraints along the lensing degeneracy direction (e.g. factor of two stronger matter density constraint in the fiducial analysis). The fully combined constraint on $S_8 \equiv \sigma_8 \sqrt{\Omega_{\rm m}/0.3} = 0.742 \pm 0.035$, which is an improvement by 20% compared to KiDS alone, corresponds to a $2.6\sigma$ discordance with Planck, and is not significantly affected by fitting to a more conservative set of scales. Given the tightening of the parameter space, we are unable to resolve the discordance with an extended cosmology that is simultaneously favored in a model selection sense, including the sum of neutrino masses, curvature, evolving dark energy, and modified gravity. The complementarity of our observables allows for constraints on modified gravity degrees of freedom that are not simultaneously bounded with either probe alone, and up to a factor of three improvement in the $S_8$ constraint in the extended cosmology compared to KiDS alone.

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