arXiv subjects

Hannu Kurki-Suonio

Publications and source records attributed to Hannu Kurki-Suonio.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2019

Euclid preparation: II. The EuclidEmulator -- A tool to compute the cosmology dependence of the nonlinear matter power spectrum

We present a new power spectrum emulator named EuclidEmulator that estimates the nonlinear correction to the linear dark matter power spectrum. It is based on a spectral decomposition method called polynomial chaos expansion. All steps in the construction of the emulator have been tested and optimized: the large high-resolution N-body simulations carried out with PKDGRAV3 were validated using a simulation from the Euclid Flagship campaign and demonstrated to have converged up to wavenumbers $k\approx 5\,h\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ for redshifts $z\leq 5$. The emulator is constructed using the uncertainty quantification software UQLab and it has been optimized first by creating mock emulators based on Takahashi's HALOFIT. We show that it is possible to successfully predict the performance of the final emulator in this way prior to performing any N-body simulations. We provide a C-code to calculate the nonlinear correction at a relative accuracy of $\sim0.3\%$ with respect to N-body simulations within 50 ms. The absolute accuracy of the final nonlinear power spectrum is comparable to one obtained with N-body simulations, i.e. $\sim 1\%$ for $k\lesssim 1\,h\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ and $z\lesssim 3.5$. This enables efficient forward modeling in the nonlinear regime allowing for maximum likelihood estimation of cosmological parameters. EuclidEmulator has been compared to HALOFIT and CosmicEmu, an alternative emulator based on the Mira-Titan Universe, and shown to be more accurate than these other approaches. This work paves a new way for optimal construction of future emulators that also consider other cosmological observables, use higher resolution input simulations and investigate higher dimensional cosmological parameter spaces.

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arXiv2017

Exploring cosmic origins with CORE: gravitational lensing of the CMB

Lensing of the CMB is now a well-developed probe of large-scale clustering over a broad range of redshifts. By exploiting the non-Gaussian imprints of lensing in the polarization of the CMB, the CORE mission can produce a clean map of the lensing deflections over nearly the full-sky. The number of high-S/N modes in this map will exceed current CMB lensing maps by a factor of 40, and the measurement will be sample-variance limited on all scales where linear theory is valid. Here, we summarise this mission product and discuss the science that it will enable. For example, the summed mass of neutrinos will be determined to an accuracy of 17 meV combining CORE lensing and CMB two-point information with contemporaneous BAO measurements, three times smaller than the minimum total mass allowed by neutrino oscillations. In the search for B-mode polarization from primordial gravitational waves with CORE, lens-induced B-modes will dominate over instrument noise, limiting constraints on the gravitational wave power spectrum amplitude. With lensing reconstructed by CORE, one can "delens" the observed polarization internally, reducing the lensing B-mode power by 60%. This improves to 70% by combining lensing and CIB measurements from CORE, reducing the error on the gravitational wave amplitude by 2.5 compared to no delensing (in the null hypothesis). Lensing measurements from CORE will allow calibration of the halo masses of the 40000 galaxy clusters that it will find, with constraints dominated by the clean polarization-based estimators. CORE can accurately remove Galactic emission from CMB maps with its 19 frequency channels. We present initial findings that show that residual Galactic foreground contamination will not be a significant source of bias for lensing power spectrum measurements with CORE. [abridged]

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arXiv2017

Exploring Cosmic Origins with CORE: Inflation

We forecast the scientific capabilities to improve our understanding of cosmic inflation of CORE, a proposed CMB space satellite submitted in response to the ESA fifth call for a medium-size mission opportunity. The CORE satellite will map the CMB anisotropies in temperature and polarization in 19 frequency channels spanning the range 60-600 GHz. CORE will have an aggregate noise sensitivity of $1.7 μ$K$\cdot \,$arcmin and an angular resolution of 5' at 200 GHz. We explore the impact of telescope size and noise sensitivity on the inflation science return by making forecasts for several instrumental configurations. This study assumes that the lower and higher frequency channels suffice to remove foreground contaminations and complements other related studies of component separation and systematic effects, which will be reported in other papers of the series "Exploring Cosmic Origins with CORE." We forecast the capability to determine key inflationary parameters, to lower the detection limit for the tensor-to-scalar ratio down to the $10^{-3}$ level, to chart the landscape of single field slow-roll inflationary models, to constrain the epoch of reheating, thus connecting inflation to the standard radiation-matter dominated Big Bang era, to reconstruct the primordial power spectrum, to constrain the contribution from isocurvature perturbations to the $10^{-3}$ level, to improve constraints on the cosmic string tension to a level below the presumptive GUT scale, and to improve the current measurements of primordial non-Gaussianities down to the $f_{NL}^{\rm local} < 1$ level. For all the models explored, CORE alone will improve significantly on the present constraints on the physics of inflation. Its capabilities will be further enhanced by combining with complementary future cosmological observations.

