arXiv subjects

Elena Massara

Publications and source records attributed to Elena Massara.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Velocity profiles of matter and biased tracers around voids

The velocity profile of galaxies around voids is a key ingredient for redshift space distortion (RSD) measurements made using the void-galaxy correlation function. In this paper we use simulations to test whether the velocity profile of the tracers used to find the voids matches the velocity profile of the dark matter around these voids. A mismatch is expected and found in the inner part of voids, where tracers are very sparse. We discuss how this difference is caused by a selection effect where the void centre positions are correlated to the particular realization of the sparse tracers and their spatial distribution. In turn, this then affects the RSD void-galaxy correlation analysis. We show this by evaluating the Jacobian of the real to redshift space mapping using the tracer or matter velocity profile. Differences of the order of 20\% in the velocity profile translate into differences of the order of few percent in the Jacobian. This small discrepancy propagates to the monopole and quadrupole of the void-tracer correlation function, producing modifications of comparable magnitude to those from changes in $fσ_8$ at the level of the statistical uncertainties from current analyses.

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arXiv2022

Correcting for small-displacement interlopers in BAO analyses

Due to the low resolution of slitless spectroscopy, future surveys including those made possible by the Roman and Euclid space telescopes will be prone to line mis-identification, leading to interloper galaxies at the wrong redshifts in the large-scale structure catalogues. The most pernicious of these have a small displacement between true and false redshift such that the interloper positions are correlated with the target galaxies. We consider how to correct for such contaminants, focusing on $\rm Hβ$ interlopers in [OIII] catalogues as will be observed by Roman, which are misplaced by $Δd = 97 \,h^{-1}\,{\rm Mpc}$ at redshift $z = 1$. Because this displacement is close to the BAO scale, the peak in the interloper-target galaxy cross-correlation function at the displacement scale can change the shape of the BAO peak in the auto-correlation of the contaminated catalogue, and lead to incorrect cosmological measurements if not accounted for properly. We consider how to build a model for the monopole and quadrupole moments of the contaminated correlation function, including an additional free parameter for the fraction of interlopers. The key input to this model is the cross-correlation between the population of galaxies forming the interlopers and the main target sample. It will be important to either estimate this using calibration data or to use the contaminated small-scale auto-correlation function to model it, which may be possible if a number of requirements about the galaxy populations are met. We find that this method is successful in measuring the BAO dilation parameters without significant degradation in accuracy, provided the cross-correlation function is accurately known.

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arXiv2022

Cosmological Information in the Marked Power Spectrum of the Galaxy Field

Marked power spectra are two-point statistics of a marked field obtained by weighting each location with a function that depends on the local density around that point. We consider marked power spectra of the galaxy field in redshift space that up-weight low density regions, and perform a Fisher matrix analysis to assess the information content of this type of statistics using the Molino mock catalogs built upon the Quijote simulations. We identify four different ways to up-weight the galaxy field, and compare the Fisher information contained in their marked power spectra to the one of the standard galaxy power spectrum, when considering monopole and quadrupole of each statistic. Our results show that each of the four marked power spectra can tighten the standard power spectrum constraints on the cosmological parameters $Ω_{\rm m}$, $Ω_{\rm b}$, $h$, $n_s$, $M_ν$ by $15-25\%$ and on $σ_8$ by a factor of 2. The same analysis performed by combining the standard and four marked power spectra shows a substantial improvement compared to the power spectrum constraints that is equal to a factor of 6 for $σ_8$ and $2.5-3$ for the other parameters. Our constraints may be conservative, since the galaxy number density in the Molino catalogs is much lower than the ones in future galaxy surveys, which will allow them to probe lower density regions of the large-scale structure.

