arXiv subjects

Kazuyuki Akitsu

Publications and source records attributed to Kazuyuki Akitsu.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Intrinsic Alignments in Redshift Space I: Symmetries

Galaxy shapes are unique tensor tracers of large-scale structure, providing a promising avenue to both enhance current cosmological programs and detect new physics beyond the scalar sector. We develop a general formalism to describe the full 3D structure of galaxy shapes and their statistics, including the breaking of isotropy by the line of sight and redshift space distortions. We constructively show that the redshift-space mapping generates a kinematic basis whose form factors are strictly polynomial in the line-of-sight angle $\mu = \hat{k} \cdot \hat{n}$, and that parity selection rules restrict scalar-tensor and tensor-tensor correlators to 3 and 13 independent form factors, respectively, with the latter further reduced to 9 by exchange symmetry. We show that this polynomiality is preserved transforming into a total helicity basis denoted by total angular momentum $M$---sourced to be nonzero by powers of the line-of-sight $\hat{n}$---and that this is equivalent to the form factors having spin weights $(1 - \mu^2)^{|M|/2}$ and described by associated Legendre polynomials $P^{|M|}_\ell$. We construct estimators for form factors in the normalized total-helicity basis that provide the optimal angular weighting to extract shape information, and connect the full tensor basis to projected shape statistics. To validate our formalism, we study the above tensor form factors within a toy model, showing that all allowed channels are generated even within simplified assumptions, and apply our estimators to halo shape statistics in N-body simulations wherein all channels up to total angular momentum $|M| \leq 2$ are detected. We anticipate that the methods developed here will have applications ranging from optimal extraction of intrinsic-alignments in hydrodynamical simulations to identifying new physics in tensor channels forbidden by selection rules in the standard model of cosmology.

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arXiv2026

Lyman-Alpha Forest and its Cross-Correlation with High-Redshift Galaxies in Effective Field Theory at the Field Level

We present a field-level perturbative forward model for the Lyman-alpha (Lya) forest flux decrement. We validate it on two simulation suites: large-volume AbacusSummit N-body simulations with the Lya forest painted onto the dark matter field, and the Sherwood hydrodynamic simulations. Across the redshift range of the simulations (z=2.0-3.2), the 3D and 1D power spectra of the model match the simulated Lya fields at the 1% (5%) level up to k <= 0.3 (1.0) h/Mpc, with similar performance for the cross-correlation with massive dark matter halos. The counts-in-cells statistic shows excellent agreement down to cell radii of 2 Mpc/h. Leveraging cosmic variance cancellation, the model enables precision measurements of Lya bias parameters and robustly detects the full set of quadratic line-of-sight bias operators, consistent with the notion of naturalness in effective field theory (EFT). We quantify the stochasticity of the Lya forest (the analog to the one-halo term), and find it to be white (scale- and orientation-independent) on large scales, matching EFT predictions. We further find that phenomenological flux power spectrum models, based on modulations of the linear-theory power spectrum, fail at the field level even on quasi-linear scales. For the currently observing Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), we generate large-scale clustering mocks of the Lya forest to validate cosmological parameter inference pipelines. Looking ahead to its successor, DESI-II, we produce large-volume mocks of representative samples of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) and Lya emitters (LAEs), calibrated on Astrid hydrodynamic simulations and matched to observations at z=3, enabling joint analyses of Lya forest and high-redshift galaxy data.

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arXiv2026

Blue-tilted spectral running and the JWST early galaxy tension

Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) collaboration has found the unexpectedly large abundance of massive galaxies with stellar masses of $\sim 10^{10}~M_{\odot}$ at high redshifts $z \simeq 6.5 - 9$ compared with the prediction of the standard $\Lambda$CDM model. As a possible solution to the tension, we consider a blue-tilted spectrum of density perturbations with a positive running. We find that, for $\alpha_s \simeq 0.02$ and $\beta_s \simeq 0.02$, a joint analysis with CMB observations shows that the tension can be resolved at the 1$\sigma$ confidence level. Such a blue-tilted spectrum is also plausible from the perspective for formations of primordial black holes on much smaller scales in the early Universe.