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arXiv2017

Exploring Cosmic Origins with CORE: Cosmological Parameters

We forecast the main cosmological parameter constraints achievable with the CORE space mission which is dedicated to mapping the polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). CORE was recently submitted in response to ESA's fifth call for medium-sized mission proposals (M5). Here we report the results from our pre-submission study of the impact of various instrumental options, in particular the telescope size and sensitivity level, and review the great, transformative potential of the mission as proposed. Specifically, we assess the impact on a broad range of fundamental parameters of our Universe as a function of the expected CMB characteristics, with other papers in the series focusing on controlling astrophysical and instrumental residual systematics. In this paper, we assume that only a few central CORE frequency channels are usable for our purpose, all others being devoted to the cleaning of astrophysical contaminants. On the theoretical side, we assume LCDM as our general framework and quantify the improvement provided by CORE over the current constraints from the Planck 2015 release. We also study the joint sensitivity of CORE and of future Baryon Acoustic Oscillation and Large Scale Structure experiments like DESI and Euclid. Specific constraints on the physics of inflation are presented in another paper of the series. In addition to the six parameters of the base LCDM, which describe the matter content of a spatially flat universe with adiabatic and scalar primordial fluctuations from inflation, we derive the precision achievable on parameters like those describing curvature, neutrino physics, extra light relics, primordial helium abundance, dark matter annihilation, recombination physics, variation of fundamental constants, dark energy, modified gravity, reionization and cosmic birefringence. (ABRIDGED)

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arXiv2017

Application of beam deconvolution technique to power spectrum estimation for CMB measurements

We present two novel methods for the estimation of the angular power spectrum of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. We assume an absolute CMB experiment with arbitrary asymmetric beams and arbitrary sky coverage. The methods differ from earlier ones in that the power spectrum is estimated directly from time-ordered data, without first compressing the data into a sky map, and they take into account the effect of asymmetric beams. In particular, they correct the beam-induced leakage from temperature to polarization. The methods are applicable to a case where part of the sky has been masked out to remove foreground contamination, leaving a pure CMB signal, but incomplete sky coverage. The first method (DQML) is derived as the optimal quadratic estimator, which simultaneously yields an unbiased spectrum estimate and minimizes its variance. We successfully apply it to multipoles up to $\ell$=200. The second method is derived as a weak-signal approximation from the first one. It yields an unbiased estimate for the full multipole range, but relaxes the requirement of minimal variance. We validate the methods with simulations for the 70 GHz channel of {\tt Planck} surveyor, and demonstrate that we are able to correct the beam effects in the $TT$, $EE$, $BB$, and $TE$ spectra up to multipole $\ell$=1500. Together the two methods cover the complete multipole range with no gap in between.

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arXiv2016

The design strategy of scientific data quality control software for Euclid mission

