arXiv subjects

Gabriel Jung

Publications and source records attributed to Gabriel Jung.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Field-Level Inference of Primordial Non-Gaussianity with the Quijote Simulation Suite

Local primordial non-Gaussianity, parameterised as $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local}$, will be stringently constrained using state-of-the-art methods applied to next-generation galaxy redshift survey data. In this paper, in preparation for the upcoming data sets, we demonstrate for the first time the joint field-level inference of $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local}$, nuisance parameters, and the initial conditions in realistic halo catalogues, ones which are generated through full dark-matter-only $N$-body simulations. The field-level inference algorithm optimally constrains $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local}$ through a Bayesian forward-modelling approach at the field level, which outperforms traditional methods by leveraging the full statistical power of the data at the scales considered. In addition, we assess its performance under various design choices in the forward model, including tests of the structure formation model and resolution. We demonstrate the robustness of our approach by applying it to a subset of the \textit{Quijote} simulation suite, performing the inference at scales down to $k_{\rm max} \approx 0.1 h \rm{Mpc}^{-1}$. Compared with a power spectrum and bispectrum estimator, we find a $\sim1.3$ improvement in $\sigma(f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local})$ when applying \borg{}, while marginalising over the initial conditions and bias parameters. From the small-scale information sensitivity tests, we show that the constraints on $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local}$ improve as we increase the resolution of the inference. These findings underscore the transformative potential of field-level inference to leverage the information available in ongoing surveys such as \textit{Euclid}, providing accurate insights into the physics of cosmic inflation and the number of fields driving it.

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arXiv2025

Constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity from Planck PR4 data

We perform the first bispectrum analysis of the final Planck release temperature and E-polarization CMB data, called PR4. We use the binned bispectrum estimator pipeline that was also used for the previous Planck releases as well as the integrated bispectrum estimator. We test the standard primordial (local, equilateral and orthogonal) and secondary (lensing, unclustered point sources and CIB) bispectrum shapes. The final primordial results of the full T+E analysis are $f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{local} = -0.1 \pm 5.0$, $f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{equil} = 6 \pm 46$ and $f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{ortho} = -8 \pm 21$. These results are consistent with previous Planck releases, but have slightly smaller error bars than in PR3, up to $12\%$ smaller for orthogonal. They represent the best Planck constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity. The lensing and point source bispectra are also detected, consistent with PR3. We perform several validation tests and find in particular that the 600 simulations, used to determine the linear correction term and the error bars, have a systematically low lensing bispectrum. We show however that this has no impact on our results.

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arXiv2024

The constraining power of the Marked Power Spectrum: an analytical study

The marked power spectrum - a two-point correlation function of a transformed density field - has emerged as a promising tool for extracting cosmological information from the large-scale structure of the Universe. In this work, we present the first comprehensive analytical study of the marked power spectrum's sensitivity to primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) of the non-local type. We extend previous effective field theory frameworks to incorporate PNG, developing a complete theoretical model that we validate against the Quijote simulation suite. Through a systematic Fisher analysis, we compare the constraining power of the marked power spectrum against traditional approaches combining the power spectrum and bispectrum (P+B). We explore different choices of mark parameters to evaluate their impact on parameter constraints, particularly focusing on equilateral and orthogonal PNG as well as neutrino masses. Our analysis shows that while marking up underdense regions yields optimal constraints in the low shot-noise regime, the marked power spectrum's performance for discrete tracers with BOSS-like number densities does not surpass that of P+B analysis at mildly non-linear scales ($k \lesssim 0.25 \,h/\text{Mpc}$). However, the marked approach offers several practical advantages, including simpler estimation procedures and potentially more manageable systematic effects. Our theoretical framework reveals how the marked power spectrum incorporates higher-order correlation information through terms resembling tree-level bispectra and power spectrum convolutions. This work establishes a robust foundation for applying marked statistics to future large-volume surveys.