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arXiv2026

Galaxy sizes as complementary (zero-)bias tracers of local primordial non-Gaussianity

The scale-dependent bias in halo and galaxy power spectra is a key signature of local primordial non-Gaussianity (local PNG), with PNG sensitivity scaling as $b_\phi/b_1$ -- the ratio of their responses to long-wavelength primordial potential $b_\phi$ and late-time density fluctuations $b_1$. For number density fluctuations, these responses are closely tied by the universality relation, limiting the achievable ratio. We show that size density fluctuations strongly violate this relation, thus evading the limit. For galaxy-mass halos, sizes have a vanishingly small density response but a sizable, negative local PNG response, implying an effective $b_\phi/b_1$ that is large in magnitude and opposite in sign to that of number counts. This makes galaxy sizes complementary probes of local PNG from the same galaxy sample, without any sample split. For a DESI-like survey, a multi-tracer analysis combining galaxy numbers and sizes improves the local-PNG detection significance by a factor of $\sim\!3.6$. Due to the sign flip, the number-size cross power spectrum further provides a handle on systematics in the event of a detection.

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arXiv2025

Equilateral non-Gaussian Bias at the Field Level

Primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) is a common prediction of a wide class of inflationary models. Equilateral-type PNG, generically predicted by single-field inflationary models with higher-derivative interactions, imprints subtle but measurable signatures on the large-scale distribution of matter. An important parameter of these imprints is the PNG-induced bias coefficient $b_\psi$, which quantifies how the abundance and clustering of dark matter halos and galaxies respond to mode coupling in the initial conditions. Measuring $b_\psi$ is important for constraining equilateral PNG, yet it is notoriously challenging due to its degeneracy with Gaussian scale-dependent bias contributions. In this work, we present the first precision measurements of equilateral $b_\psi$ for dark matter halos using effective field theory at the field level. We show that this approach disentangles PNG effects from those of the Gaussian bias by virtue of noise variance cancellation. We compare our results with the phenomenological predictions based on the Peak-Background Split model, finding some agreement at the qualitative level on the redshift and mass dependence, but poor agreement at the quantitative level. We present a fitting formula for $b_\psi$ as a function of the linear bias, which can be used to set priors in PNG searches with ongoing and future galaxy surveys.

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arXiv2025

Cosmology inference with perturbative forward modeling at the field level: a comparison with joint power spectrum and bispectrum analyses

We extend field-level inference to jointly constrain the cosmological parameters $\{A,\omega_{\rm cdm},H_0\}$, in both real and redshift space. Our analyses are based on mock data generated using a perturbative forward model, with noise drawn from a Gaussian distribution with a constant power spectrum. This idealized setting, where the field-level likelihood is exactly Gaussian, allows us to precisely quantify the information content in the nonlinear field on large scales. We find that field-level inference accurately recovers all cosmological parameters in both real and redshift space, with uncertainties consistent with perturbation theory expectations. We show that these error bars are comparable to those obtained from a joint power spectrum and bispectrum analysis using the same perturbative model. Finally, we perform several tests using the Gaussian field-level likelihood to fit the mock data where the true noise model is non-Gaussian, and find significant biases in the inferred cosmological parameters. These results highlight that the success of field-level inference critically depends on using the correct likelihood, which may be the primary challenge for applying this method to smaller scales even in the perturbative regime.

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arXiv2025

Modeling the Cosmological Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest at the Field Level

The distribution of absorption lines in the spectra of distant quasars, called the Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly-$\alpha$) forest, is a unique probe of cosmology and the intergalactic medium at high redshifts and small scales. The statistical power of ongoing redshift surveys demands precise theoretical tools to model the Ly-$\alpha$ forest. We address this challenge by developing an analytic, perturbative forward model to predict the Ly-$\alpha$ forest at the field level for a given set of cosmological initial conditions. Our model shows a remarkable performance when compared with the Sherwood hydrodynamic simulations: it reproduces the flux distribution, the Ly-$\alpha$ - dark matter halo cross-correlations, and the count-in-cell statistics at the percent level down to scales of a few Mpc. Our work provides crucial tools that bridge analytic modeling on large scales with simulations on small-scales, enabling field-level inference from Ly-$\alpha$ forest data and simulation-based priors for cosmological analyses. This is especially timely for realizing the full scientific potential of the Ly-$\alpha$ forest measurements by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument.

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arXiv2024

Mapping the galaxy-halo connection to the galaxy bias: implication to the HOD-informed prior

The galaxy bias parameters are crucial for modeling the large-scale structure in cosmology, yet uncertainties in these parameters often degrade the precision of cosmological constraints. In this work, we investigate how different Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) models impact the priors of the galaxy bias parameters, particularly focusing on quadratic bias parameters. We generate galaxy mock catalogs using various HOD models, including a standard model and one incorporating halo concentration dependence to account for assembly bias, and measure the galaxy bias parameters with high precision using the quadratic field method. We show that the inclusion of assembly bias associated to halo concentration could significantly impact the distributions of quadratic galaxy bias parameters, especially $b_2$. Our findings suggest that accounting for assembly bias or other galaxy-halo connection models is important for obtaining accurate priors on the galaxy bias parameters, thereby improving the robustness of cosmological analyses with galaxy clustering.