The most valuable asset of a space mission like Euclid are the data. Due to their huge volume, the automatic quality control becomes a crucial aspect over the entire lifetime of the experiment. Here we focus on the design strategy for the Science Ground Segment (SGS) Data Quality Common Tools (DQCT), which has the main role to provide software solutions to gather, evaluate, and record quality information about the raw and derived data products from a primarily scientific perspective. The SGS DQCT will provide a quantitative basis for evaluating the application of reduction and calibration reference data, as well as diagnostic tools for quality parameters, flags, trend analysis diagrams and any other metadata parameter produced by the pipeline. In a large programme like Euclid, it is prohibitively expensive to process large amount of data at the pixel level just for the purpose of quality evaluation. Thus, all measures of quality at the pixel level are implemented in the individual pipeline stages, and passed along as metadata in the production. In this sense most of the tasks related to science data quality are delegated to the pipeline stages, even though the responsibility for science data quality is managed at a higher level. The DQCT subsystem of the SGS is currently under development, but its path to full realization will likely be different than that of other subsystems. Primarily because, due to a high level of parallelism and to the wide pipeline processing redundancy, for instance the mechanism of double Science Data Center for each processing function, the data quality tools have not only to be widely spread over all pipeline segments and data levels, but also to minimize the occurrences of potential diversity of solutions implemented for similar functions, ensuring the maximum of coherency and standardization for quality evaluation and reporting in the SGS.

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arXiv2013

Constraints on neutrino density and velocity isocurvature modes from WMAP-9 data

We use WMAP 9-year and other CMB data to constrain cosmological models where the primordial perturbations have both an adiabatic and a (possibly correlated) neutrino density (NDI), neutrino velocity (NVI), or cold dark matter density (CDI) isocurvature component. For NDI and CDI we use both a phenomenological approach, where primordial perturbations are parametrized in terms of amplitudes at two scales, and a slow-roll two-field inflation approach, where slow-roll parameters are used as primary parameters. For NVI we use only the phenomenological approach, since it is difficult to imagine a connection with inflation. We find that in the NDI and NVI cases larger isocurvature fractions are allowed than in the corresponding models with CDI. For uncorrelated perturbations, the upper limit to the primordial NDI (NVI) fraction is 24% (20%) at k = 0.002 Mpc^{-1} and 28% (16%) at k = 0.01 Mpc^{-1}. For maximally correlated (anticorrelated) perturbations, the upper limit to the NDI fraction is 3.0% (0.9%). The nonadiabatic contribution to the CMB temperature variance can be as large as 10% (-13%) for the NDI (NVI) modes. Bayesian model comparison favors pure adiabatic initial mode over the mixed primordial adiabatic and NDI, NVI, or CDI perturbations. At best, the betting odds for a mixed model (uncorrelated NDI) are 1:3.4 compared to the pure adiabatic model. For the phenomenological generally correlated mixed models the odds are about 1:100, whereas the slow-roll approach leads to 1:13 (NDI) and 1:51 (CDI).

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arXiv2012

Constraints on scalar and tensor perturbations in phenomenological and two-field inflation models: Bayesian evidences for primordial isocurvature and tensor modes

We constrain cosmological models where the primordial perturbations have both an adiabatic and a (possibly correlated) cold dark matter (CDM) or baryon isocurvature component. We use both a phenomenological approach, where the primordial power spectra are parametrized with amplitudes and spectral indices, and a slow-roll two-field inflation approach where slow-roll parameters are used as primary parameters. In the phenomenological case, with CMB data, the upper limit to the CDM isocurvature fraction is α<6.4% at k=0.002Mpc^{-1} and 15.4% at k=0.01Mpc^{-1}. The median 95% range for the non-adiabatic contribution to the CMB temperature variance is -0.030<α_T<0.049. Including the supernova (or large-scale structure, LSS) data, these limits become: α<7.0%, 13.7%, and -0.048<α_T< 0.042 (or α<10.2%, 16.0%, and -0.071<α_T<0.024). The CMB constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r<0.26 at k=0.01Mpc^{-1}, is not affected by the nonadiabatic modes. In the slow-roll two-field inflation approach, the spectral indices are constrained close to 1. This leads to tighter limits on the isocurvature fraction, with the CMB data α<2.6% at k=0.01Mpc^{-1}, but the constraint on α_T is not much affected, -0.058<α_T<0.045. Including SN (or LSS) data, these limits become: α< 3.2% and -0.056<α_T<0.030 (or α<3.4% and -0.063<α_T<-0.008). When all spectral indices are close to each other the isocurvature fraction is somewhat degenerate with the tensor-to-scalar ratio. In addition to the generally correlated models, we study also special cases where the perturbation modes are uncorrelated or fully (anti)correlated. We calculate Bayesian evidences (model probabilities) in 21 different cases for our nonadiabatic models and for the corresponding adiabatic models, and find that in all cases the data support the pure adiabatic model.

