Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Boris Bolliet

Publications and source records attributed to Boris Bolliet.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Spectral distortion constraints on photon injection from low-mass decaying particles

Spectral distortions (SDs) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provide a powerful tool for studying particle physics. Here we compute the distortion signals from decaying particles that convert directly into photons at different epochs during cosmic history, focusing on injection energies $E_\mathrm{inj}\lesssim 20\,\mathrm{keV}$. We deliver a comprehensive library of SD solutions that can be used to study a wide range of particle physics scenarios. We use {\tt CosmoTherm} to compute the SD signals, including effects on the ionization history and opacities of the Universe. We also consider the effect of blackbody-induced stimulated decay, which can modify the injection history significantly. Then, we use data from COBE/FIRAS and EDGES to constrain the properties of the decaying particles. We explore scenarios where these provide a dark matter (DM) candidate or constitute only a small fraction of DM. We complement the SD constraints with CMB anisotropy constraints, highlighting new effects from injections at very-low photon energies ($hν\lesssim 10^{-4}\,\mathrm{eV}$). Our model-independent constraints exhibit rich structures in the lifetime-energy domain, covering injection energies $E_\mathrm{inj}\simeq 10^{-10}\mathrm{eV}-10\mathrm{keV}$ and lifetimes $τ_X\simeq 10^5\,\mathrm{s}-10^{33}\mathrm{s}$. We discuss the constraints on axions and axion-like particles that convert directly into two photons, revising existing SD constraints in the literature. Our limits are competitive with other constraints for axion masses $m_a c^2\gtrsim 27\,\mathrm{eV}$ and we find that simple estimates based on the overall energetics are generally inaccurate. Future CMB spectrometers could significantly improve the obtained constraints, thus providing an important complementary probe of early-universe particle physics.

astro-ph.CO↗

Inverse-Compton Scattering of the Cosmic Infrared Background

The thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect is the distortion generated in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum by the inverse-Compton scattering of CMB photons off free, energetic electrons, primarily located in the intracluster medium (ICM). Cosmic infrared background (CIB) photons from thermal dust emission in star-forming galaxies are expected to undergo the same process. In this work, we perform the first calculation of the resulting tSZ-like distortion in the CIB. Focusing on the CIB monopole, we use a halo model approach to calculate both the CIB signal and the Compton-$y$ field that generates the distortion. We self-consistently account for the redshift co-evolution of the CIB and Compton-$y$ fields: they are (partially) sourced by the same dark matter halos, which introduces new aspects to the calculation as compared to the CMB case. We find that the inverse-Compton distortion to the CIB monopole spectrum has a positive (negative) peak amplitude of $\approx 4$ Jy/sr ($\approx -5$ Jy/sr) at 2260 GHz (940 GHz). In contrast to the usual tSZ effect, the distortion to the CIB spectrum has two null frequencies, at approximately 196 GHz and 1490 GHz. We perform a Fisher matrix calculation to forecast the detectability of this new distortion signal by future experiments. $\textit{PIXIE}$ would have sufficient instrumental sensitivity to detect the signal at $4σ$, but foreground contamination reduces the projected signal-to-noise by a factor of $\approx 70$. A future ESA Voyage 2050 spectrometer could detect the CIB distortion at $\approx 5σ$ significance, even after marginalizing over foregrounds. A measurement of this signal would provide new information on the star formation history of the Universe, and the distortion anisotropies may be accessible by near-future ground-based experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Constraints on Pre-Recombination Early Dark Energy

