arXiv subjects

Antony Lewis

Publications and source records attributed to Antony Lewis.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

CAMB v2: cosmological power spectra for high-precision surveys

Upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale-structure surveys require theoretical power spectra with numerical errors well below their observational uncertainties over the scales that carry most of the constraining power. We describe a substantial update to CAMB designed to provide fast, high-precision predictions for two key outputs: the lensed CMB and matter power spectra. The central development is a new treatment of the hyperspherical Bessel functions used for line-of-sight integration in non-flat cosmologies. A leading-order Olver construction maps the curved radial equation onto the flat spherical Bessel equation by matching their actions through the turning point. The resulting approximation is exact in the flat limit, remains smooth through the turning point, and reduces near flatness to a simple rescaling of the flat Bessel argument and amplitude. We also describe updated integrators, a recalibrated fast recombination model, stabilized parameterized post-Friedmann dark-energy evolution, and improvements to CMB lensing accuracy. Numerical convergence is assessed by comparing unboosted default results against more converged calculations. The defaults meet conservative $10^{-3}$ pointwise convergence targets over the main lensed-CMB and quasi-linear matter-power ranges relevant for future surveys. Errors measured in typical runs are substantially smaller than this. We also describe the convention dependence of the nominally linear matter power spectrum when a homogeneous calculation attempts to represent the effects of reionization heating. Essentially all of the new algorithms and code were developed with LLMs or AI agents under human supervision.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

Unified dark fluid with null sound speed as an alternative to phantom dark energy

Recent BAO measurements from DESI, when combined with CMB and supernovae data, suggest evolving dark energy and in particular point to a possible phantom regime, with an equation of state parameter $w<-1$. We explore an alternative phenomenological way to model dark matter and dark energy based on a unified dark fluid (UDF). By construction, our model reproduces the same background expansion history as DESI's best-fit using the CPL parametrization, but assumes a vanishing rest-frame sound speed and no anisotropic stress. This simple prescription ensures a consistent and physical treatment of perturbations and, in our case, the use of a unified dark sector avoids phantom behaviour. We model CMB, LSS, and redshift-space distortion observables, and find mostly small differences with CPL, suggesting that while stage IV CMB and galaxy surveys will be able to test these models, achieving a decisive distinction between them may prove challenging on linear scales. At the non-linear level, we study spherical collapse in the UDF and show that within this framework, structure formation proceeds very similarly to standard scenarios. Using Planck, DESI BAO DR2, and DES Y5 supernovae data, we demonstrate that this simple UDF model fits current observations nearly as well as CPL, while treating perturbations consistently. Because most cosmological observations are not sensitive to how the dark sector is split, the unified framework can also approximate the phenomenology of interacting dark energy-dark matter scenarios or evolving dark matter, making it a general way to model the data, at least as long as the dark components have a vanishing sound speed, which is the most distinctive feature of our analysis. Our results highlight that a unified dark fluid with evolving equation of state and null sound speed is sufficient to pass current constraints without invoking a phantom component.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

Open Source Planning & Control System with Language Agents for Autonomous Scientific Discovery

We present a multi-agent system for automation of scientific research tasks, cmbagent (https://github.com/CMBAgents/cmbagent). The system is formed by about 30 Large Language Model (LLM) agents and implements a Planning & Control strategy to orchestrate the agentic workflow, with no human-in-the-loop at any point. Each agent specializes in a different task (performing retrieval on scientific papers and codebases, writing code, interpreting results, critiquing the output of other agents) and the system is able to execute code locally. We successfully apply cmbagent to carry out a PhD level cosmology task (the measurement of cosmological parameters using supernova data) and evaluate its performance on two benchmark sets, finding superior performance over state-of-the-art LLMs. The source code is available on GitHub, demonstration videos are also available, and the system is deployed on HuggingFace and will be available on the cloud.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2025

Improving CMB constraints on early Universe physics with LSS: A multi-probe forecast including cross-covariance

