arXiv subjects

Mario G. Santos

Publications and source records attributed to Mario G. Santos.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

A Full Treatment of Peculiar Velocities on the Reionization Light Cone

Accurate simulations of the 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization require the generation of maps at specific frequencies given the values of astrophysical and cosmological parameters. The peculiar velocities of the hydrogen atoms producing the 21-cm radiation result in a shift in the observed frequency of the 21-cm radiation and changes the amplitude of the signal itself. This is not an effect we can remove but instead needs to be accurately modelled to ensure we infer the correct physical parameters from an observation. We describe the full calculation of the distortion of the 21-cm signal, and propose a new code that integrates the 21-cm intensity along the line of sight for each individual light cone pixel to fully capture the intensity contributions from multiple redshifts. This algorithm naturally deals with the typical divergences found in standard approaches, allowing for large optical depths and 21-cm absorption events at high redshifts. We find the new method results in up to a 60% decrease in power on the largest scales on the sky, and an increase of over 80% on the smallest scales on the sky. We find that the new implementation of the light cone results in a longer tail of bright temperatures in the brightness temperature distribution, as a result of the successful circumventing of a previous cap that had to be implemented to avoid a divergence in the brightness temperature. We conclude that this full treatment of the evolution of the light cone pixel can be an important effect.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

HI intensity mapping with MeerKAT: 1/f noise analysis

The nature of the time correlated noise component (the 1/f noise) of single dish radio telescopes is critical to the detectability of the HI signal in intensity mapping experiments. In this paper, we present the 1/f noise properties of the MeerKAT receiver system using South Celestial Pole (SCP) tracking data. We estimate both the temporal power spectrum density and the 2D power spectrum density for each of the antennas and polarizations. We apply Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to the dataset and show that, by removing the strongest components, the 1/f noise can be drastically reduced, indicating that it is highly correlated in frequency. Without SVD mode subtraction, the knee frequency over a $20\,$MHz integration is higher than $0.1\,\rm Hz$; with just $2$~mode subtraction, the knee frequency is reduced to $\sim 3\times 10^{-3}\,{\rm Hz}$, indicating that the system induced 1/f-type variations are well under the thermal noise fluctuations over a few hundred seconds time scales. The 2D power spectrum shows that the 1/f-type variations are restricted to a small region in the time-frequency space, either with long wavelength correlations in frequency or in time. This gives a wide range of cosmological scales where the 21cm signal can be measured without further need to calibrate the gain time fluctuations. Finally, we demonstrate that a simple power spectrum parameterization is sufficient to describe the data and provide fitting parameters for both the 1D and 2D power spectrum.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

Prospects for cosmic magnification measurements using HI intensity mapping

We investigate the prospects of measuring the cosmic magnification effect by cross-correlating neutral hydrogen intensity mapping (HI IM) maps with background optical galaxies. We forecast the signal-to-noise ratio for HI IM data from SKA1-MID and HIRAX, combined with LSST photometric galaxy samples. We find that, thanks to their different resolutions, SKA1-MID and HIRAX are highly complementary in such an analysis. We predict that SKA1-MID can achieve a detection with a signal-to-noise ratio of $\sim 15$ on a multipole range of $\ell \lesssim 200$, while HIRAX can reach a signal-to-noise ratio of $\sim 50$ on $200 < \ell < 2000$. We conclude that measurements of the cosmic magnification signal will be possible on a wide redshift range with foreground HI intensity maps up to $z \lesssim 2$, while optimal results are obtained when $0.6 \lesssim z \lesssim 1.3$. Finally, we perform a signal to noise analysis that shows how these measurements can constrain the HI parameters across a wide redshift range.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

Constraining the reionization history using deep learning from 21cm tomography with the Square Kilometre Array

Upcoming 21cm surveys with the SKA1-LOW telescope will enable imaging of the neutral hydrogen distribution on cosmological scales in the early Universe. These surveys are expected to generate huge imaging datasets that will encode more information than the power spectrum. This provides an alternative unique way to constrain the reionization history, which might break the degeneracy in the power spectral analysis. Using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), we create a fast estimator of the neutral fraction from the 21cm maps that are produced by our large semi-numerical simulation. Our estimator is able to efficiently recover the neutral fraction ($x_{\rm HI}$) at several redshifts with a high accuracy of 99\% as quantified by the coefficient of determination $R^{2}$. Adding the instrumental effects from the SKA design slightly increases the loss function, but nevertheless we are still able to recover the neutral fraction with a similar high accuracy of 98\%, which is only 1 per cent less. While a weak dependence on redshift is observed, the accuracy increases rapidly with decreasing neutral fraction. This is due to the fact that the instrumental noise increases towards high redshift where the Universe is highly neutral. Our results show the promise of directly using 21cm-tomography to constrain the reionization history in a model independent way, complementing similar efforts, such as those of the optical depth measurements from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations by {\it Planck}.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2020