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arXiv2022

Cosmology and neutrino mass with the Minimum Spanning Tree

The information content of the minimum spanning tree (MST), used to capture higher-order statistics and information from the cosmic web, is compared to that of the power spectrum for a $νΛ$CDM model. The measurements are made in redshift space using haloes from the Quijote simulation of mass $\geq 3.2\times 10^{13}\,h^{-1}{\rm M}_{\odot}$ in a box of length $L_{\rm box}=1\,h^{-1}{\rm Gpc}$. The power spectrum multipoles (monopole and quadrupole) are computed for Fourier modes in the range $0.006 < k < 0.5\, h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. For comparison the MST is measured with a minimum length scale of $l_{\min}\simeq13\,h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$. Combining the MST and power spectrum allows for many of the individual degeneracies to be broken; on its own the MST provides tighter constraints on the sum of neutrino masses $M_ν$ and cosmological parameters $h$, $n_{\rm s}$, and $Ω_{\rm b}$ but the power spectrum alone provides tighter constraints on $Ω_{\rm m}$ and $σ_{8}$. Combined we find constraints that are a factor of two (or greater) on all parameters with respect to the power spectrum (for $M_ν$ there is a factor of four improvement). These improvements appear to be driven by the MST's sensitivity to small scale clustering, where the effect of neutrino free-streaming becomes relevant, and high-order statistical information in the cosmic web. The MST is shown to be a powerful tool for cosmology and neutrino mass studies, and therefore could play a pivotal role in ongoing and future galaxy redshift surveys (such as DES, DESI, \emph{Euclid}, and Rubin-LSST).

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arXiv2022

Wavelet Moments for Cosmological Parameter Estimation

Extracting non-Gaussian information from the non-linear regime of structure formation is key to fully exploiting the rich data from upcoming cosmological surveys probing the large-scale structure of the universe. However, due to theoretical and computational complexities, this remains one of the main challenges in analyzing observational data. We present a set of summary statistics for cosmological matter fields based on 3D wavelets to tackle this challenge. These statistics are computed as the spatial average of the complex modulus of the 3D wavelet transform raised to a power $q$ and are therefore known as invariant wavelet moments. The 3D wavelets are constructed to be radially band-limited and separable on a spherical polar grid and come in three types: isotropic, oriented, and harmonic. In the Fisher forecast framework, we evaluate the performance of these summary statistics on matter fields from the Quijote suite, where they are shown to reach state-of-the-art parameter constraints on the base $Λ$CDM parameters, as well as the sum of neutrino masses. We show that we can improve constraints by a factor 5 to 10 in all parameters with respect to the power spectrum baseline.

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arXiv2021

The High Latitude Spectroscopic Survey on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct a High Latitude Spectroscopic Survey (HLSS) over a large volume at high redshift, using the near-IR grism (1.0-1.93 $μ$m, $R=435-865$) and the 0.28 deg$^2$ wide field camera. We present a reference HLSS which maps 2000 deg$^2$ and achieves an emission line flux limit of 10$^{-16}$ erg/s/cm$^2$ at 6.5$σ$, requiring $\sim$0.6 yrs of observing time. We summarize the flowdown of the Roman science objectives to the science and technical requirements of the HLSS. We construct a mock redshift survey over the full HLSS volume by applying a semi-analytic galaxy formation model to a cosmological N-body simulation, and use this mock survey to create pixel-level simulations of 4 deg$^2$ of HLSS grism spectroscopy. We find that the reference HLSS would measure $\sim$ 10 million H$α$ galaxy redshifts that densely map large scale structure at $z=1-2$ and 2 million [OIII] galaxy redshifts that sparsely map structures at $z=2-3$. We forecast the performance of this survey for measurements of the cosmic expansion history with baryon acoustic oscillations and the growth of large scale structure with redshift space distortions. We also study possible deviations from the reference design, and find that a deep HLSS at $f_{\rm line}>7\times10^{-17}$erg/s/cm$^2$ over 4000 deg$^2$ (requiring $\sim$1.5 yrs of observing time) provides the most compelling stand-alone constraints on dark energy from Roman alone. This provides a useful reference for future optimizations. The reference survey, simulated data sets, and forecasts presented here will inform community decisions on the final scope and design of the Roman HLSS.