The early dark energy (EDE) scenario aims to increase the value of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) inferred from cosmic microwave background (CMB) data over that found in $Λ$CDM, via the introduction of a new form of energy density in the early universe. The EDE component briefly accelerates cosmic expansion just prior to recombination, which reduces the physical size of the sound horizon imprinted in the CMB. Previous work has found that non-zero EDE is not preferred by Planck CMB power spectrum data alone, which yield a 95% confidence level (CL) upper limit $f_{\rm EDE} < 0.087$ on the maximal fractional contribution of the EDE field to the cosmic energy budget. In this paper, we fit the EDE model to CMB data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 4. We find that a combination of ACT, large-scale Planck TT (similar to WMAP), Planck CMB lensing, and BAO data prefers the existence of EDE at $>99.7$% CL: $f_{\rm EDE} = 0.091^{+0.020}_{-0.036}$, with $H_0 = 70.9^{+1.0}_{-2.0}$ km/s/Mpc (both 68% CL). From a model-selection standpoint, we find that EDE is favored over $Λ$CDM by these data at roughly $3σ$ significance. In contrast, a joint analysis of the full Planck and ACT data yields no evidence for EDE, as previously found for Planck alone. We show that the preference for EDE in ACT alone is driven by its TE and EE power spectrum data. The tight constraint on EDE from Planck alone is driven by its high-$\ell$ TT power spectrum data. Understanding whether these differing constraints are physical in nature, due to systematics, or simply a rare statistical fluctuation is of high priority. The best-fit EDE models to ACT and Planck exhibit coherent differences across a wide range of multipoles in TE and EE, indicating that a powerful test of this scenario is anticipated with near-future data from ACT and other ground-based experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

Snowmass2021: Opportunities from Cross-survey Analyses of Static Probes

Cosmological data in the next decade will be characterized by high-precision, multi-wavelength measurements of thousands of square degrees of the same patches of sky. By performing multi-survey analyses that harness the correlated nature of these datasets, we will gain access to new science, and increase the precision and robustness of science being pursued by each individual survey. However, effective application of such analyses requires a qualitatively new level of investment in cross-survey infrastructure, including simulations, associated modeling, coordination of data sharing, and survey strategy. The scientific gains from this new level of investment are multiplicative, as the benefits can be reaped by even present-day instruments, and can be applied to new instruments as they come online.

hep-ex↗

Snowmass2021 Cosmic Frontier: Cosmic Microwave Background Measurements White Paper

This is a solicited whitepaper for the Snowmass 2021 community planning exercise. The paper focuses on measurements and science with the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The CMB is foundational to our understanding of modern physics and continues to be a powerful tool driving our understanding of cosmology and particle physics. In this paper, we outline the broad and unique impact of CMB science for the High Energy Cosmic Frontier in the upcoming decade. We also describe the progression of ground-based CMB experiments, which shows that the community is prepared to develop the key capabilities and facilities needed to achieve these transformative CMB measurements.

astro-ph.CO↗

Comparison of different approaches to the quasi-static approximation in Horndeski models

A quasi-static approximation (QSA) for modified gravity can be applied in a number of ways. We consider three different analytical formulations based on applying this approximation to: (1) the field equations; (2) the equations for the two metric potentials; (3) the use of the attractor solution derived within the Equation of State (EoS) approach. We assess the veracity of these implementations on the effective gravitational constant ($μ$) and the slip parameter ($η$), within the framework of Horndeski models. In particular, for a set of models we compare cosmological observables, i.e., the matter power spectrum and the CMB temperature and lensing angular power spectra, computed using the QSA, with exact numerical solutions. To do that, we use a newly developed branch of the CLASS code: QSA_class. All three approaches agree exactly on very small scales. Typically, we find that, except for $f(R)$ models where all the three approaches lead to the same result, the quasi-static approximations differ from the numerical calculations on large scales ($k \lesssim 3 - 4 \times 10^{-3}\,h\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$). Cosmological observables are reproduced to within 1% up to scales ${\rm K} = k/H_0$ of the order of a few and $\ell>5$ for the approaches based on the field equations and on the EoS, and we also do not find any appreciable difference if we use the scale-dependent expressions for $μ$ and $η$ with respect to the value on small scales, showing that the formalism and the conclusions are reliable and robust, fixing the range of applicability of the formalism. We discuss why the expressions derived from the equations for the potentials have limited applicability. Our results are in agreement with previous analytical estimates and show that the QSA is a reliable tool and can be used for comparison with current and future observations to constrain models beyond $Λ$CDM.

astro-ph.CO↗

Constraining the Baryon Abundance with the Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect: Projected-Field Detection Using Planck, WMAP, and unWISE

The kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect -- the Doppler boosting of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons scattering off free electrons with non-zero line-of-sight velocity -- is an excellent probe of the distribution of baryons in the Universe. In this paper, we measure the kSZ effect due to ionized gas traced by infrared-selected galaxies from the \emph{unWISE} catalog. We employ the "projected-field" kSZ estimator, which does not require spectroscopic galaxy redshifts. To suppress non-kSZ foreground signals associated with the galaxies (e.g., dust emission and thermal SZ), this estimator requires cleaned CMB maps, which we obtain from \emph{Planck} and \emph{WMAP} data. Using a new "asymmetric" estimator that combines different foreground-cleaned CMB maps to maximize the signal-to-noise, we measure the kSZ$^2$-galaxy cross-power spectrum for three subsamples of the \emph{unWISE} galaxy catalog, which peak at mean redshifts $z \approx$ 0.6, 1.1, and 1.5, have average halo mass $\sim 1$-$5\times 10^{13}$ $h^{-1} M_{\odot}$, and in total contain over 500 million galaxies. After marginalizing over CMB lensing contributions, we measure the amplitude of the kSZ signal $A_{\rm kSZ^2} = 0.42 \pm 0.31(stat.) \pm 0.14(sys.)$, $5.02 \pm 1.01(stat.) \pm 0.47(sys.)$, and $8.23 \pm 3.23(stat.) \pm 1.60(sys.)$, for the three subsamples, where $A_{\rm kSZ^2} = 1$ corresponds to our fiducial model. The combined kSZ detection S/N $>$ 5. We discuss possible explanations for the excess kSZ signal associated with the $z \approx 1.1$ sample, and show that foreground contamination in the CMB maps is very unlikely to be the cause. Our measurements illustrate clearly that no baryons are missing on large scales at low redshifts.

astro-ph.CO↗

Including massive neutrinos in thermal Sunyaev Zeldovich power spectrum and cluster counts analyses

We consistently include the effect of massive neutrinos in the thermal Sunyaev Zeldovich (SZ) power spectrum and cluster counts analyses, highlighting subtle dependencies on the total neutrino mass and data combination. In particular, we find that using the transfer functions for Cold Dark Matter (CDM) + baryons in the computation of the halo mass function, instead of the transfer functions including neutrino perturbations, as prescribed in recent work, yields a $\approx$ 0.25\% downward shift of the $σ_8$ constraint from tSZ power spectrum data, with a fiducial neutrino mass $Σm_ν=0.06$ eV. In $Λ$CDM, with an X-ray mass bias corresponding to the expected hydrostatic mass bias, i.e., $(1-b)\simeq0.8$, our constraints from Planck SZ data are consistent with the latest results from SPT, DES-Y1 and KiDS+VIKING-450. In $νΛ$CDM, our joint analyses of Planck SZ with Planck 2015 primary CMB yield a small improvement on the total neutrino mass bound compared to the Planck 2015 primary CMB constraint, as well as $(1-b)=0.64\pm0.04$~(68\%~CL). For forecasts, we find that competitive neutrino mass measurements using cosmic variance limited SZ power spectrum require masking the heaviest clusters and probing the small-scale SZ power spectrum up to $\ell_\mathrm{max}\approx10^4$. Although this is challenging, we find that SZ power spectrum can realistically be used to tightly constrain intra-cluster medium properties: we forecast a 2\% determination of the X-ray mass bias by combining CMB-S4 and our mock SZ power spectrum with $\ell_\mathrm{max}=10^3$.

astro-ph.CO↗

Removing the giants and learning from the crowd: a new SZ power spectrum method and revised Compton $y$-map analysis

The Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect provides a powerful cosmological probe, which traditionally is approached independently as cluster number count (CNC) or power spectrum (PS) analysis. Here, we devise a new method for analysing the $y$-map by introducing the survey completeness function, conventionally only used in the CNC analysis, in the $yy$-PS modeling. This provides a systematic method, based mainly on SZ observables, for obtaining two complementary $y$-maps, one incorporating detected/resolved clusters and the other relying only on diffuse/unresolved SZ contributions. We use the catalogue of clusters obtained in the \Planck CNC analysis to define the completeness function linking these two $y$-maps. The split depends on the chosen signal-to-noise detection threshold, which we vary in our discussion. We carefully propagate the effect of completeness cuts on the non-Gaussian error contributions in the $yy$-PS analysis, highlighting the benefits of masking massive clusters. Our analysis of the \Planck $yy$-PS for the unresolved component yields a mass bias of $b=0.15\pm0.04$, consistent with the standard value ($b\approx0.2$), in comparison to $b=0.4\pm 0.05$ for the total $yy$-PS. We find indications for this drift being driven by the CIB-tSZ cross correlation, which dominantly originates from clusters in the resolved component of the $y$-map. Another possible explanation is the presence of a mass-dependent bias, which has been theoretically motivated and can be quantified with our novel method. We furthermore find first hints for the presence of the 2-halo terms in the $yy$-PS. Finally, the proposed method provides a new framework for combining the complementary information of the CNC and PS analyses in upcoming SZ surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

Improved calculations of electron-ion Bremsstrahlung Gaunt factors for astrophysical applications

Electron-ion Bremsstrahlung (free-free) emission and absorption occur in many astrophysical plasmas for a wide range of physical conditions. This classical problem has been studied multiple times, and many analytical and numerical approximations exist. However, accurate calculations of the transition from the non-relativistic to the relativistic regime remain sparse. Here we provide a comprehensive study of the free-free Gaunt factors for ions with low charge (Z<=10). We compute the Gaunt factor using the expressions for the differential cross section given by Elwert & Haug (EH) and compare to various limiting cases. We develop a new software package, BRpack, for direct numerical applications. This package uses a combination of pre-computed tables and analytical approximations to efficiently cover a wide range of electron and photon energies, providing a representation of the EH Gaunt factor to better than 0.03% precision for Z<=2. Our results are compared to those of previous studies highlighting the improvements achieved here. BRpack should be useful in computations of spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background, radiative transfer problems during reionization or inside galaxy clusters, and the modeling of galactic free-free foregrounds. The developed computational methods can furthermore be extended to higher energies and ion charge.

astro-ph.CO↗

Dark sector evolution in Horndeski models

We use the Equation of State (EoS) approach to study the evolution of the dark sector in Horndeski models, the most general scalar-tensor theories with second order equations of motion. By including the effects of the dark sector into our code EoS\_class, we demonstrate the numerical stability of the formalism and excellent agreement with results from other publicly available codes for a range of parameters describing the evolution of the function characterising the perturbations for Horndeski models, $α_{\rm x}$, with ${\rm x}=\{{\rm K}, {\rm B}, {\rm M}, {\rm T}\}$. After demonstrating that on sub-horizon scales ($k\gtrsim 10^{-3}~{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ at $z=0$) velocity perturbations in both the matter and the dark sector are typically subdominant with respect to density perturbations in the equation of state for perturbations, we find an attractor solution for the dark sector gauge-invariant density perturbation $Δ_{\rm ds}$ by neglecting its time derivatives in the equation describing its time evolution, as commonly done in the well-known quasi-static approximation. Using this result, we provide simplified expressions for the equation-of-state functions: the dark sector entropy perturbations $w_{\rm ds}Γ_{\rm ds}$ and anisotropic stress $w_{\rm ds}Π_{\rm ds}$. From this we derive a growth factor-like equation for both matter and dark sector and are able to capture the relevant physics for several observables with great accuracy. We finally present new analytical expressions for the well-known modified gravity phenomenological functions $μ$, $η$ and $Σ$ for a generic Horndeski model as functions of $α_{\rm x}$. We show that on small scales they reproduce expressions presented in previous works, but on large scales, we find differences with respect to other works.