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arXiv2024

Constraining cosmology with N-body simulations for future spectroscopic galaxy surveys at $2\leq z\leq 3$

Determining the spatial curvature ($\Omega_k$) independent of cosmic microwave background observations plays a key role in revealing the physics of the early universe. The Hubble tension is one of the most serious issues in modern cosmology. We investigate halo catalogs identified from $N$-body simulations at $z=2$ and 3, mimicking high-redshift galaxy surveys. We measure redshift-space correlation functions of halos from the two snapshots. We detect clear features of baryon acoustic oscillations and redshift-space distortions. We find that we can obtain a few percent constraints on both the geometric distances and growth of structure at the distant universe in future surveys. By taking into account the information of the underlying matter power spectrum, we demonstrate that we can also achieve constraint on the Hubble constant $H_0$ with a few percent as well as the spatial curvature with $|\Omega_k|\lesssim 0.1$ by observing galaxies with the number density with $\bar{n}_{\rm g}\simeq 10^{-4} (~h^3{\rm ~Mpc}^{-3})$. Our analysis provides a timely forecast for the upcoming spectroscopic surveys, which target emission line galaxy or dusty star-forming galaxy samples.

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arXiv2024

A Parameter-Masked Mock Data Challenge for Beyond-Two-Point Galaxy Clustering Statistics

The last few years have seen the emergence of a wide array of novel techniques for analyzing high-precision data from upcoming galaxy surveys, which aim to extend the statistical analysis of galaxy clustering data beyond the linear regime and the canonical two-point (2pt) statistics. We test and benchmark some of these new techniques in a community data challenge "Beyond-2pt", initiated during the Aspen 2022 Summer Program "Large-Scale Structure Cosmology beyond 2-Point Statistics," whose first round of results we present here. The challenge dataset consists of high-precision mock galaxy catalogs for clustering in real space, redshift space, and on a light cone. Participants in the challenge have developed end-to-end pipelines to analyze mock catalogs and extract unknown ("masked") cosmological parameters of the underlying $\Lambda$CDM models with their methods. The methods represented are density-split clustering, nearest neighbor statistics, BACCO power spectrum emulator, void statistics, LEFTfield field-level inference using effective field theory (EFT), and joint power spectrum and bispectrum analyses using both EFT and simulation-based inference. In this work, we review the results of the challenge, focusing on problems solved, lessons learned, and future research needed to perfect the emerging beyond-2pt approaches. The unbiased parameter recovery demonstrated in this challenge by multiple statistics and the associated modeling and inference frameworks supports the credibility of cosmology constraints from these methods. The challenge data set is publicly available and we welcome future submissions from methods that are not yet represented.

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arXiv2024

BOSS Constraints on Massive Particles during Inflation: The Cosmological Collider in Action

Massive particles leave imprints on primordial non-Gaussianity via couplings to the inflaton, even despite their exponential dilution during inflation: practically, the Universe acts as a Cosmological Collider. We present the first dedicated search for spin-zero particles using BOSS redshift-space galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum multipoles, as well as Planck CMB non-Gaussianity data. We demonstrate that some Cosmological Collider models are well approximated by the standard equilateral and orthogonal parametrization; assuming negligible inflaton self-interactions, this facilitates us translating Planck non-Gaussianity constraints into bounds on Collider models. Many models have signatures that are not degenerate with equilateral and orthogonal non-Gaussianity and thus require dedicated searches. Here, we constrain such models using BOSS three-dimensional redshift-space galaxy clustering data, focusing on spin-zero particles in the principal series (i.e. with mass $m\geq 3H/2$) and constraining their couplings to the inflaton at varying speed and mass, marginalizing over the unknown inflaton self-interactions. This is made possible through an improvement in Cosmological Bootstrap techniques and the combination of perturbation theory and halo occupation distribution models for galaxy clustering. Our work sets the standard for inflationary spectroscopy with cosmological observations, providing the ultimate link between physics on the largest and smallest scales.