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arXiv2010

Physics of the Cosmic Microwave Background and the Planck Mission

This lecture is a sketch of the physics of the cosmic microwave background. The observed anisotropy can be divided into four main contributions: variations in the temperature and gravitational potential of the primordial plasma, Doppler effect from its motion, and a net red/blueshift the photons accumulate from traveling through evolving gravitational potentials on their way from the primordial plasma to here. These variations are due to primordial perturbations, probably caused by quantum fluctuations in the very early universe. The ongoing Planck satellite mission to observe the cosmic microwave background is also described.

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arXiv2009

Observing the Evolution of the Universe

How did the universe evolve? The fine angular scale (l>1000) temperature and polarization anisotropies in the CMB are a Rosetta stone for understanding the evolution of the universe. Through detailed measurements one may address everything from the physics of the birth of the universe to the history of star formation and the process by which galaxies formed. One may in addition track the evolution of the dark energy and discover the net neutrino mass. We are at the dawn of a new era in which hundreds of square degrees of sky can be mapped with arcminute resolution and sensitivities measured in microKelvin. Acquiring these data requires the use of special purpose telescopes such as the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), located in Chile, and the South Pole Telescope (SPT). These new telescopes are outfitted with a new generation of custom mm-wave kilo-pixel arrays. Additional instruments are in the planning stages.

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arXiv2008

Cosmological perturbations in the Palatini formulation of modified gravity

Cosmology in extended theories of gravity is considered assuming the Palatini variational principle, for which the metric and connection are independent variables. The field equations are derived to linear order in perturbations about the homogeneous and isotropic but possibly spatially curved background. The results are presented in a unified form applicable to a broad class of gravity theories allowing arbitrary scalar-tensor couplings and nonlinear dependence on the Ricci scalar in the gravitational action. The gauge-ready formalism exploited here makes it possible to obtain the equations immediately in any of the commonly used gauges. Of the three type of perturbations, the main attention is on the scalar modes responsible for the cosmic large-scale structure. Evolution equations are derived for perturbations in a late universe filled with cold dark matter and accelerated by curvature corrections. Such corrections are found to induce effective pressure gradients which are problematical in the formation of large-scale structure. This is demonstrated by analytic solutions in a particular case. A physical equivalence between scalar-tensor theories in metric and in Palatini formalisms is pointed out.

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arXiv2007

Hints of Isocurvature Perturbations in the Cosmic Microwave Background?

The improved data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy allow a better determination of the adiabaticity of the primordial perturbation. Interestingly, we find that recent CMB data seem to favor a contribution of a primordial isocurvature mode where the entropy perturbation is positively correlated with the primordial curvature perturbation and has a large spectral index (niso ~ 3). With 4 additional parameters we obtain a better fit to the CMB data by Delta chi^2 = 9.7 compared to an adiabatic model. For this best-fit model the nonadiabatic contribution to the CMB temperature variance is 4%. According to a Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis the nonadiabatic contribution is positive at more than 95% C.L. The exact C.L. depends somewhat on the choice of priors, and we discuss the effect of different priors as well as additional cosmological data.

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arXiv2005

The CMB spectrum in Cardassian models

The dark energy in the Universe is described in the context of modified Friedmann equations as a fluid parameterized by the density of dark matter and undergoing an adiabatic expansion. This formulation is applied to the Cardassian model. Choosing then parameters consistent with the supernova observations, it gives a background expansion in which the cosmic temperature fluctuations are calculated. The resulting spectrum is quite similar to what is obtained in the standard concordance model. If the Cardassian fluid is interpreted as a new kind of interacting dark matter, its overdensities are driven into oscillations when the interaction energy is rising in importance. This does not occur in a description of the Cardassian fluctuations motivated by theories of modified gravity. There the energy of the underlying matter is also conserved, which requires appearance of effective shear stress in the late Universe. In both approaches that allow fluctuations the thermal power spectrum at large scales is much too strongly enhanced by the late integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. With the interacting dark matter assumption, we conclude that the Cardassian model is ruled out by observations, expect in a small neighbourhood of the $Λ$CDM limit.

