arXiv subjects

David N. Spergel

Publications and source records attributed to David N. Spergel.

At least 145 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Evidence for the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeľdovich effect with ACTPol and velocity reconstruction from BOSS

We use microwave temperature maps from two seasons of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACTPol) at 146 GHz, together with the Constant Mass CMASS galaxy sample from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey to measure the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeľdovich (kSZ) effect over the redshift range z = 0.4 - 0.7. We use galaxy positions and the continuity equation to obtain a reconstruction of the line-of-sight velocity field. We stack the cosmic microwave background temperature at the location of each halo, weighted by the corresponding reconstructed velocity. The resulting best fit kSZ model is preferred over the no-kSZ hypothesis at 3.3sigma and 2.9sigma for two independent velocity reconstruction methods, using 25,537 galaxies over 660 square degrees. The effect of foregrounds that are uncorrelated with the galaxy velocities is expected to be well below our signal, and residual thermal Sunyaev-Zeľdovich contamination is controlled by masking the most massive clusters. Finally, we discuss the systematics involved in converting our measurement of the kSZ amplitude into the mean free electron fraction of the halos in our sample.

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arXiv2015

The Stacked Thermal SZ Signal of Locally Brightest Galaxies in Planck Full Mission Data: Evidence for Galaxy Feedback?

We use the Planck full mission temperature maps to examine the stacked thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) signal of 188042 "locally brightest galaxies'" (LBGs) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7. Our LBG sample closely matches that of Planck Collaboration XI (2013, PCXI) but our analysis differs in several ways. We work directly in terms of physically observable quantities, requiring minimal assumptions about the gas pressure profile. We explicitly model the dust emission from each LBG and simultaneously measure both the stacked tSZ and dust signals as a function of stellar mass $M_*$. There is a small residual bias in stacked tSZ measurements; we measure this bias and subtract it from our results, finding that the effects are non-negligible at the lowest masses in the LBG sample. Finally, we compare our measurements with two pressure profile models, finding that the profile from Battaglia et al. (2012b) provides a better fit to the results than the Arnaud et al. (2010) "universal pressure profile." However, within the uncertainties, we find that the data are consistent with a self-similar scaling with mass --- more precise measurements are needed to detect the relatively small deviations from self-similarity predicted by these models. Consistent with PCXI, we measure the stacked tSZ signal from LBGs with stellar masses down to $\log_{10}(M_*/M_{\odot}) \sim 11.1-11.3$. For lower stellar masses, however, we do not see evidence for a stacked tSZ signal. We note that the stacked dust emission is comparable to, or larger than, the stacked tSZ signal for $\log_{10}(M_*/M_{\odot}) \lesssim 11.3$. Future tSZ analyses with larger samples and lower noise levels should be able to probe deviations from self-similarity and thus provide constraints on models of feedback and the evolution of hot halo gas over cosmic time.

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arXiv2015

Prime Focus Spectrograph for the Subaru telescope: massively multiplexed optical and near-infrared fiber spectrograph

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is an optical/near-infrared multifiber spectrograph with 2394 science fibers distributed across a 1.3-deg diameter field of view at the Subaru 8.2-m telescope. The wide wavelength coverage from 0.38 μm to 1.26 μm, with a resolving power of 3000, simultaneously strengthens its ability to target three main survey programs: cosmology, galactic archaeology and galaxy/AGN evolution. A medium resolution mode with a resolving power of 5000 for 0.71 μm to 0.89 μm will also be available by simply exchanging dispersers. We highlight some of the technological aspects of the design. To transform the telescope focal ratio, a broad-band coated microlens is glued to each fiber tip. A higher transmission fiber is selected for the longest part of the cable system, optimizing overall throughput; a fiber with low focal ratio degradation is selected for the fiber-positioner and fiber-slit components, minimizing the effects of fiber movements and fiber bending. Fiber positioning will be performed by a positioner consisting of two stages of piezo-electric rotary motors. The positions of these motors are measured by taking an image of artificially back-illuminated fibers with the metrology camera located in the Cassegrain container; the fibers are placed in the proper location by iteratively measuring and then adjusting the positions of the motors. Target light reaches one of the four identical fast-Schmidt spectrograph modules, each with three arms. The PFS project has passed several project-wide design reviews and is now in the construction phase.