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arXiv2024

Cosmological simulations of scale-dependent primordial non-Gaussianity

We present the results of a set of cosmological N-body simulations with standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology but characterized by a scale-dependent primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type featuring a power-law dependence of the $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc}(k)$ at large scales followed by a saturation to a constant value at smaller scales where non-linear growth leads to the formation of collapsed cosmic structures. Such models are built to ensure consistency with current Cosmic Microwave Background bounds on primordial non-Gaussianity yet allowing for large effects of the non-Gaussian statistics on the properties of non-linear structure formation. We show the impact of such scale-dependent non-Gaussian scenarios on a wide range of properties of the resulting cosmic structures, such as the non-linear matter power spectrum, the halo and sub-halo mass functions, the concentration-mass relation, the halo and void density profiles, and we highlight for the first time that some of these models might mimic the effects of Warm Dark Matter for several of such observables

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arXiv2024

Revisiting the large-scale CMB anomalies: The impact of the SZ signal from the Local Universe

The full sky measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropies by $\textit{WMAP}$ and $\textit{Planck}$ have highlighted the presence of several unexpected isotropy-breaking features on the largest angular scales. In this work, we investigate the impact of the local large-scale structure on these anomalies through the thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effects. We use a constrained hydrodynamical simulation that reproduces the local Universe in a box of $500\,h^{-1}\,$Mpc to construct full sky maps of the temperature anisotropies produced by these two CMB secondary effects and discuss their statistical properties on large angular scales. We show the significant role played by the Virgo cluster on these scales, and compare it to theoretical predictions and random patches of the universe obtained from the hydrodynamical simulation $\textit{Magneticum}$. We explore three of the main CMB large-scale anomalies -- i.e., lack of correlation, quadrupole-octopole alignment and hemispherical asymmetry -- , both in the latest $\textit{Planck}$ data (PR4), where they are detected at a similar level to the previous releases, and using the simulated secondaries from the local Universe, verifying their negligible impact.

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arXiv2024

Constraining Primordial Non-Gaussianity from Large Scale Structure with the Wavelet Scattering Transform

We investigate the Wavelet Scattering Transform (WST) as a tool for the study of Primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) in Large Scale Structure (LSS), and compare its performance with that achievable via a joint analysis with power spectrum and bispectrum (P+B). We consider the three main primordial bispectrum shapes - local, equilateral and orthogonal - and produce Fisher forecast for the corresponding fNL amplitude parameters, jointly with standard cosmological parameters. We analyze simulations from the publicly available "Quijote" and "Quijote-png" N-body suites, studying both the dark matter and halo fields. We find that the WST outperforms the power spectrum alone on all parameters, both on the fNL's and on cosmological ones. In particular, on fNL_loc for halos, the improvement is about 27%. When B is combined with P, halo constraints from WST are weaker for fNL_loc (at ~ 15% level), but stronger for fNL_eq (~ 25%) and fNL_ortho (~ 28%). Our results show that WST, both alone and in combination with P+B, can improve the extraction of information on PNG from LSS data over the one attainable by a standard P+B analysis. Moreover, we identify a class of WST in which the origin of the extra information on PNG can be cleanly isolated.

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arXiv2024

Quijote-PNG: Optimizing the summary statistics to measure Primordial non-Gaussianity

We apply a suite of different estimators to the Quijote-PNG halo catalogues to find the best approach to constrain Primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) at non-linear cosmological scales, up to $k_{\rm max} = 0.5 \, h\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. The set of summary statistics considered in our analysis includes the power spectrum, bispectrum, halo mass function, marked power spectrum, and marked modal bispectrum. Marked statistics are used here for the first time in the context of PNG study. We perform a Fisher analysis to estimate their cosmological information content, showing substantial improvements when marked observables are added to the analysis. Starting from these summaries, we train deep neural networks (NN) to perform likelihood-free inference of cosmological and PNG parameters. We assess the performance of different subsets of summary statistics; in the case of $f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{equil}$, we find that a combination of the power spectrum and a suitable marked power spectrum outperforms the combination of power spectrum and bispectrum, the baseline statistics usually employed in PNG analysis. A minimal pipeline to analyse the statistics we identified can be implemented either with our ML algorithm or via more traditional estimators, if these are deemed more reliable.