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arXiv2004

Correlated Primordial Perturbations in Light of CMB and LSS Data

We use cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure data to constrain cosmological models where the primordial perturbations have both an adiabatic and a cold dark matter (CDM) isocurvature component. We allow for a possible correlation between the adiabatic and isocurvature modes, and for different spectral indices for the power in each mode and for their correlation. We do a likelihood analysis with 11 independent parameters. We discuss the effect of choosing the pivot scale for the definition of amplitude parameters. The upper limit for the isocurvature fraction is 18% around a pivot scale k = 0.01 Mpc^{-1}. For smaller pivot wavenumbers the limit stays about the same. For larger pivot wavenumbers, very large values of the isocurvature spectral index are favored, which makes the analysis problematic, but larger isocurvature fractions seem to be allowed. For large isocurvature spectral indices n_iso > 2 a positive correlation between the adiabatic and isocurvature mode is favored, and for n_iso < 2 a negative correlation is favored. The upper limit to the nonadiabatic contribution to the CMB temperature variance is 7.5%. Of the standard cosmological parameters, determination of the CDM density $ω_c$ and the sound horizon angle $θ$ (or the Hubble constant $H_0$) are affected most by a possible presence of a correlated isocurvature contribution. The baryon density $ω_b$ nearly retains its ``adiabatic value''.

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arXiv2002

Big Bang nucleosynthesis, matter-antimatter regions, extra relativistic species, and relic gravitational waves

Provided that matter-antimatter domains are present at the onset of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), the number of allowed additional relativistic species increases, compared to the standard scenario when matter-antimatter domains are absent. The extra relativistic species may take the form of massless fermions or even massless bosons, like relic gravitons. The number of additional degrees of freedom compatible with BBN depends, in this framework, upon the typical scale of the domains and the antimatter fraction. Since the presence of matter-antimatter domains allows a reduction of the neutron to proton ratio prior to the formation of 4He, large amounts of radiation-like energy density are allowed. Our results are compared with other constraints on the number of supplementary relativistic degrees of freedom and with different nonstandard BBN scenarios where the reduction of the neutron to proton ratio occurs via a different physical mechanism. The implications of our considerations for the upper limits on stochastic gravitational waves backgrounds of cosmological origin are outlined.

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arXiv2001

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Calculation

I review standard big bang nucleosynthesis and some versions of nonstandard BBN. The abundances of the primordial isotopes D, He-3, and Li-7 produced in standard BBN can be calculated as a function of the baryon density with an accuracy of about 10%. For He-4 the accuracy is better than 1%. The calculated abundances agree fairly well with observations, but the baryon density of the universe cannot be determined with high precision. Possibilities for nonstandard BBN include inhomogeneous and antimatter BBN and nonzero neutrino chemical potentials.

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arXiv2001

Open and closed CDM isocurvature models contrasted with the CMB data

We consider pure isocurvature cold dark matter models in the case of open and closed universe. We allow for a large spectral tilt and scan the 6-dimensional parameter space for the best fit to the COBE, Boomerang, and Maxima-1 data. Taking into account constraints from large-scale structure and big bang nucleosynthesis, we find a best fit with $χ^2 = 121$, which is to be compared to $χ^2 = 44$ of a flat adiabatic reference model. Hence the current data strongly disfavour pure isocurvature perturbations.

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arXiv2000

Inhomogeneous Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the High Baryon Density Suggested by Boomerang and MAXIMA

The recent Boomerang and MAXIMA data on the cosmic microwave background suggest a large value for the baryonic matter density of the universe, omega_b = 0.03. This density is larger than allowed by standard big bang nucleosynthesis theory and observations on the abundances of the light elements. We explore here the possibility of accommodating this high density in inhomogeneous big bang nucleosynthesis (IBBN). It turns out that in IBBN the observed D and Y_p values are quite consistent with this high density. However, IBBN is not able to reduce the 7Li yield by more than about a factor of two. For IBBN to be the solution, one has to accept that the 7Li plateau in population II halo stars is depleted from the primordial abundance by at least a factor of two.

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