Extensions to the $\Lambda\textrm{CDM}$ model prior to recombination can modify the growth of perturbations around radiation-matter equality, leaving a distinct signature in the matter power spectrum. Upcoming large-scale structure surveys will be sensitive to these features, allowing tests of early physics that are complementary to the CMB observations. In this paper, we forecast how well the combination of galaxy clustering, weak lensing and CMB lensing two point statistics, also known as $6\times2$pt analysis, will tighten constraints on extensions to the $\Lambda\textrm{CDM}$ model in the early Universe. We find significant improvements, in particular in the case of early dark energy, where the uncertainty on its density parameter could be divided by a factor of $3$ to $4$ when combining Euclid observables with Simons Observatory or CMB-S4, compared to using CMB observations alone. Testing for different scale cuts, we find that much of the constraining power comes from the largest scales which are less prone to systematic uncertainties. We take into account the most significant terms in the cross-covariance between large-scale structure tracers and CMB power spectra, which arises from gravitational lensing. Assessing the impact of this additional cross-covariance on the constraints, we find small corrections for most parameters, except for $A_s$ and $\tau$ where the lensing induced covariance leads to a more significant degradation of constraints. This forecast analysis highlights the potential of combining CMB and galaxy survey data to test the cosmological model. In particular, early Universe physics, relevant before recombination, stands out as a promising area that benefits substantially from this approach.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Understanding acoustic scale observations: the one-sided fight against $\Lambda$

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) provide precise measurements of the cosmic expansion history through the comoving acoustic scale. The CMB angular scale measurement $\theta_*$ is particularly robust, constraining the ratio of the sound horizon to the angular diameter distance to last scattering independently of the late-time cosmological model. For models with standard early-universe physics, this measurement strongly constrains possible deviations from $\Lambda$CDM at late times. We show that the null energy condition imposes strict inequalities on the BAO observables $D_H(z)$, $D_M(z)$, $D_V(z)$ and $F_{\rm AP}(z)$ relative to $\Lambda$CDM predictions. These inequalities demonstrate that certain deviations from $\Lambda$CDM are impossible for any physical non-interacting dark energy model that respects the null energy condition within the context of FRW cosmological models. We also identify the regions of parameter space in the CPL parameterization $w(a) = w_0 + w_a(1-a)$ that can give predictions consistent with both the null energy condition and the observed CMB scale. While current DESI DR2 BAO measurements exhibit some joint-constraint parameter tensions with $\Lambda$CDM, this tension arises primarily in directions that are inconsistent with the null-energy condition, so $\Lambda$CDM is favoured by current acoustic scale measurements unless the null-energy condition is violated.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Multi-Agent System for Cosmological Parameter Analysis

Multi-agent systems (MAS) utilizing multiple Large Language Model agents with Retrieval Augmented Generation and that can execute code locally may become beneficial in cosmological data analysis. Here, we illustrate a first small step towards AI-assisted analyses and a glimpse of the potential of MAS to automate and optimize scientific workflows in Cosmology. The system architecture of our example package, that builds upon the autogen/ag2 framework, can be applied to MAS in any area of quantitative scientific research. The particular task we apply our methods to is the cosmological parameter analysis of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope lensing power spectrum likelihood using Monte Carlo Markov Chains. Our work-in-progress code is open source and available at https://github.com/CMBAgents/cmbagent.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2024

A flexible parameterization to test early physics solutions to the Hubble tension with future CMB data

One approach to reconciling local measurements of a high expansion rate with observations of acoustic oscillations in the CMB and galaxy clustering (the "Hubble tension") is to introduce additional contributions to the $\Lambda$CDM model that are relevant before recombination. While numerous possibilities exist, none are currently well-motivated or preferred by data. However, future CMB experiments, which will measure acoustic peaks to much smaller scales and resolve polarization signals with higher signal-to-noise over large sky areas, should detect almost any such modification at high significance. We propose a model-agnostic method to capture most relevant possible deviations from $\Lambda$CDM due to additional non-interacting components, while remaining sufficiently constraining to enable detection across various scenarios. The phenomenological model uses a fluid model with four parameters governing additional density contributions that peak at different redshifts, and two sound speed parameters. We forecast possible constraints with Simons Observatory, explore parameter degeneracies that arise in $\Lambda$CDM, and demonstrate that this method could detect a range of specific models. Which of the new parameters gets excited can indicate the nature of any new physics, while the generality of the model allows for testing with future data in a way that should not be plagued by a posteriori choices or publication bias. When testing our model with Planck data, we find good consistency with the $\Lambda$CDM model, but the data also allows for large Hubble parameter, especially if the sound speed of an additional component is not too different to that of radiation.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Spherical bispectrum expansion and quadratic estimators