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arXiv2021

Detecting Neutrino Mass by Combining Matter Clustering, Halos, and Voids

We quantify the information content of the non-linear matter power spectrum, the halo mass function, and the void size function, using the Quijote $N$-body simulations. We find that these three statistics exhibit very different degeneracies amongst the cosmological parameters, and thus the combination of all three probes enables the breaking of degeneracies, in turn yielding remarkably tight constraints. We perform a Fisher analysis using the full covariance matrix, including all auto- and cross-correlations, finding that this increases the information content for neutrino mass compared to a correlation-free analysis. The multiplicative improvement of the constraints on the cosmological parameters obtained by combining all three probes compared to using the power spectrum alone are: 137, 5, 8, 20, 10, and 43, for $Ω_m$, $Ω_b$, $h$, $n_s$, $σ_8$, and $M_ν$, respectively. The marginalized error on the sum of the neutrino masses is $σ(M_ν)=0.018\,{\rm eV}$ for a cosmological volume of $1\,(h^{-1}{\rm Gpc})^3$, using $k_{\max}=0.5\,h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, and without CMB priors. We note that this error is an underestimate insomuch as we do not consider super-sample covariance, baryonic effects, and realistic survey noises and systematics. On the other hand, it is an overestimate insomuch as our cuts and binning are suboptimal due to restrictions imposed by the simulation resolution. Given upcoming galaxy surveys will observe volumes spanning $\sim 100\,(h^{-1}{\rm Gpc})^3$, this presents a promising new avenue to measure neutrino mass without being restricted by the need for accurate knowledge of the optical depth, which is required for CMB-based measurements. Furthermore, the improved constraints on other cosmological parameters, notably $Ω_m$, may also be competitive with CMB-based measurements.

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arXiv2021

The Quijote simulations

The Quijote simulations are a set of 44,100 full N-body simulations spanning more than 7,000 cosmological models in the $\{Ω_{\rm m}, Ω_{\rm b}, h, n_s, σ_8, M_ν, w \}$ hyperplane. At a single redshift the simulations contain more than 8.5 trillions of particles over a combined volume of 44,100 $(h^{-1}{\rm Gpc})^3$; each simulation follow the evolution of $256^3$, $512^3$ or $1024^3$ particles in a box of $1~h^{-1}{\rm Gpc}$ length. Billions of dark matter halos and cosmic voids have been identified in the simulations, whose runs required more than 35 million core hours. The Quijote simulations have been designed for two main purposes: 1) to quantify the information content on cosmological observables, and 2) to provide enough data to train machine learning algorithms. In this paper we describe the simulations and show a few of their applications. We also release the Petabyte of data generated, comprising hundreds of thousands of simulation snapshots at multiple redshifts, halo and void catalogs, together with millions of summary statistics such as power spectra, bispectra, correlation functions, marked power spectra, and estimated probability density functions.

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arXiv2021

Modeling the Marked Spectrum of Matter and Biased Tracers in Real- and Redshift-Space

We present the one-loop perturbation theory for the power spectrum of the marked density field of matter and biased tracers in real- and redshift-space. The statistic has been shown to yield impressive constraints on cosmological parameters; to exploit this, we require an accurate and computationally inexpensive theoretical model. Comparison with $N$-body simulations demonstrates that linear theory fails on all scales, but inclusion of one-loop Effective Field Theory terms gives a substantial improvement, with $\sim 5\%$ accuracy at $z = 1$. The expansion is less convergent in redshift-space (achieving $\sim 10\%$ accuracy), but there are significant improvements for biased tracers due to the freedom in the bias coefficients. The large-scale theory contains non-negligible contributions from all perturbative orders; we suggest a reorganization of the theory that contains all terms relevant on large-scales, discussing both its explicit form at one-loop and structure at infinite-loop. This motivates a low-$k$ correction term, leading to a model that is sub-percent accurate on large scales, albeit with the inclusion of two (three) free coefficients in real- (redshift-)space. We further consider the effects of massive neutrinos, showing that beyond-EdS corrections to the perturbative kernels are negligible in practice. It remains to see whether the purported gains in cosmological parameters remain valid for biased tracers and can be captured by the theoretical model.

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arXiv2020

Line confusion in spectroscopic surveys and its possible effects: Shifts in Baryon Acoustic Oscillations position

Roman Space Telescope will survey about 17 million emission-line galaxies over a range of redshifts. Its main targets are H$α$ emission-line galaxies at low redshifts and [O III] emission-line galaxies at high redshifts. The Roman Space Telescope will estimate the redshift these galaxies with single line identification. This suggests that other emission-line galaxies may be misidentified as the main targets. In particular, it is hard to distinguish between the H$β$ and [O III] lines as the two lines are close in wavelength and hence the photometric information may not be sufficient to separate them reliably. Misidentifying H$β$ emitter as [O III] emitter will cause a shift in the inferred radial position of the galaxy by approximately 90 Mpc/h. This length scale is similar to the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale and could shift and broaden the BAO peak, possibly introduce errors in determining the BAO peak position. We qualitatively describe the effect of this new systematic and further quantify it with a lightcone simulation with emission-line galaxies.