The optically-selected 1.4-GHz quasar luminosity function below 1 mJy

We present the radio luminosity function (RLF) of optically-selected quasars below 1~mJy, constructed by applying a Bayesian-fitting stacking technique to objects well below the nominal radio flux-density limit. We test the technique using simulated data, confirming that we can reconstruct the RLF over three orders of magnitude below the typical $5σ$ detection threshold. We apply our method to 1.4-GHz flux-densities from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm survey (FIRST), extracted at the positions of optical quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) over seven redshift bins up to $z=2.15$ {and measure the RLF down to two orders of magnitude below the FIRST detection threshold}. In the lowest redshift bin ($0.2<z<0.45$), we find that our measured RLF agrees well with deeper data from the literature. The RLF for the radio-loud quasars flattens below $\log_{10}[L_{1.4}/{\rm W\,Hz}^{-1}] \approx 25.5$ and becomes steeper again below $\log_{10}[L_{1.4}/{\rm W\,Hz}^{-1}] \approx 24.8$, where radio-quiet quasars start to emerge. The radio luminosity where radio-quiet quasars emerge coincides with the luminosity where star-forming galaxies are expected to start to dominate the radio source counts. This implies that there could be a significant contribution from star formation in the host galaxies, but additional data is required to investigate this further. The higher-redshift bins show a similar behaviour as for the lowest-$z$ bin, implying that the same physical process may be responsible.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

ARTIST: Fast radiative transfer for large-scale simulations of the epoch of reionisation

We introduce the "Asymmetric Radiative Transfer In Shells Technique" (ARTIST), a new method for photon propagation on large scales that explicitly conserves photons, propagates photons at the speed of light, approximately accounts for photon directionality, and closely reproduces results of more detailed radiative transfer (RT) codes. Crucially, it is computationally fast enough to evolve the large cosmological volumes required to predict the 21cm power spectrum on scales that will be probed by future experiments targeting the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR). Most semi-numerical models aimed at predicting the EoR 21cm signal make use of an excursion set formalism (ESF) approach, which achieves computational viability by compromising on photon conservation, constraining ionised regions to be spherical by construction, and not accounting for light-travel time. By implementing our RT method within the semi-numerical code SimFast21, we show that ARTIST predicts a significantly different evolution for the EoR ionisation field compared to the code's native ESF. In particular, ARTIST predicts a more gradual evolution of the volume-averaged ionisation fraction, and up to an order-of-magnitude difference in the ionisation power, depending on the physical parameters assumed. Its application to large-scale EoR simulations will therefore allow more physically-motivated constraints to be obtained for key EoR parameters, such as the escape fraction.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Measuring the HI mass function below the detection threshold

We present a Bayesian Stacking technique to directly measure the HI mass function (HIMF) and its evolution with redshift using galaxies formally below the nominal detection threshold. We generate galaxy samples over several sky areas given an assumed HIMF described by a Schechter function and simulate the HI emission lines with different levels of background noise to test the technique. We use Multinest to constrain the parameters of the HIMF in a broad redshift bin, demonstrating that the HIMF can be accurately reconstructed, using the simulated spectral cube far below the HI mass limit determined by the $5σ$ flux-density limit, i.e. down to $M_{\rm HI} = 10^{7.5}$ M$_{\odot}$ over the redshift range $0 < z < 0.55$ for this particular simulation, with a noise level similar to that expected for the MIGHTEE survey. We also find that the constraints on the parameters of the Schechter function, $ϕ_{\star}$, $M_\star$ and $α$ can be reliably fit, becoming tighter as the background noise decreases as expected, although the constraints on the redshift evolution are not significantly affected. All the parameters become better constrained as the survey area increases. In summary, we provide an optimal method for estimating the HI mass at cosmological distances that allows us to constrain the HI mass function below the detection threshold in forthcoming HI surveys. This study is a first step towards the measurement of the HIMF at high ($z>0.1$) redshifts.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2019