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arXiv2023

Taming assembly bias for primordial non-Gaussianity

Primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type induces a strong scale-dependent bias on the clustering of halos in the late-time Universe. This signature is particularly promising to provide constraints on the non-Gaussianity parameter $f_{\rm NL}$ from galaxy surveys, as the bias amplitude grows with scale and becomes important on large, linear scales. However, there is a well-known degeneracy between the real prize, the $f_{\rm NL}$ parameter, and the (non-Gaussian) assembly bias i.e., the halo formation history-dependent contribution to the amplitude of the signal, which could seriously compromise the ability of large-scale structure surveys to constrain $f_{\rm NL}$. We show how the assembly bias can be modeled and constrained, thus almost completely recovering the power of galaxy surveys to competitively constrain primordial non-Gaussianity. In particular, studying hydrodynamical simulations, we find that a proxy for the halo properties that determine assembly bias can be constructed from photometric properties of galaxies. Using a prior on the assembly bias guided by this proxy degrades the statistical errors on $f_{\rm NL}$ only mildly compared to an ideal case where the assembly bias is perfectly known. The systematic error on $f_{\rm NL}$ that the proxy induces can be safely kept under control.

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arXiv2023

Quijote-PNG: The Information Content of the Halo Mass Function

We study signatures of primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) in the redshift-space halo field on non-linear scales, using a combination of three summary statistics, namely the halo mass function (HMF), power spectrum, and bispectrum. The choice of adding the HMF to our previous joint analysis of power spectrum and bispectrum is driven by a preliminary field-level analysis, in which we train graph neural networks on halo catalogues to infer the PNG $f_\mathrm{NL}$ parameter. The covariance matrix and the responses of our summaries to changes in model parameters are extracted from a suite of halo catalogues constructed from the Quijote-PNG N-body simulations. We consider the three main types of PNG: local, equilateral and orthogonal. Adding the HMF to our previous joint analysis of power spectrum and bispectrum produces two main effects. First, it reduces the equilateral $f_\mathrm{NL}$ predicted errors by roughly a factor $2$, while also producing notable, although smaller, improvements for orthogonal PNG. Second, it helps break the degeneracy between the local PNG amplitude, $f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{local}$, and assembly bias, $b_{\phi}$, without relying on any external prior assumption. Our final forecasts for PNG parameters are $\Delta f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{local} = 40$, $\Delta f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{equil} = 210$, $\Delta f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{ortho} = 91$, on a cubic volume of $1 \left(h^{-1}{\rm Gpc}\right)^3$, with a halo number density of $\bar{n}\sim 5.1 \times 10^{-5}~h^3\mathrm{Mpc}^{-3}$, at $z = 1$, and considering scales up to $k_\mathrm{max} = 0.5~h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$.

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arXiv2022

Quijote PNG: The information content of the halo power spectrum and bispectrum

We investigate how much can be learnt about four types of primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) from small-scale measurements of the halo field. Using the QUIJOTE-PNG simulations, we quantify the information content accessible with measurements of the halo power spectrum monopole and quadrupole, the matter power spectrum, the halo-matter cross spectrum and the halo bispectrum monopole. This analysis is the first to include small, non-linear scales, up to $k_\mathrm{max}=0.5 \mathrm{h/Mpc}$, and to explore whether these scales can break degeneracies with cosmological and nuisance parameters making use of thousands of N-body simulations. We perform all the halo measurements in redshift space with a single sample comprised of all halos with mass $>3.2 \times 10^{13}~h^{-1}M_\odot$. For local PNG, measurements of the scale dependent bias effect from the power spectrum using sample variance cancellation provide significantly tighter constraints than measurements of the halo bispectrum. In this case measurements of the small scales add minimal additional constraining power. In contrast, the information on equilateral and orthogonal PNG is primarily accessible through the bispectrum. For these shapes, small scale measurements increase the constraining power of the halo bispectrum by up to $\times4$, though the addition of scales beyond $k\approx 0.3 \mathrm{h/Mpc}$ improves constraints largely through reducing degeneracies between PNG and the other parameters. These degeneracies are even more powerfully mitigated through combining power spectrum and bispectrum measurements. However even with combined measurements and small scale information, equilateral non-Gaussianity remains highly degenerate with $σ_8$ and our bias model.