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arXiv2020

What does the Marked Power Spectrum Measure? Insights from Perturbation Theory

The marked power spectrum is capable of placing far tighter constraints on cosmological parameters (particularly the neutrino mass) than the conventional power spectrum. What new information does it contain beyond conventional statistics? Through the development of a perturbative model, we find that the mark induces a significant coupling between non-Gaussianities, which are usually found on small scales, and large scales, leading to the additional information content. The model is derived in the context of one-loop perturbation theory and validated by comparison to $N$-body simulations across a variety of mark parameters. At moderate redshifts, including for massive neutrino cosmologies, the theory is in good agreement with the simulations. The importance of non-linear gravitational effects on the large-scale spectra complicates the modeling as there is no well-defined convergence radius of the theory at low $z$. Extension to higher perturbative order and biased tracers is possible via a similar approach, and a simple model of the latter is shown to yield promising results. The theory becomes non-perturbative at redshift zero for small smoothing scales, with important contributions from higher-order terms: these will need to be studied before the full power of this tool can be realized.

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arXiv2020

Using the Marked Power Spectrum to Detect the Signature of Neutrinos in Large-Scale Structure

Cosmological neutrinos have their greatest influence in voids: these are the regions with the highest neutrino to dark matter density ratios. The marked power spectrum can be used to emphasize low density regions over high density regions, and therefore is potentially much more sensitive than the power spectrum to the effects of neutrino masses. Using 22,000 N-body simulations from the Quijote suite, we quantify the information content in the marked power spectrum of the matter field, and show that it outperforms the standard power spectrum by setting constraints improved by a factor larger than 2 on all cosmological parameters. The combination of marked and standard power spectrum allows to place a 4.3σ constraint on the minimum sum of the neutrino masses with a volume equal to 1 (Gpc/h)^3 and without CMB priors. Combinations of different marked power spectra yield a 6σ constraint within the same conditions.

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arXiv2019

Beyond two-point statistics: using the minimum spanning tree as a tool for cosmology

Cosmological studies of large-scale structure have relied on two-point statistics, not fully exploiting the rich structure of the cosmic web. In this paper we show how to capture some of this cosmic web information by using the minimum spanning tree (MST), for the first time using it to estimate cosmological parameters in simulations. Discrete tracers of dark matter such as galaxies, $N$-body particles or haloes are used as nodes to construct a unique graph, the MST, that traces skeletal structure. We study the dependence of the MST on cosmological parameters using haloes from a suite of COLA simulations with a box size of $250\ h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$, varying the amplitude of scalar fluctuations $\left(A_{\rm s}\right)$, matter density $\left(Ω_{\rm m}\right)$, and neutrino mass $\left(\sum m_ν\right)$. The power spectrum $P$ and bispectrum $B$ are measured for wavenumbers between $0.125$ and $0.5$ $h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, while a corresponding lower cut of $\sim12.6$ $h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ is applied to the MST. The constraints from the individual methods are fairly similar but when combined we see improved $1σ$ constraints of $\sim 17\%$ ($\sim 12\%$) on $Ω_{\rm m}$ and $\sim 12\%$ ($\sim 10\%$) on $A_{\rm s}$ with respect to $P$ ($P+B$) thus showing the MST is providing additional information. The MST can be applied to current and future spectroscopic surveys (BOSS, DESI, Euclid, PSF, WFIRST, and 4MOST) in 3D and photometric surveys (DES and LSST) in tomographic shells to constrain parameters and/or test systematics.

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arXiv2019

Massive Neutrinos Leave Fingerprints on Cosmic Voids

Do void statistics contain information beyond the tracer 2-point correlation function? Yes! As we vary the sum of the neutrino masses, we find void statistics contain information absent when using just tracer 2-point statistics. Massive neutrinos uniquely affect cosmic voids. We explore their impact on void clustering using both the DEMNUni and MassiveNuS simulations. For voids, neutrino effects depend on the observed void tracers. As the neutrino mass increases, the number of small voids traced by cold dark matter particles increases and the number of large voids decreases. Surprisingly, when massive, highly biased, halos are used as tracers, we find the opposite effect. The scale at which voids cluster, as well as the void correlation, is similarly sensitive to the sum of neutrino masses and the tracers. This scale dependent trend is not due to simulation volume or halo density. The interplay of these signatures in the void abundance and clustering leaves a distinct fingerprint that could be detected with observations and potentially help break degeneracies between different cosmological parameters. This paper paves the way to exploit cosmic voids in future surveys to constrain the mass of neutrinos.