On the contamination of the global 21~cm signal from polarized foregrounds

Global (i.e. sky-averaged) $21$~cm signal experiments can measure the evolution of the universe from the Cosmic Dawn to the Epoch of Reionization. These measurements are challenged by the presence of bright foreground emission that can be separated from the cosmological signal if its spectrum is smooth. This assumption fails in the case of single polarization antennas as they measure linearly polarized foreground emission - which is inevitably Faraday rotated through the interstellar medium. We investigate the impact of Galactic polarized foregrounds on the extraction of the global 21~cm signal through realistic sky and dipole simulations both in a low frequency band from $50$ to $100$~MHz, where a 21~cm absorption profile is expected, and in a higher frequency band ($100-200$~MHz). We find that the presence of a polarized contaminant with complex frequency structure can bias the amplitude and the shape of the reconstructed signal parameters in both bands. We investigate if polarized foregrounds can explain the unexpected $21$~cm Cosmic Dawn signal recently reported by the EDGES collaboration. We find that unaccounted polarized foreground contamination can produce an enhanced and distorted $21$~cm absorption trough similar to the anomalous profile reported by Bowman et al. (2018), and whose amplitude is in mild tension with the assumed input Gaussian profile (at $\sim 1.5 σ$ level). Moreover, we note that, under the hypothesis of contamination from polarized foreground, the amplitude of the reconstructed EDGES signal can be overestimated by around $30\%$, mitigating the requirement for an explanation based on exotic physics.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Cosmic Dawn and Reionization: Astrophysics in the Final Frontier

The cosmic dawn and epoch of reionization mark the time period in the universe when stars, galaxies, and blackhole seeds first formed and the intergalactic medium changed from neutral to an ionized one. Despite substantial progress with multi-wavelength observations, astrophysical process during this time period remain some of the least understood with large uncertainties on our existing models of galaxy, blackhole, and structure formation. This white paper outlines the current state of knowledge and anticipated scientific outcomes with ground and space-based astronomical facilities in the 2020s. We then propose a number of scientific goals and objectives for new facilities in late 2020s to mid 2030s that will lead to definitive measurements of key astrophysical processes in the epoch of reionization and cosmic dawn.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Cosmology with Phase 1 of the Square Kilometre Array; Red Book 2018: Technical specifications and performance forecasts

We present a detailed overview of the cosmological surveys that will be carried out with Phase 1 of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA1), and the science that they will enable. We highlight three main surveys: a medium-deep continuum weak lensing and low-redshift spectroscopic HI galaxy survey over 5,000 sqdeg; a wide and deep continuum galaxy and HI intensity mapping survey over 20,000 sqdeg from z = 0.35 - 3; and a deep, high-redshift HI intensity mapping survey over 100 sqdeg from z = 3 - 6. Taken together, these surveys will achieve an array of important scientific goals: measuring the equation of state of dark energy out to z ~ 3 with percent-level precision measurements of the cosmic expansion rate; constraining possible deviations from General Relativity on cosmological scales by measuring the growth rate of structure through multiple independent methods; mapping the structure of the Universe on the largest accessible scales, thus constraining fundamental properties such as isotropy, homogeneity, and non-Gaussianity; and measuring the HI density and bias out to z = 6. These surveys will also provide highly complementary clustering and weak lensing measurements that have independent systematic uncertainties to those of optical surveys like LSST and Euclid, leading to a multitude of synergies that can improve constraints significantly beyond what optical or radio surveys can achieve on their own. This document, the 2018 Red Book, provides reference technical specifications, cosmological parameter forecasts, and an overview of relevant systematic effects for the three key surveys, and will be regularly updated by the Cosmology Science Working Group in the run up to start of operations and the Key Science Programme of SKA1.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Multi-Component Decomposition of Cosmic Infrared Background Fluctuations

The near-infrared background between 0.5 $μ$m to 2 $μ$m contains a wealth of information related to radiative processes in the universe. Infrared background anisotropies encode the redshift-weighted total emission over cosmic history, including any spatially diffuse and extended contributions. The anisotropy power spectrum is dominated by undetected galaxies at small angular scales and diffuse background of Galactic emission at large angular scales. In addition to these known sources, the infrared background also arises from intra-halo light (IHL) at $z < 3$ associated with tidally-stripped stars during galaxy mergers. Moreover, it contains information on the very first galaxies from the epoch of reionization (EoR). The EoR signal has a spectral energy distribution (SED) that goes to zero near optical wavelengths due to Lyman absorption, while other signals have spectra that vary smoothly with frequency. Due to differences in SEDs and spatial clustering, these components may be separated in a multi-wavelength-fluctuation experiment. To study the extent to which EoR fluctuations can be separated in the presence of IHL, extra-galactic and Galactic foregrounds, we develop a maximum likelihood technique that incorporates a full covariance matrix among all the frequencies at different angular scales. We apply this technique to simulated deep imaging data over a 2$\times$100 deg$^2$ sky area from 0.75 $μ$m to 5 $μ$m in 9 bands and find that such a "frequency tomography" can successfully reconstruct both the amplitude and spectral shape for representative EoR, IHL and the foreground signals.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Simulated multi-tracer analyses with HI intensity mapping