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arXiv2023

Imprints of primordial magnetic fields on intrinsic alignments of galaxies

Primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) are one of the plausible candidates for the origin of the observed large-scale magnetic fields. While many proposals have been made for the generation mechanism of PMFs by earlier studies, it remains a subject of debate. In this paper, to obtain new insights into PMFs, we focus on the intrinsic alignments (IAs) of galaxies induced by the vector and tensor modes of the anisotropic stress of PMFs. The long-wavelength vector and tensor modes locally induce the tidal gravitational fields, leading to the characteristic distortions of the intrinsic ellipticity of galaxies. We investigate the shear E- and B-mode power spectra induced by the magnetic vector and tensor modes in the three-dimensional space, assuming the combination of galaxy imaging and galaxy redshift surveys. We find that the magnetic tensor mode dominates both the E- and B-mode spectra. In particular, the B-mode spectrum induced by the magnetic tensor mode plays a crucial role in constraining the amplitude of PMFs, even in the presence of the non-magnetic scalar contribution to the B-mode spectrum arising from the one-loop effect. In future galaxy redshift surveys, such as Euclid and Square Kilometre Array, the minimum detectable value reaches $\sim 30 \, \rm nG$, which can potentially get even smaller in proportion to the number of observed galaxies and reach $\sim \mathcal{O}(1 \, {\rm nG})$. Measuring the IAs of galaxies would be a potential probe for PMFs in future galaxy surveys.

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arXiv2023

Quadratic shape biases in three-dimensional halo intrinsic alignments

Understanding the nonlinear relation between the shapes of halos or galaxies and the surrounding matter distribution is essential in accurate modeling of their intrinsic alignments. In the perturbative treatment, such nonlinear relation of the intrinsic alignments appears as higher-order shape bias parameters. In this paper, we present accurate measurements of the quadratic shape bias parameters by combining the \emph{full three-dimensional} power spectrum of the intrinsic alignments (i.e., without any projection) with the quadratic field method. In order to benefit from the full three-dimensional power spectrum we employ the spherical tensor decomposition of the three-dimensional shape field and measure their power spectra for the first time. In particular, we detect the vector and tensor power spectra in this basis, which cannot be explained by the widely-used nonlinear alignment model. Further, by cross-correlating the three-dimensional halo shape field with the quadratic shape bias operators from the initial condition of the same simulation to cancel cosmic variance, we effectively extract bispectrum information and detect quadratic shape bias parameters in the intrinsic alignments with high significance for the first time. We also compare these measurements with the prediction where quadratic shape biases are dynamically generated from the linear Lagrangian shape bias through the large-scale bulk flow. We find general agreement for all three biases with small deviations, which in practice could be negligible for the current photometric surveys. This implies that the advection prediction for the higher-order shape biases can be used as a prior in the cosmological analyses of intrinsic alignments.

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arXiv2023

Statistical anisotropy in galaxy ellipticity correlations

As well as the galaxy number density and peculiar velocity, the galaxy intrinsic alignment can be used to test the cosmic isotropy. We study distinctive impacts of the isotropy breaking on the configuration-space two-point correlation functions (2PCFs) composed of the spin-2 galaxy ellipticity field. For this purpose, we build a formalism for general types of the isotropy-violating 2PCFs and a methodology to efficiently compute them by generalizing the polypolar spherical harmonic decomposition approach to the spin-weighted version. As a demonstration, we analyze the 2PCFs when the matter power spectrum has a well-known $g_*$-type isotropy-breaking term (induced by, e.g., dark vector fields). We then confirm that some anisotropic distortions indeed appear in the 2PCFs and their shapes rely on a preferred direction causing the isotropy violation, $\hat{d}$. Such a feature can be a distinctive indicator for testing the cosmic isotropy. Comparing the isotropy-violating 2PCFs computed with and without the plane parallel (PP) approximation, we find that, depending on $\hat{d}$, the PP approximation is no longer valid when an opening angle between the directions towards target galaxies is ${\cal O}(1^\circ)$ for the density-ellipticity and velocity-ellipticity cross correlations and around $10^\circ$ for the ellipticity auto correlation. This suggests that an accurate test for the cosmic isotropy requires the formulation of the 2PCF without relying on the PP approximation.

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arXiv2023

Ultra-light axions and the $S_8$ tension: joint constraints from the cosmic microwave background and galaxy clustering