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arXiv2015

Signatures of Kinematic Substructure in the Galactic Stellar Halo

Tidal debris from infalling satellites can leave observable structure in the phase-space distribution of the Galactic halo. Such substructure can be manifest in the spatial and/or velocity distributions of the stars in the halo. This paper focuses on a class of substructure that is purely kinematic in nature, with no accompanying spatial features. To study its properties, we use a simulated stellar halo created by dynamically populating the Via Lactea II high-resolution N-body simulation with stars. A significant fraction of the stars in the inner halo of Via Lactea share a common speed and metallicity, despite the fact that they are spatially diffuse. We argue that this kinematic substructure is a generic feature of tidal debris from older mergers and may explain the detection of radial-velocity substructure in the inner halo made by the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration. The GAIA satellite, which will provide the proper motions of an unprecedented number of stars, should further characterize the kinematic substructure in the inner halo. Our study of the Via Lactea simulation suggests that the stellar halo can be used to map the speed distribution of the local dark-matter halo, which has important consequences for dark-matter direct-detection experiments.

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arXiv2015

Evidence of Lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background by Dark Matter Halos

We present evidence of the gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background by $10^{13}$ solar mass dark matter halos. Lensing convergence maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) are stacked at the positions of around 12,000 optically-selected CMASS galaxies from the SDSS-III/BOSS survey. The mean lensing signal is consistent with simulated dark matter halo profiles, and is favored over a null signal at 3.2 sigma significance. This result demonstrates the potential of microwave background lensing to probe the dark matter distribution in galaxy group and galaxy cluster halos.

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arXiv2015

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: measuring radio galaxy bias through cross-correlation with lensing

We correlate the positions of radio galaxies in the FIRST survey with the CMB lensing convergence estimated from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope over 470 square degrees to determine the bias of these galaxies. We remove optically cross-matched sources below redshift $z=0.2$ to preferentially select Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). We measure the angular cross-power spectrum $C_l^{κg}$ at $4.4σ$ significance in the multipole range $100<l<3000$, corresponding to physical scales between $\approx$ 2--60 Mpc at an effective redshift $z_{\rm eff}= 1.5$. Modelling the AGN population with a redshift-dependent bias, the cross-spectrum is well fit by the Planck best-fit $Λ$CDM cosmological model. Fixing the cosmology we fit for the overall bias model normalization, finding $b(z_{\rm eff}) = 3.5 \pm 0.8$ for the full galaxy sample, and $b(z_{\rm eff})=4.0\pm1.1 (3.0\pm1.1)$ for sources brighter (fainter) than 2.5 mJy. This measurement characterizes the typical halo mass of radio-loud AGN: we find $\log(M_{\rm halo} / M_\odot) = 13.6^{+0.3}_{-0.4}$.

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arXiv2014

Supermassive Black Holes from Ultra-Strongly Self-Interacting Dark Matter

We consider the cosmological consequences if a small fraction ($f\lesssim 0.1$) of the dark matter is ultra-strongly self-interacting, with an elastic self-interaction cross-section per unit mass $σ\gg1\ \mathrm{cm^{2}/g}$. This possibility evades all current constraints that assume that the self-interacting component makes up the majority of the dark matter. Nevertheless, even a small fraction of ultra-strongly self-interacting dark matter (uSIDM) can have observable consequences on astrophysical scales. In particular, the uSIDM subcomponent can undergo gravothermal collapse and form seed black holes in the center of a halo. These seed black holes, which form within several hundred halo interaction times, contain a few percent of the total uSIDM mass in the halo. For reasonable values of $σf$, these black holes can form at high enough redshifts to grow to $\sim10^9 M_\odot$ quasars by $z \gtrsim 6$, alleviating tension within the standard $Λ$CDM cosmology. The ubiquitous formation of central black holes in halos could also create cores in dwarf galaxies by ejecting matter during binary black hole mergers, potentially resolving the "too big to fail" problem.

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arXiv2014

First Measurement of the Cross-Correlation of CMB Lensing and Galaxy Lensing

We measure the cross-correlation of cosmic microwave background lensing convergence maps derived from Atacama Cosmology Telescope data with galaxy lensing convergence maps as measured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Stripe 82 Survey. The CMB-galaxy lensing cross power spectrum is measured for the first time with a significance of 4.2σ, which corresponds to a 12% constraint on the amplitude of density fluctuations at redshifts ~ 0.9. With upcoming improved lensing data, this novel type of measurement will become a powerful cosmological probe, providing a precise measurement of the mass distribution at intermediate redshifts and serving as a calibrator for systematic biases in weak lensing measurements.