We use full sky simulations, including the effects of foreground contamination and removal, to explore multi-tracer synergies between a SKA-like 21cm intensity mapping survey and a LSST-like photometric galaxy redshift survey. In particular we study ratios of auto and cross-correlations between the two tracers as estimators of the ratio of their biases, a quantity that should benefit considerably from the cosmic variance cancellation of the multi-tracer approach. We show how well we should be able to measure the bias ratio on very large scales (down to $\ell \sim 3$), which is crucial to measure primordial non-Gaussianity and general relativistic effects on large scale structure. We find that, in the absence of foregrounds but with realistic noise levels of such surveys, the multi-tracer estimators are able to improve on the sensitivity of a cosmic-variance contaminated measurement by a factor of $2-4$. When foregrounds are included, estimators using the 21cm auto-correlation become biased. However, we show that cross-correlation estimators are immune to this and do not incur in any significant penalty in terms of sensitivity from discarding the auto-correlation data. However, the loss of long-wavelength radial modes caused by foreground removal in combination with the low redshift resolution of photometric surveys, reduces the sensitivity of the multi-tracer estimator, albeit still better than the cosmic variance contaminated scenario even in the noise free case. Finally we explore different alternative avenues to avoid this problem.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2018

Model-independent curvature determination with 21cm intensity mapping experiments

Recent precision cosmological parameter constraints imply that the spatial curvature of the Universe is essentially dynamically negligible - but only if relatively strong assumptions are made about the equation of state of dark energy (DE). When these assumptions are relaxed, strong degeneracies arise that make it hard to disentangle DE and curvature, degrading the constraints. We show that forthcoming 21cm intensity mapping experiments such as HIRAX are ideally designed to carry out model-independent curvature measurements, as they can measure the clustering signal at high redshift with sufficient precision to break many of the degeneracies. We consider two different model-independent methods, based on `avoiding' the DE-dominated regime and non-parametric modelling of the DE equation of state respectively. Our forecasts show that HIRAX will be able to improve upon current model-independent constraints by around an order of magnitude, reaching percent-level accuracy even when an arbitrary DE equation of state is assumed. In the same model-independent analysis, the sample variance limit for a similar survey is another order of magnitude better.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Constraining the contribution of active galactic nuclei to reionisation

Recent results have suggested that active galactic nuclei (AGN) could provide enough photons to reionise the Universe. We assess the viability of this scenario using a semi-numerical framework for modeling reionisation, to which we add a quasar contribution by constructing a Quasar Halo Occupation Distribution (QHOD) based on Giallongo et al. observations. Assuming a constant QHOD, we find that an AGN-only model cannot simultaneously match observations of the optical depth $τ_e$, neutral fraction, and ionising emissivity. Such a model predicts $τ_e$ too low by $\sim 2σ$ relative to Planck constraints, and reionises the Universe at $z\lesssim 5$. Arbitrarily increasing the AGN emissivity to match these results yields a strong mismatch with the observed ionising emissivity at $z\sim 5$. If we instead assume a redshift-independent AGN luminosity function yielding an emissivity evolution like that assumed in Madau & Haardt model, then we can match $τ_e$ albeit with late reionisation, however such evolution is inconsistent with observations at $z\sim 4-6$ and poorly motivated physically. These results arise because AGN are more biased towards massive halos than typical reionising galaxies, resulting in stronger clustering and later formation times. AGN-dominated models produce larger ionising bubbles that are reflected in $\sim\times 2$ more 21cm power on all scales. A model with equal parts galaxies and AGN contribution is still (barely) consistent with observations, but could be distinguished using next-generation 21cm experiments HERA and SKA-low. We conclude that, even with recent claims of more faint AGN than previously thought, AGN are highly unlikely to dominate the ionising photon budget for reionisation.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