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arXiv2022

Quijote-PNG: Quasi-maximum likelihood estimation of Primordial Non-Gaussianity in the non-linear halo density field

We study primordial non-Gaussian signatures in the redshift-space halo field on non-linear scales, using a quasi-maximum likelihood estimator based on optimally compressed power spectrum and modal bispectrum statistics. We train and validate the estimator on a suite of halo catalogues constructed from the Quijote-PNG N-body simulations, which we release to accompany this paper. We verify its unbiasedness and near optimality, for the three main types of primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG): local, equilateral, and orthogonal. We compare the modal bispectrum expansion with a $k$-binning approach, showing that the former allows for faster convergence of numerical derivatives in the computation of the score-function, thus leading to better final constraints. We find, in agreement with previous studies, that the local PNG signal in the halo-field is dominated by the scale-dependent bias signature on large scales and saturates at $k \sim 0.2~h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$, whereas the small-scale bispectrum is the main source of information for equilateral and orthogonal PNG. Combining power spectrum and bispectrum on non-linear scales plays an important role in breaking degeneracies between cosmological and PNG parameters; such degeneracies remain however strong for equilateral PNG. We forecast that PNG parameters can be constrained with $\Delta f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{local} = 45$, $\Delta f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{equil} = 570$, $\Delta f_\mathrm{NL}^\mathrm{ortho} = 110$, on a cubic volume of $1 \left({ {\rm Gpc}/{ {\rm h}}} \right)^3$, at $z = 1$, considering scales up to $k_\mathrm{max} = 0.5~h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$.

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arXiv2022

Quijote-PNG: Quasi-maximum likelihood estimation of Primordial Non-Gaussianity in the non-linear dark matter density field

Future Large Scale Structure surveys are expected to improve over current bounds on primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG), with a significant impact on our understanding of early Universe physics. The level of such improvements will however strongly depend on the extent to which late time non-linearities erase the PNG signal on small scales. In this work, we show how much primordial information remains in the bispectrum of the non-linear dark matter density field by implementing a new, simulation-based, methodology for joint estimation of PNG amplitudes ($f_{\rm NL}$) and standard $\Lambda$CDM parameters. The estimator is based on optimally compressed statistics, which, for a given input density field, combine power spectrum and modal bispectrum measurements, and numerically evaluate their covariance and their response to changes in cosmological parameters. We train and validate the estimator using a large suite of N-body simulations (QUIJOTE-PNG), including different types of PNG (local, equilateral, orthogonal). We explicitly test the estimator's unbiasedness, optimality and stability with respect to changes in the total number of input realizations. While the dark matter power spectrum itself contains negligible PNG information, as expected, including it as an ancillary statistic increases the PNG information content extracted from the bispectrum by a factor of order $2$. As a result, we prove the capability of our approach to optimally extract PNG information on non-linear scales beyond the perturbative regime, up to $k_{\rm max} = 0.5~h\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, obtaining marginalized $1$-$\sigma$ bounds of $\Delta f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local} \sim 16$, $\Delta f_{\rm NL}^{\rm equil} \sim 77$ and $\Delta f_{\rm NL}^{\rm ortho} \sim 40$ on a cubic volume of $1~(\mathrm{Gpc}/h)^3$ at $z=1$. At the same time, we discuss the significant information on cosmological parameters contained on these scales.

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arXiv2022

Quijote-PNG: Simulations of primordial non-Gaussianity and the information content of the matter field power spectrum and bispectrum

Primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) is one of the most powerful probes of the early Universe and measurements of the large scale structure of the Universe have the potential to transform our understanding of this area. However relating measurements of the late time Universe to the primordial perturbations is challenging due to the non-linear processes that govern the evolution of the Universe. To help address this issue we release a large suite of N-body simulations containing four types of PNG: \textsc{quijote-png}. These simulations were designed to augment the \textsc{quijote} suite of simulations that explored the impact of various cosmological parameters on large scale structure observables. Using these simulations we investigate how much information on PNG can be extracted by extending power spectrum and bispectrum measurements beyond the perturbative regime at $z=0.0$. This is the first joint analysis of the PNG and cosmological information content accessible with power spectrum and bispectrum measurements of the non-linear scales. We find that the constraining power improves significantly up to $k_\mathrm{max}\approx 0.3 h/{\rm Mpc}$, with diminishing returns beyond as the statistical probes signal-to-noise ratios saturate. This saturation emphasizes the importance of accurately modelling all the contributions to the covariance matrix. Further we find that combining the two probes is a powerful method of breaking the degeneracies with the $\Lambda$CDM parameters.