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arXiv2014

IGM Constraints from the SDSS-III/BOSS DR9 Ly-alpha Forest Flux Probability Distribution Function

The Ly$α$ forest transmission probability distribution function (PDF) is an established probe of the intergalactic medium (IGM) astrophysics, especially the temperature-density relationship of the IGM. We measure the transmission PDF from 3393 Baryon Oscillations Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) quasars from SDSS Data Release 9, and compare with mock spectra that include careful modeling of the noise, continuum, and astrophysical uncertainties. The BOSS transmission PDFs, measured at $\langle z \rangle = [2.3,2.6,3.0]$, are compared with PDFs created from mock spectra drawn from a suite of hydrodynamical simulations that sample the IGM temperature-density relationship, $γ$, and temperature at mean-density, $T_0$, where $T(Δ) = T_0 Δ^{γ-1}$. We find that a significant population of partial Lyman-limit systems with a column-density distribution slope of $β_\mathrm{pLLS} \sim -2$ are required to explain the data at the low-transmission end of transmission PDF, while uncertainties in the mean Ly$α$ forest transmission affect the high-transmission end. After modelling the LLSs and marginalizing over mean-transmission uncertainties, we find that $γ=1.6$ best describes the data over our entire redshift range, although constraints on $T_0$ are affected by systematic uncertainties. Within our model framework, isothermal or inverted temperature-density relationships ($γ\leq 1$) are disfavored at a significance of over 4$σ$, although this could be somewhat weakened by cosmological and astrophysical uncertainties that we did not model.

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arXiv2014

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Lensing of CMB Temperature and Polarization Derived from Cosmic Infrared Background Cross-Correlation

We present a measurement of the gravitational lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature and polarization fields obtained by cross-correlating the reconstructed convergence signal from the first season of ACTPol data at 146 GHz with Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) fluctuations measured using the Planck satellite. Using an overlap area of 206 square degrees, we detect gravitational lensing of the CMB polarization by large-scale structure at a statistical significance of 4.5 sigma. Combining both CMB temperature and polarization data gives a lensing detection at 9.1 sigma significance. A B-mode polarization lensing signal is present with a significance of 3.2 sigma. We also present the first measurement of CMB lensing--CIB correlation at small scales corresponding to l > 2000. Null tests and systematic checks show that our results are not significantly biased by astrophysical or instrumental systematic effects, including Galactic dust. Fitting our measurements to the best-fit lensing-CIB cross power spectrum measured in Planck data, scaled by an amplitude A, gives A=1.02 +0.12/-0.18 (stat.) +/-0.06(syst.), consistent with the Planck results.

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arXiv2014

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: A Measurement of the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich One-Point PDF

We present a measurement of the one-point probability distribution function (PDF) of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) decrement in the pixel temperature histogram of filtered 148 GHz sky maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). The PDF includes the signal from all galaxy clusters in the map, including objects below the signal-to-noise threshold for individual detection, making it a particularly sensitive probe of the amplitude of matter density perturbations, $σ_8$. We use a combination of analytic halo model calculations and numerical simulations to compute the theoretical tSZ PDF and its covariance matrix, accounting for all noise sources and including relativistic corrections. From the measured ACT 148 GHz PDF alone, we find $σ_8 = 0.793 \pm 0.018$, with additional systematic errors of $\pm 0.017$ due to uncertainty in intracluster medium gas physics and $\pm 0.006$ due to uncertainty in infrared point source contamination. Using effectively the same data set, the statistical error here is a factor of two lower than that found in ACT's previous $σ_8$ determination based solely on the skewness of the tSZ signal. In future temperature maps with higher sensitivity, the tSZ PDF will break the degeneracy between intracluster medium gas physics and cosmological parameters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Mission and Synergies with LISA and LIGO-Virgo

The Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is a NASA space mission in study for launch in 2024. It has a 2.4 m telescope, wide-field IR instrument operating in the 0.7 - 2.0 micron range and an exoplanet imaging coronagraph instrument operating in the 400 - 1000 nm range. The observatory will perform galaxy surveys over thousands of square degrees to J=27 AB for dark energy weak lensing and baryon acoustic oscillation measurements and will monitor a few square degrees for dark energy SN Ia studies. It will perform microlensing observations of the galactic bulge for an exoplanet census and direct imaging observations of nearby exoplanets with a pathfinder coronagraph. The mission will have a robust and well-funded guest observer program for 25% of the observing time. WFIRST will be a powerful tool for time domain astronomy and for coordinated observations with gravitational wave experiments. Gravitational wave events produced by mergers of nearby binary neutron stars (LIGO-Virgo) or extragalactic supermassive black hole binaries (LISA) will produce electromagnetic radiation that WFIRST can observe.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2014