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arXiv2019

Cosmic voids: a novel probe to shed light on our Universe

Cosmic voids, the less dense patches of the Universe, are promising laboratories to extract cosmological information. Thanks to their unique low density character, voids are extremely sensitive to diffuse components such as neutrinos and dark energy, and represent ideal environments to study modifications of gravity, where the effects of such modifications are expected to be more prominent. Robust void-related observables, including for example redshift-space distortions (RSD) and weak lensing around voids, are a promising way to chase and test new physics. Cosmological analysis of the large-scale structure of the Universe predominantly relies on the high density regions. Current and upcoming surveys are designed to optimize the extraction of cosmological information from these zones, but leave voids under-exploited. A dense, large area spectroscopic survey with imaging capabilities is ideal to exploit the power of voids fully. Besides helping illuminate the nature of dark energy, modified gravity, and neutrinos, this survey will give access to a detailed map of under-dense regions, providing an unprecedented opportunity to observe and study a so far under-explored galaxy population.

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arXiv2019

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope: 100 Hubbles for the 2020s

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is a 2.4m space telescope with a 0.281 deg^2 field of view for near-IR imaging and slitless spectroscopy and a coronagraph designed for > 10^8 starlight suppresion. As background information for Astro2020 white papers, this article summarizes the current design and anticipated performance of WFIRST. While WFIRST does not have the UV imaging/spectroscopic capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope, for wide field near-IR surveys WFIRST is hundreds of times more efficient. Some of the most ambitious multi-cycle HST Treasury programs could be executed as routine General Observer (GO) programs on WFIRST. The large area and time-domain surveys planned for the cosmology and exoplanet microlensing programs will produce extraordinarily rich data sets that enable an enormous range of Archival Research (AR) investigations. Requirements for the coronagraph are defined based on its status as a technology demonstration, but its expected performance will enable unprecedented observations of nearby giant exoplanets and circumstellar disks. WFIRST is currently in the Preliminary Design and Technology Completion phase (Phase B), on schedule for launch in 2025, with several of its critical components already in production.

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arXiv2018

Density and velocity profiles around cosmic voids

We study the evolution of the cross-correlation between voids and the mass density field - i.e. of void profiles. We show that approaches based on the spherical model alone miss an important contribution to the evolution on large scales of most interest to cosmology: they fail to capture the well-known fact that the large-scale bias factor of conserved tracers evolves. We also show that the operations of evolution and averaging do not commute, but this difference is only significant within about two effective radii. We show how to include a term which accounts for the evolution of bias, which is directly related to the fact that voids move. The void motions are approximately independent of void size, so they are more significant for smaller voids that are typically more numerous. This term also contributes to void-matter pairwise velocities: including it is necessary for modeling the typical outflow speeds around voids. It is, therefore, important for void redshift space distortions. Finally, we show that the excursion set peaks/troughs approach provides a useful, but not perfect framework for describing void profiles and their evolution.

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arXiv2018

WFIRST Science Investigation Team "Cosmology with the High Latitude Survey" Annual Report 2017

Cosmic acceleration is the most surprising cosmological discovery in many decades. Testing and distinguishing among possible explanations requires cosmological measurements of extremely high precision probing the full history of cosmic expansion and structure growth and, ideally, compare and contrast matter and relativistic tracers of the gravity potential. This program is one of the defining objectives of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), as set forth in the New Worlds, New Horizons report (NWNH) in 2010. The WFIRST mission has the ability to improve these measurements by 1-2 orders of magnitude compared to the current state of the art, while simultaneously extending their redshift grasp, greatly improving control of systematic effects, and taking a unified approach to multiple probes that provide complementary physical information and cross-checks of cosmological results. We describe in this annual report the activities of the Science Investigation Team (SIT) "Cosmology with the High Latitude Survey (HLS)" during the year 2017. This team was selected by NASA in December 2015 in order to address the stringent challenges of the WFIRST dark energy (DE) program through the Project's formulation phase. This SIT has elected to jointly address Galaxy Redshift Survey, Weak Lensing and Cluster Growth and thus fully embrace the fact that the imaging and spectroscopic elements of the HLS will be realized as an integrated observing program, and they jointly impose requirements on performance and operations. WFIRST is designed to be able to deliver a definitive result on the origin of cosmic acceleration. It is not optimized for Figure of Merit sensitivity but for control of systematic uncertainties and for having multiple techniques each with multiple cross-checks. Our SIT work focuses on understanding the potential systematics in the WFIRST DE measurements.

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