astro-ph.CO↗

Microwave Spectro-Polarimetry of Matter and Radiation across Space and Time

This paper discusses the science case for a sensitive spectro-polarimetric survey of the microwave sky. Such a survey would provide a tomographic and dynamic census of the three-dimensional distribution of hot gas, velocity flows, early metals, dust, and mass distribution in the entire Hubble volume, exploit CMB temperature and polarisation anisotropies down to fundamental limits, and track energy injection and absorption into the radiation background across cosmic times by measuring spectral distortions of the CMB blackbody emission. In addition to its exceptional capability for cosmology and fundamental physics, such a survey would provide an unprecedented view of microwave emissions at sub-arcminute to few-arcminute angular resolution in hundreds of frequency channels, a data set that would be of immense legacy value for many branches of astrophysics. We propose that this survey be carried-out with a large space mission featuring a broad-band polarised imager and a moderate resolution spectro-imager at the focus of a 3.5m aperture telescope actively cooled to about 8K, complemented with absolutely-calibrated Fourier Transform Spectrometer modules observing at degree-scale angular resolution in the 10-2000 GHz frequency range. We propose two observing modes: a survey mode to map the entire sky as well as a few selected wide fields, and an observatory mode for deeper observations of regions of specific interest.

astro-ph.CO↗

The Simons Observatory: Astro2020 Decadal Project Whitepaper

The Simons Observatory (SO) is a ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment sited on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert in Chile that promises to provide breakthrough discoveries in fundamental physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. Supported by the Simons Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and with contributions from collaborating institutions, SO will see first light in 2021 and start a five year survey in 2022. SO has 287 collaborators from 12 countries and 53 institutions, including 85 students and 90 postdocs. The SO experiment in its currently funded form ('SO-Nominal') consists of three 0.4 m Small Aperture Telescopes (SATs) and one 6 m Large Aperture Telescope (LAT). Optimized for minimizing systematic errors in polarization measurements at large angular scales, the SATs will perform a deep, degree-scale survey of 10% of the sky to search for the signature of primordial gravitational waves. The LAT will survey 40% of the sky with arc-minute resolution. These observations will measure (or limit) the sum of neutrino masses, search for light relics, measure the early behavior of Dark Energy, and refine our understanding of the intergalactic medium, clusters and the role of feedback in galaxy formation. With up to ten times the sensitivity and five times the angular resolution of the Planck satellite, and roughly an order of magnitude increase in mapping speed over currently operating ("Stage 3") experiments, SO will measure the CMB temperature and polarization fluctuations to exquisite precision in six frequency bands from 27 to 280 GHz. SO will rapidly advance CMB science while informing the design of future observatories such as CMB-S4.

astro-ph.IM↗

Computation of non-Gaussianity in loop quantum cosmology

We summarize our investigations of the second-order perturbations in loop quantum cosmology (LQC). We shall discuss, primarily, two aspects. Firstly, whether the second-order contributions arising from the cosmic bounce, occurring at Planck scale, could be large enough to break the validity of perturbation theory. Secondly, the implications of the upper bounds on primordial non-Gaussianity, arrived at by the Planck collaboration, on the LQC phenomenology.

gr-qc↗

Can we neglect relativistic temperature corrections in the Planck thermal SZ analysis?

Measurements of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect have long been recognized as a powerful cosmological probe. Here we assess the importance of relativistic temperature corrections to the tSZ signal on the power spectrum analysis of the Planck Compton-$y$ map, developing a novel formalism to account for the associated effects. The amplitude of the tSZ power spectrum is found to be sensitive to the effective electron temperature, $\bar{T}_e$, of the cluster sample. Omitting the corresponding modifications leads to an underestimation of the $yy$-power spectrum amplitude. Relativistic corrections thus add to the error budget of tSZ power spectrum observables such as $σ_8$. This could help alleviate the tension between various cosmological probes, with the correction scaling as $Δσ_8/σ_8 \simeq 0.019\,[k\bar{T}_e\,/\,5\,{\rm keV}]$ for Planck. At the current level of precision, this implies a systematic shift by $\simeq 1σ$, which can also be interpreted as an overestimation of the hydrostatic mass bias by $Δb \simeq 0.046\,(1-b)\,[k\bar{T}_e\,/\,5\,{\rm keV}]$, bringing it into better agreement with hydrodynamical simulations. It is thus time to consider relativistic temperature corrections in the processing of current and future tSZ data.