A Measurement of the Millimeter Emission and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Associated with Low-Frequency Radio Sources

We present a statistical analysis of the millimeter-wavelength properties of 1.4 GHz-selected sources and a detection of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect associated with the halos that host them. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) has conducted a survey at 148 GHz, 218 GHz and 277 GHz along the celestial equator. Using samples of radio sources selected at 1.4 GHz from FIRST and NVSS, we measure the stacked 148, 218 and 277 GHz flux densities for sources with 1.4 GHz flux densities ranging from 5 to 200 mJy. At these flux densities, the radio source population is dominated by active galactic nuclei (AGN), with both steep and flat spectrum populations, which have combined radio-to-millimeter spectral indices ranging from 0.5 to 0.95, reflecting the prevalence of steep spectrum sources at high flux densities and the presence of flat spectrum sources at lower flux densities. The thermal SZ effect associated with the halos that host the AGN is detected at the 5$σ$ level through its spectral signature. When we compare the SZ effect with weak lensing measurements of radio galaxies, we find that the relation between the two is consistent with that measured by Planck for local bright galaxies. We present a detection of the SZ effect in some of the lowest mass halos (average $M_{200}\approx10^{13}$M$_{\odot}h_{70}^{-1}$) studied to date. This detection is particularly important in the context of galaxy evolution models, as it confirms that galaxies with radio AGN also typically support hot gaseous halos. With Herschel observations, we show that the SZ detection is not significantly contaminated by dust. We show that 5 mJy$<S_{1.4}<$200 mJy radio sources contribute $\ell(\ell+1)C_{\ell}/(2π)=0.37\pm0.03μ$K$^2$ to the angular power spectrum at $\ell=3000$ at 148 GHz, after accounting for the SZ effect associated with their host halos.

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arXiv2014

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: CMB Polarization at $200<\ell<9000$

We report on measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and celestial polarization at 146 GHz made with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) in its first three months of observing. Four regions of sky covering a total of 270 square degrees were mapped with an angular resolution of $1.3'$. The map noise levels in the four regions are between 11 and 17 $μ$K-arcmin. We present TT, TE, EE, TB, EB, and BB power spectra from three of these regions. The observed E-mode polarization power spectrum, displaying six acoustic peaks in the range $200<\ell<3000$, is an excellent fit to the prediction of the best-fit cosmological models from WMAP9+ACT and Planck data. The polarization power spectrum, which mainly reflects primordial plasma velocity perturbations, provides an independent determination of cosmological parameters consistent with those based on the temperature power spectrum, which results mostly from primordial density perturbations. We find that without masking any point sources in the EE data at $\ell<9000$, the Poisson tail of the EE power spectrum due to polarized point sources has an amplitude less than $2.4$ $μ$K$^2$ at $\ell = 3000$ at 95\% confidence. Finally, we report that the Crab Nebula, an important polarization calibration source at microwave frequencies, has 8.7\% polarization with an angle of $150.7^\circ \pm 0.6^\circ$ when smoothed with a $5'$ Gaussian beam.

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arXiv2014

Searching for oscillations in the primordial power spectrum

A small deviation from scale invariance in the form of oscillations in the primordial correlation spectra has been predicted by various cosmological models. In this paper we review a recently developed method to search for these features in the data in a more effective way. By Taylor expanding the small features around the 'background' cosmology, we have shown we are able to improve the search for these features compared to previous analyses. In this short paper we will extend that work by combining this method with a multi nested sampler. We recover our previous findings and are able to do so in 192 CPU hours. We will also briefly discuss the possibility of a long wavelength feature in the data to alleviate some tension between CMB data and the LCDM+r concordance cosmology.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Searching for Oscillations in the Primordial Power Spectrum: Constraints from Planck (Paper II)