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arXiv2021

The integrated angular bispectrum of weak lensing

We investigate three-point statistics in weak lensing convergence, through the integrated bispectrum. This statistic involves measuring power spectra in patches, and is thus easy to measure, and avoids the complexity of estimating the very large number of possible bispectrum configurations. The integrated bispectrum principally probes the squeezed limit of the bispectrum. To be useful as a set of summary statistics, accurate theoretical predictions of the signal are required, and, assuming Gaussian sampling distributions, the covariance matrix. In this paper, we investigate through simulations how accurate are theoretical formulae for both the integrated bispectrum and its covariance, finding that there a small inaccuracies in the theoretical signal, and more serious deviations in the covariance matrix, which may need to be estimated using simulations.

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arXiv2020

The integrated angular bispectrum

We study the position-dependent power spectrum and the integrated bispectrum statistic for 2D cosmological fields on the sphere (integrated angular bispectrum). First, we derive a useful, $m$-independent, formula for the full-sky integrated angular bispectrum, based on the construction of azimuthally symmetric patches. We then implement a pipeline for integrated angular bispectrum estimation, including a mean-field correction to account for spurious isotropy-breaking effects in realistic conditions (e.g., inhomogenous noise, sky masking). Finally, we show examples of applications of this estimator to CMB analysis, both using simulations and actual Planck data. Such examples include $f_\mathrm{NL}$ estimation, analyses of non-Gaussianity from secondary anisotropies (ISW-lensing and ISW-tSZ-tSZ bispectra) and studies of non-Gaussian signatures from foreground contamination.

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arXiv2018

The bispectra of galactic CMB foregrounds and their impact on primordial non-Gaussianity estimation

We use the binned bispectrum estimator to determine the bispectra of the dust, free-free, synchrotron, and AME galactic foregrounds using maps produced by the Commander component separation method from Planck 2015 data. We find that all of these peak in the squeezed configuration, allowing for potential confusion with in particular the local primordial shape. Applying an additional functionality implemented in the binned bispectrum estimator code, we then use these galactic bispectra as templates in an $f_\mathrm{NL}$ analysis of other maps. After testing and validating the method and code with simulations, we show that we detect the dust in the raw 143 GHz map with the expected amplitude (the other galactic foregrounds are too weak at 143 GHz to be detected) and that no galactic residuals are detected in the cleaned CMB map. We also investigate the effect of the mask on the templates and the effect of the choice of binning on a joint dust-primordial $f_\mathrm{NL}$ analysis.

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arXiv2017

Non-Gaussianity in two-field inflation beyond the slow-roll approximation

We use the long-wavelength formalism to investigate the level of bispectral non-Gaussianity produced in two-field inflation models with standard kinetic terms. Even though the Planck satellite has so far not detected any primordial non-Gaussianity, it has tightened the constraints significantly, and it is important to better understand what regions of inflation model space have been ruled out, as well as prepare for the next generation of experiments that might reach the important milestone of Delta f_NL(local) = 1. We derive an alternative formulation of the previously derived integral expression for f_NL, which makes it easier to physically interpret the result and see which types of potentials can produce large non-Gaussianity. We apply this to the case of a sum potential and show that it is very difficult to satisfy simultaneously the conditions for a large f_NL and the observational constraints on the spectral index n_s. In the case of the sum of two monomial potentials and a constant we explicitly show in which small region of parameter space this is possible, and we show how to construct such a model. Finally, the new general expression for f_NL also allows us to prove that for the sum potential the explicit expressions derived within the slow-roll approximation remain valid even when the slow-roll approximation is broken during the turn of the field trajectory (as long as only the epsilon slow-roll parameter remains small).

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arXiv2013

Dark Matter in Light of LUX

The landscape of dark matter direct detection has been profoundly altered by the slew of recent experiments. While some have claimed signals consistent with dark matter, others have seen few, if any, events consistent with dark matter. The results of the putative detections are often incompatible with each other in the context of naive spin-independent scattering, as well as with the null results. In particular, in light of the conflicts between the DM interpretation of the three events recently reported by the CDMS-Si experiment and the first results of the LUX experiment, there is a strong need to revisit the assumptions that go into the DM interpretations of both signals and limits. We attempt to reexamine a number of particle physics, astrophysics and experimental uncertainties. Specifically, we examine exothermic scattering, isospin-dependent couplings, modified halo models through astrophysics independent techniques, and variations in the assumptions about the scintillation light in liquid Xenon. We find that only a highly tuned isospin-dependent scenario remains as a viable explanation of the claimed detections, unless the scintillation properties of LXe are dramatically different from the assumptions used by the LUX experiment.

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