We describe a general expansion of spherical (full-sky) bispectra into a set of orthogonal modes. For squeezed shapes, the basis separates physically-distinct signals and is dominated by the lowest moments. In terms of reduced bispectra, we identify a set of discrete polynomials that are pairwise orthogonal with respect to the relevant Wigner 3j symbol, and reduce to Chebyshev polynomials in the flat-sky (high-momentum) limit for both parity-even and parity-odd cases. For squeezed shapes, the flat-sky limit is equivalent to previous moment expansions used for CMB bispectra and quadratic estimators, but in general reduces to a distinct expansion in the angular dependence of triangles at fixed total side length (momentum). We use the full-sky expansion to construct a tower of orthogonal CMB lensing quadratic estimators and construct estimators that are immune to foregrounds like point sources or noise inhomogeneities. In parity-even combinations (such as the lensing gradient mode from $TT$, or the lensing curl mode from $EB$) the leading two modes can be identified with information from the magnification and shear respectively, whereas the parity-odd combinations are shear-only. Although not directly separable, we show that these estimators can nonetheless be evaluated numerically sufficiently easily.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Detectable signals of post-Born lensing curl B-modes

Curl lensing, also known as lensing field-rotation or shear B-modes, is a distinct post-Born observable caused by two lensing deflections at different redshifts (lens-lens coupling). For the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the field-rotation is approximately four orders of magnitude smaller than the CMB lensing convergence. Direct detection is therefore challenging for near-future CMB experiments such as the Simons Observatory (SO) or CMB `Stage-4' (CMB-S4). Instead, the curl can be probed in cross-correlation between a direct reconstruction and a template formed using pairs of large-scale structure (LSS) tracers to emulate the lens-lens coupling. In this paper, we derive a new estimator for the optimal curl template specifically adapted for curved-sky applications, and test it against non-Gaussian complications using N-body cosmology simulations. We find non-foreground biases to the curl cross-spectrum are purely Gaussian at the sensitivity of SO. However, higher-order curl contractions induce non-Gaussian bias at the order of $1\sigma$ for CMB-S4 using quadratic estimators (QE). Maximum a-Posteriori (MAP) lensing estimators significantly reduce biases for both SO and CMB-S4, in agreement with our analytic predictions. We also show that extragalactic foregrounds in the CMB can bias curl measurements at order of the signal, and evaluate a variety of mitigation strategies to control these biases for SO-like experiments. Near-future observations will be able to measure post-Born lensing curl B-modes.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Impact of post-Born lensing on the CMB

Lensing of the CMB is affected by post-Born lensing, producing corrections to the convergence power spectrum and introducing field rotation. We show numerically that the lensing convergence power spectrum is affected at the $\lesssim 0.2\%$ level on accessible scales, and that this correction and the field rotation are negligible for observations with arcminute beam and noise levels $\gtrsim 1 μ{\text{K}}\,{\text{arcmin}} $. The field rotation generates $\sim 2.5\%$ of the total lensing B-mode polarization amplitude ($0.2\%$ in power on small scales), but has a blue spectrum on large scales, making it highly subdominant to the convergence B modes on scales where they are a source of confusion for the signal from primordial gravitational waves. Since the post-Born signal is non-linear, it also generates a bispectrum with the convergence. We show that the post-Born contributions to the bispectrum substantially change the shape predicted from large-scale structure non-linearities alone, and hence must be included to estimate the expected total signal and impact of bispectrum biases on CMB lensing reconstruction quadratic estimators and other observables. The field-rotation power spectrum only becomes potentially detectable for noise levels $\ll 1 μ{\text{K}}\,{\text{arcmin}}$, but its bispectrum with the convergence may be observable at $\sim 3σ$ with Stage IV observations. Rotation-induced and convergence-induced B modes are slightly correlated by the bispectrum, and the bispectrum also produces additional contributions to the lensed BB power spectrum.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