MeerKLASS: MeerKAT Large Area Synoptic Survey

We discuss the ground-breaking science that will be possible with a wide area survey, using the MeerKAT telescope, known as MeerKLASS (MeerKAT Large Area Synoptic Survey). The current specifications of MeerKAT make it a great fit for science applications that require large survey speeds but not necessarily high angular resolutions. In particular, for cosmology, a large survey over $\sim 4,000 \, {\rm deg}^2$ for $\sim 4,000$ hours will potentially provide the first ever measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillations using the 21cm intensity mapping technique, with enough accuracy to impose constraints on the nature of dark energy. The combination with multi-wavelength data will give unique additional information, such as exquisite constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity using the multi-tracer technique, as well as a better handle on foregrounds and systematics. Such a wide survey with MeerKAT is also a great match for HI galaxy studies, providing unrivalled statistics in the pre-SKA era for galaxies resolved in the HI emission line beyond local structures at z > 0.01. It will also produce a large continuum galaxy sample down to a depth of about 5\,$μ$Jy in L-band, which is quite unique over such large areas and will allow studies of the large-scale structure of the Universe out to high redshifts, complementing the galaxy HI survey to form a transformational multi-wavelength approach to study galaxy dynamics and evolution. Finally, the same survey will supply unique information for a range of other science applications, including a large statistical investigation of galaxy clusters as well as produce a rotation measure map across a huge swathe of the sky. The MeerKLASS survey will be a crucial step on the road to using SKA1-MID for cosmological applications and other commensal surveys, as described in the top priority SKA key science projects (abridged).

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Fully-Bayesian stacking in the presence of confusion

Multi-wavelength astronomical studies brings a wealth of science within reach. One way to achieve a cross-wavelength analysis is via `stacking', i.e. combining precise positional information from an image at one wavelength with data from one at another wavelength in order to extract source-flux distributions and other derived quantities. For the first time we extend stacking to include the effects of confusion. We develop our algorithm in a fully Bayesian framework and apply it to the Square Kilometre Array Design Study (SKADS) simulation in order to extract galaxy number counts. Previous studies have shown that recovered source counts are highly biased high when confusion is non-negligible. With this new method, source counts are returned correctly. We also describe a novel estimator for quantifying the impact of confusion on stacking analyses. This method is an essential step in exploiting scientific return for upcoming deep radio surveys, e.g. MIGHTEE on MeerKAT.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

The MeerKAT International GHz Tiered Extragalactic Exploration (MIGHTEE) Survey

The MIGHTEE large survey project will survey four of the most well-studied extragalactic deep fields, totalling 20 square degrees to $μ$Jy sensitivity at Giga-Hertz frequencies, as well as an ultra-deep image of a single ~1 square degree MeerKAT pointing. The observations will provide radio continuum, spectral line and polarisation information. As such, MIGHTEE, along with the excellent multi-wavelength data already available in these deep fields, will allow a range of science to be achieved. Specifically, MIGHTEE is designed to significantly enhance our understanding of, (i) the evolution of AGN and star-formation activity over cosmic time, as a function of stellar mass and environment, free of dust obscuration; (ii) the evolution of neutral hydrogen in the Universe and how this neutral gas eventually turns into stars after moving through the molecular phase, and how efficiently this can fuel AGN activity; (iii) the properties of cosmic magnetic fields and how they evolve in clusters, filaments and galaxies. MIGHTEE will reach similar depth to the planned SKA all-sky survey, and thus will provide a pilot to the cosmology experiments that will be carried out by the SKA over a much larger survey volume.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

Epoch of Reionisation 21cm Forecasting From MCMC-Constrained Semi-Numerical Models

The recent low value of Planck (2016) integrated optical depth to Thomson scattering suggests that the reionization occurred fairly suddenly, disfavoring extended reionization scenarios. This will have a significant impact on the 21cm power spectrum. Using a semi-numerical framework, we improve our model from Hassan et al. (2016) to include time-integrated ionisation and recombination effects, and find that this leads to more sudden reionisation. It also yields larger HII bubbles which leads to an order of magnitude more 21cm power on large scales, while suppressing the small scale ionization power. Local fluctuations in the neutral hydrogen density play the dominant role in boosting the 21cm power spectrum on large scales, while recombinations are subdominant. We use a Monte Carlo Markov Chain approach to constrain our model to observations of the star formation rate functions at z = 6,7,8 from Bouwens et al. (2015), the Planck (2016) optical depth measurements, and the Becker & Bolton (2013) ionising emissivity data at z~5. We then use this constrained model to perform 21cm forecasting for LOFAR, HERA, and SKA in order to determine how well such data can characterise the sources driving reionisation. We find that the 21cm power spectrum alone can somewhat constrain the halo mass dependence of ionising sources, the photon escape fraction and ionising amplitude, but combining the 21cm data with other current observations enables us to separately constrain all these parameters. Our framework illustrates how 21cm data can play a key role in understanding the sources and topology of reionisation as observations improve.

astro-ph.CO↗