astro-ph.CO↗

Cosmologically viable generalized Einstein-Aether theories

We investigate generalized Einstein-Aether theories that are compatible with the Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy, polarisation, and lensing data. For a given dark energy equation of state, $w_{\rm de}$, we formulate a designer approach and we investigate their impact on the CMB temperature anisotropy and matter power spectra. We use the Equation of State approach to parametrize the perturbations and find that this approach is particularly useful in identifying the most suitable and numerically efficient parameters to explore in a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis. We find the data constrains models with $w_{\rm de} = -1$ to be compatible with $Λ$CDM. For $w_{\rm de} \not= -1$ models, which avoid the gravitational waves constraint through the entropy perturbation, we constrain $w_{\rm de}$ to be $w_{\rm de } = -1.06^{+0.08}_{-0.03}$ (CMB) and $w_{\rm de } =-1.04^{+0.05}_{-0.02}$ (CMB+Lensing) at $68\%$C.L., and find that these models can be different from $Λ$CDM and still be compatible with the data. We also find that these models can ameliorate some anomalies in $Λ$CDM when confronted with data, such as the low-$\ell$ and high-$k$ power in the CMB temperature anisotropy and matter power spectra respectively, but not simultaneously. We also investigate the anomalous lensing amplitude, quantified by $A_{\rm lens}$, and find that that for $w_{\rm de} = -1$ models, $A_{\rm lens} = 1.15^{+0.07}_{-0.08}$ (CMB) and $A_{\rm lens} = 1.12\pm0.05$ (CMB+Lensing) at $68\%$C.L. $\sim$ 2$σ$ larger than expected, similar to previous analyses of $Λ$CDM.

astro-ph.CO↗

Do cosmological data rule out $f(\mathcal{R})$ with $w\neq-1$?

We review the Equation of State (EoS) approach to dark sector perturbations and apply it to $f(\mathcal{R})$ gravity models of dark energy. We show that the EoS approach is numerically stable and use it to set observational constraints on designer models. Within the EoS approach we build an analytical understanding of the dynamics of cosmological perturbations for the designer class of $f(\mathcal{R})$ gravity models, characterised by the parameter $B_0$ and the background equation of state of dark energy $w$. When we use the Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy, polarisation and lensing data as well as the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) data from SDSS and WiggleZ, we find $B_0<0.006$ (95\%CL) for the designer models with $w=-1$. Furthermore, we find $B_0<0.0045$ and $|w+1|<0.002$ (95\%CL) for the designer models with $w\neq -1$. Previous analyses found similar results for designer and Hu-Sawicki $f(\mathcal{R})$ gravity models using the Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach (Raveri et al. 2014, Hu et al. 2016), therefore this hints for the fact that generic $f(\mathcal{R})$ models with $w\neq-1$ can be tightly constrained by current cosmological data, complementary to solar system tests (Brax et al. 2008, Faulkner et al. 2007). When compared to a $w$CDM fluid with the same sound speed, we find that the equation of state for $f(\mathcal{R})$ models is better constrained to be close to -1 by about an order of magnitude, due to the strong dependence of the perturbations on $w$.

astro-ph.CO↗

Cosmological constraints from the thermal Sunyaev Zeldovich power spectrum?

The latest Planck results on the power spectrum of the Compton-$y$ parameter are the most accurate probe of the thermal Sunyaev Zeldovich (tSZ) effect caused by resolved and un-resolved clusters of galaxies. On large angular scales, the power spectrum amplitude is mostly due to the statistical distribution of clusters in the sky and therefore is an indirect probe of the clustering of matter, $σ_8$, as well as the angular diameter distance that depends on other cosmological parameters such as the Hubble parameter, $h$, and the matter density $Ω_m$. Here I discuss the constraining power of the tSZ power spectrum, in light of the Planck Compton-$y$ map data, and our current understanding and measurements of the intra-cluster medium.

astro-ph.CO↗