CMB lensing reconstruction biases from masking extragalactic sources

Observed Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) maps are contaminated by foregrounds, some of which are usually masked to perform cosmological analyses. If masks are correlated to the lensing signal, such as those removing extragalactic emissions located in matter overdensities, measurements over the unmasked sky may give biased estimates. We quantify the impact of these mask-induced biases for the reconstructed CMB lensing auto- and cross-correlation power spectra with external matter tracers. We show that they arise both from changes in the lensing power, and via modifications to the reconstruction power spectrum corrections, $N_L^{(0)}$, $N_L^{(1)}$ and $N_L^{(3/2)}$). For direct masking of the CMB lensing field, we derive simple analytic models of the masking effect and show that it is potentially large. We show that mask-induced biases are significantly reduced by optimal filtering of the CMB maps in the lensing reconstruction. We test the resulting lensing power spectrum biases on numerical simulations, masking radio sources, and peaks of thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) and cosmic infrared background (CIB) emission. For the lensing auto spectrum, masking biases can only be measured with a statistical significance $\lesssim 3σ$ for future data sets. The same applies to the cross-correlation power spectra between CMB lensing and tSZ and CIB even though biases are larger (up to ~30%). We find that masking tSZ-selected galaxy clusters leads to the largest mask biases, potentially detectable with high significance. We find that the calibration of cluster masses using CMB lensing, in particular for objects at $z\lesssim 0.6$, might be significantly affected by mask biases for near-future observations if the lensing signal recovered inside the mask holes is used without further corrections. Conversely, mass calibration of high redshift objects will still deliver unbiased results.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

CMB lensing reconstruction biases in cross-correlation with large-scale structure probes

The cross-correlation between cosmic microwave background (CMB) gravitational lensing and large-scale structure tracers will be an important cosmological probe in the coming years. Quadratic estimators provide a simple and powerful (if suboptimal) way to reconstruct the CMB lensing potential and are widely used. For Gaussian fields, the cross-correlation of a quadratic-estimator CMB lensing reconstruction with a tracer is exactly unbiased if the power spectra are known and consistent analytic lensing mode response functions are used. However, the bispectrum induced by non-linear large-scale structure growth and post-Born lensing can introduce an additional bias term ($N_L^{(3/2)}$) in the cross-correlation spectrum, similar to the $N_L^{(3/2)}$ bias in the auto-spectrum demonstrated in recent works. We give analytic flat-sky results for the cross-correlation bias using approximate models for the post-Born and large-scale structure cross-bispectra, and compare with N-body simulation results using ray-tracing techniques. We show that the bias can be at the 5-15\% level in all large-scale structure cross-correlations using small-scale CMB temperature lensing reconstruction, but is substantially reduced using polarization-based lensing estimators or simple foreground-projected temperature estimators. The relative magnitude of these effects is almost three times higher than in the CMB lensing auto-correlation, but is small enough that it can be modelled to sufficient precision using simple analytic models. We show that $N_L^{(3/2)}$ effects in cross-correlation will be detected with high significance when using data of future surveys and could affect systematic effects marginalization in cosmic shear measurements mimicking galaxy intrinsic alignment.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

CMB constraints on the early universe independent of late time cosmology

The CMB is a powerful probe of early-universe physics but is only observed after passing through large-scale structure, which changes the observed spectra in important model-dependent ways. This is of particular concern given recent claims of significant discrepancies with low redshift data sets when a standard $Λ$CDM model is assumed. By using empirical measurements of the CMB lensing reconstruction, combined with weak priors on the smoothness of the lensing spectrum, foregrounds, and shape of any additional integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, we show how the early-universe parameters can be constrained from CMB observations almost independently of the late-time evolution. This provides a way to test new models for early-universe physics, and measure early-universe parameters, independently of late-time cosmology. Using the empirical measurement of lensing keeps the size of the effect of late-time modelling uncertainty under control, leading to only modest increases in error bars of most early-universe parameters compared to assuming a full evolution model. We provide robust constraints on early-$Λ$CDM model parameters using the latest Planck PR4 data and show that with future data marginalizing over a single lensing amplitude parameter is sufficient to remove sensitivity to late-time cosmological model only if the spectral shape matches predictions.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

How to detect lensing rotation

Gravitational lensing rotation of images is predicted to be negligible at linear order in density perturbations, but can be produced by the post-Born lens-lens coupling at second order. This rotation is somewhat enhanced for Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) lensing due to the large source path length, but remains small and very challenging to detect directly by CMB lensing reconstruction alone. We show the rotation may be detectable at high significance as a cross-correlation signal between the curl reconstructed with Simons Observatory (SO) or CMB-S4 data, and a template constructed from quadratic combinations of large-scale structure (LSS) tracers. Equivalently, the lensing rotation-tracer-tracer bispectrum can also be detected, where LSS tracers considered include the CMB lensing convergence, galaxy density, and the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB), or optimal combinations thereof. We forecast that an optimal combination of these tracers can probe post-Born rotation at the level of $5.7\sigma$-$6.1\sigma$ with SO and $13.6\sigma$-$14.7\sigma$ for CMB-S4, depending on whether standard quadratic estimators or maximum a posteriori iterative methods are deployed. We also show possible improvement up to $21.3\sigma$ using a CMB-S4 deep patch observation with polarization-only iterative lensing reconstruction. However, these cross-correlation signals have non-zero bias because the rotation template is quadratic in the tracers, and exists even if the lensing is rotation free. We estimate this bias analytically, and test it using simple null-hypothesis simulations to confirm that the bias remains subdominant to the rotation signal of interest. Detection and then measurement of the lensing rotation cross-spectrum is therefore a realistic target for future observations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Planck ISW-lensing likelihood and the CMB temperature