We search for ultra-light axions as dark matter (DM) and dark energy particle candidates, for axion masses $10^{-32}\,\mathrm{eV} \leq m_\mathrm{a} \leq 10^{-24}\,\mathrm{eV}$, by a joint analysis of cosmic microwave background (CMB) and galaxy clustering data -- and consider if axions can resolve the tension in inferred values of the matter clustering parameter $S_8$. We give legacy constraints from Planck 2018 CMB data, improving 2015 limits on the axion density $Ω_\mathrm{a} h^2$ by up to a factor of three; CMB data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope marginally weaken Planck bounds at $m_\mathrm{a} = 10^{-25}\,\mathrm{eV}$, owing to lower (and theoretically-consistent) gravitational lensing signals. We jointly infer, from Planck CMB and full-shape galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), that axions are, today, $< 10\%$ of the DM for $m_\mathrm{a} \leq 10^{-26}\,\mathrm{eV}$ and $< 1\%$ for $10^{-30}\,\mathrm{eV} \leq m_\mathrm{a} \leq 10^{-28}\,\mathrm{eV}$. BOSS data strengthen limits, in particular at higher $m_\mathrm{a}$ by probing high-wavenumber modes ($k < 0.4 h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$). BOSS alone finds a preference for axions at $2.7 σ$, for $m_\mathrm{a} = 10^{-26}\,\mathrm{eV}$, but Planck disfavours this result. Nonetheless, axions in a window $10^{-28}\,\mathrm{eV} \leq m_\mathrm{a} \leq 10^{-25}\,\mathrm{eV}$ can improve consistency between CMB and galaxy clustering data, e.g., reducing the $S_8$ discrepancy from $2.7 σ$ to $1.6 σ$, since these axions suppress structure growth at the $8 h^{-1}\,\mathrm{Mpc}$ scales to which $S_8$ is sensitive. We expect improved constraints with upcoming high-resolution CMB and galaxy lensing and future galaxy clustering data, where we will further assess if axions can restore cosmic concordance.

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arXiv2023

Constraining cosmological vorticity modes with CMB secondary anisotropies

Observational searches for large-scale vorticity modes in the late time Universe are underexplored. Within the standard $Λ$CDM model, this is well motivated given the observed properties of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). However, this means that searches for cosmic vorticity modes can serve as a powerful consistency test of our cosmological model. We show that through combining CMB measurements of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich and the moving lens effects with galaxy survey data we can constrain vorticity fields independently from the large scale cosmic velocity field. This approach can provide stringent constraints on the largest scale modes and can be achieved by a simple change in the standard estimators. Alternatively if one assumes there are no cosmic vorticity modes, this estimator can be used to test for systematic biases in existing analyses of kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect in a manner analogous to curl-lensing.

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arXiv2022

Cosmological gravity probes: connecting recent theoretical developments to forthcoming observations

Since the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the present Universe, significant theoretical developments have been made in the area of modified gravity. In the meantime, cosmological observations have been providing more high-quality data, allowing us to explore gravity on cosmological scales. To bridge the recent theoretical developments and observations, we present an overview of a variety of modified theories of gravity and the cosmological observables in the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure, supplemented with a summary of predictions for cosmological observables derived from cosmological perturbations and sophisticated numerical studies. We specifically consider scalar-tensor theories in the Horndeski and DHOST family, massive gravity/bigravity, vector-tensor theories, metric-affine gravity, and cuscuton/minimally-modified gravity, and discuss the current status of those theories with emphasis on their physical motivations, validity, appealing features, the level of maturity, and calculability. We conclude that the Horndeski theory is one of the most well-developed theories of modified gravity, although several remaining issues are left for future observations. The paper aims to help to develop strategies for testing gravity with ongoing and forthcoming cosmological observations.

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arXiv2022

Gravitational wave fossils in nonlinear regime: halo tidal bias and intrinsic alignments from gravitational wave separate universe simulations

We investigate impacts of long-wavelength gravitational waves (GWs) on nonlinear structure formation by utilizing the tidal separate universe simulations. Based on the equivalence of a long-wavelength GW to a uniform tidal field in a local frame, we provide a way to incorporate a long-wavelength GW into the tidal separate universe simulation as an effective anisotropic expansion. This methodology enables us to study effects of GWs on large-scale structure efficiently. We measure the anisotropic imprint in the local power spectrum from the tidal separate universe simulations with GWs, which corresponds to the scalar-scalar-tensor bispectrum in squeezed limit or the so-called power spectrum response to GWs. We also detect the halo tidal bias induced by GWs from the response of the halo-matter cross-power spectrum to GWs, as well as the linear shape bias (or the linear alignment coefficient) induced by GWs from the one-point function of the halo ellipticity. In contrast to the case of the tidal field induced by scalar perturbations, we discover that the wavenumber dependence of the temporal evolution of GWs naturally causes these biases to be scale-dependent. We also find that this scale dependence is well approximated by the second-order density induced by the coupling between scalar and tensor perturbation. This highlights that the structure formation, especially the process to determine the halo shape, is nonlocal in time. Our findings lay the foundation for predicting the impact of GWs on large-scale structure.

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