We apply our recently developed code to search for resonance features in the Planck CMB temperature data. We search both for log spaced oscillations or linear spaced oscillations and compare our findings with results of our WMAP9 analysis and the Planck team analysis. While there are hints of log spaced resonant features present in the WMAP9 data, the significance of these features weaken with more data. With more accurate small scale measurements, we also find that the best fit frequency has shifted and the amplitude has been reduced. We confirm the presence of a several low frequency peaks, earlier identified by the Planck team, but with a better improvement of fit (delta chi^2 ~ 12). We further investigate this improvement by allowing the lensing potential to vary as well, showing mild correlation between the amplitude of the oscillations and the lensing amplitude. We find that the improvement of the fit increases even more (delta chi^2 ~ 14) for the low frequencies that modify the spectrum in a way that mimics the lensing effect. Since these features were not present in the WMAP data, they are primarily due to better measurements of Planck at small angular scales. For linear spaced oscillations we find a maximum delta chi^2 ~ 13 scanning two orders of magnitude in frequency space, and the biggest improvements are at extremely high frequencies. We recover a best fit frequency very close to the one found in WMAP9, which confirms that the fit improvement is driven by low l. Further comparisons with WMAP9 show Planck contains many more features, both for linear and log space oscillations, but with a smaller improvement of fit. We discuss the improvement as a function of the number of modes and study the effect of the 217 GHz map, which appears to drive most of the improvement for log spaced oscillations. We conclude that none of the detected features are statistically significant.

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arXiv2014

Progress with the Prime Focus Spectrograph for the Subaru Telescope: a massively multiplexed optical and near-infrared fiber spectrograph

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is an optical/near-infrared multi-fiber spectrograph with 2394 science fibers, which are distributed in 1.3 degree diameter field of view at Subaru 8.2-meter telescope. The simultaneous wide wavelength coverage from 0.38 um to 1.26 um, with the resolving power of 3000, strengthens its ability to target three main survey programs: cosmology, Galactic archaeology, and galaxy/AGN evolution. A medium resolution mode with resolving power of 5000 for 0.71 um to 0.89 um also will be available by simply exchanging dispersers. PFS takes the role for the spectroscopic part of the Subaru Measurement of Images and Redshifts project, while Hyper Suprime-Cam works on the imaging part. To transform the telescope plus WFC focal ratio, a 3-mm thick broad-band coated glass-molded microlens is glued to each fiber tip. A higher transmission fiber is selected for the longest part of cable system, while one with a better FRD performance is selected for the fiber-positioner and fiber-slit components, given the more frequent fiber movements and tightly curved structure. Each Fiber positioner consists of two stages of piezo-electric rotary motors. Its engineering model has been produced and tested. Fiber positioning will be performed iteratively by taking an image of artificially back-illuminated fibers with the Metrology camera located in the Cassegrain container. The camera is carefully designed so that fiber position measurements are unaffected by small amounts of high special-frequency inaccuracies in WFC lens surface shapes. Target light carried through the fiber system reaches one of four identical fast-Schmidt spectrograph modules, each with three arms. Prototype VPH gratings have been optically tested. CCD production is complete, with standard fully-depleted CCDs for red arms and more-challenging thinner fully-depleted CCDs with blue-optimized coating for blue arms.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2014

Precision Epoch of Reionization studies with next-generation CMB experiments

Future arcminute resolution polarization data from ground-based Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations can be used to estimate the contribution to the temperature power spectrum from the primary anisotropies and to uncover the signature of reionization near $\ell=1500$ in the small angular-scale temperature measurements. Our projections are based on combining expected small-scale E-mode polarization measurements from Advanced ACTPol in the range $300<\ell<3000$ with simulated temperature data from the full Planck mission in the low and intermediate $\ell$ region, $2<\ell<2000$. We show that the six basic cosmological parameters determined from this combination of data will predict the underlying primordial temperature spectrum at high multipoles to better than $1\%$ accuracy. Assuming an efficient cleaning from multi-frequency channels of most foregrounds in the temperature data, we investigate the sensitivity to the only residual secondary component, the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) term. The CMB polarization is used to break degeneracies between primordial and secondary terms present in temperature and, in effect, to remove from the temperature data all but the residual kSZ term. We estimate a $15 σ$ detection of the diffuse homogeneous kSZ signal from expected AdvACT temperature data at $\ell>1500$, leading to a measurement of the amplitude of matter density fluctuations, $σ_8$, at $1\%$ precision. Alternatively, by exploring the reionization signal encoded in the patchy kSZ measurements, we bound the time and duration of the reionization with $σ(z_{\rm re})=1.1$ and $σ(Δz_{\rm re})=0.2$. We find that these constraints degrade rapidly with large beam sizes, which highlights the importance of arcminute-scale resolution for future CMB surveys.

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