We present a new Planck CMB lensing-CMB temperature cross-correlation likelihood that can be used to constrain cosmology via the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect. CMB lensing is an excellent tracer of ISW, and we use the latest PR4 Planck data maps and lensing reconstruction to produce the first public Planck likelihood to constrain this signal. We demonstrate the likelihood by constraining the CMB background temperature from Planck data alone, where the ISW-lensing cross-correlation is a powerful way to break the geometric degeneracy, substantially improving constraints from the CMB and lensing power spectra alone.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

CMB lensing from Planck PR4 maps

We reconstruct the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) lensing potential on the latest Planck CMB PR4 (NPIPE) maps, which include slightly more data than the 2018 PR3 release, and implement quadratic estimators using more optimal filtering. We increase the reconstruction signal to noise by almost $20\%$, constraining the amplitude of the CMB-marginalized lensing power spectrum in units of the Planck 2018 best-fit to $1.004 \pm 0.024$ ($68\%$ limits), which is the tightest constraint on the CMB lensing power spectrum to date. For a base $Λ$CDM cosmology we find $σ_8 Ω_m^{0.25} = 0.599\pm 0.016$ from CMB lensing alone in combination with weak priors and element abundance observations. Combination with baryon acoustic oscillation data gives tight $68\%$ constraints on individual $Λ$CDM parameters $σ_8 = 0.814\pm 0.016$, $H_0 = 68.1^{+1.0}_{-1.1}$km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, $Ω_m = 0.313^{+0.014}_{-0.016}$. Planck polarized maps alone now constrain the lensing power to $7\%$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Constraints on $τ_\mathrm{NL}$ from Planck temperature and polarization

We update constraints on the amplitude of the primordial trispectrum, using the final Planck mission temperature and polarization data. In the squeezed limit, a cosmological local trispectrum would be observed as a spatial modulation of small-scale power on the CMB sky. We reconstruct this signal as a source of statistical anisotropy via quadratic estimator techniques. We systematically demonstrate how the estimated power spectrum of a reconstructed modulation field can be translated into a constraint on $τ_\mathrm{NL}$ via likelihood methods, demonstrating the procedures effectiveness by inferring known $τ_\mathrm{NL}$ signal(s) from simulations. Our baseline results constrain $τ_\mathrm{NL} < 1700$ at the 95\% confidence level, providing the most stringent constraints to date.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

The Simons Observatory: Constraining inflationary gravitational waves with multi-tracer B-mode delensing

We introduce and validate a delensing framework for the Simons Observatory (SO), which will be used to improve constraints on inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs) by reducing the lensing noise in measurements of the $B$-modes in CMB polarization. SO will initially observe CMB by using three small aperture telescopes and one large-aperture telescope. While polarization maps from small-aperture telescopes will be used to constrain IGWs, the internal CMB lensing maps used to delens will be reconstructed from data from the large-aperture telescope. Since lensing maps obtained from the SO data will be noise-dominated on sub-degree scales, the SO lensing framework constructs a template for lensing-induced $B$-modes by combining internal CMB lensing maps with maps of the cosmic infrared background from Planck as well as galaxy density maps from the LSST survey. We construct a likelihood for constraining the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ that contains auto- and cross-spectra between observed $B$-modes and the lensing $B$-mode template. We test our delensing analysis pipeline on map-based simulations containing survey non-idealities, but that, for this initial exploration, does not include contamination from Galactic and extragalactic foregrounds. We find that the SO survey masking and inhomogeneous and atmospheric noise have very little impact on the delensing performance, and the $r$ constraint becomes $\sigma(r)\approx 0.0015$ which is close to that obtained from the idealized forecasts in the absence of the Galactic foreground and is nearly a factor of two tighter than without delensing. We also find that uncertainties in the external large-scale structure tracers used in our multi-tracer delensing pipeline lead to bias much smaller than the $1\,\sigma$ statistical uncertainties.

astro-ph.CO↗