arXiv subjects

Matthew Lewandowski

Publications and source records attributed to Matthew Lewandowski.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Non-local-in-time structure formation and sixth-order galaxy bias

We present a systematic construction of the non-local-in-time galaxy bias expansion in the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure. In order to fully capture time non-locality up to sixth order, we must take into account that every field can contribute non-locally from a separate time in the past. Starting from the general non-local-in-time expression for the galaxy overdensity, we explicitly compute the complete sixth-order basis of bias operators at leading order in spatial derivatives, finding 57 independent biases, compared to 46 in the corresponding local-in-time expansion. As previously found at fifth order, this difference implies that higher-order clustering statistics can distinguish between local- and non-local-in-time galaxy formation, and thus are sensitive, at a single redshift, to the formation time of galaxies. Along the way, we obtain recursion relations for the perturbative kernels and show that they satisfy specific multi-leg soft limits when the sum of a subset of the external momenta goes to zero.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

Efficient evaluation of the dark-matter two-loop power spectrum in the EFT of LSS

Rapid progress in cosmological Large Scale Structure (LSS) surveys motivates precise theoretical predictions. The Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure (EFTofLSS) is routinely applied to data, and requires fast computation of its predictions when sampling the large space of cosmological parameters. Going beyond existing one-loop techniques, we present a method to rapidly evaluate the two-loop power spectrum. Our method decomposes the typically small difference between a given linear power spectrum and a reference power spectrum into a cosmology-independent basis of functions resembling massive scalar propagators in Quantum Field Theory. By taking the leading terms in such a small difference, we numerically evaluate the cosmology-independent loop integrals where in the integrand only the relevant combinations of basis functions appear. We achieve an efficient numerical evaluation via physically motivated local ultraviolet subtractions and by arranging the cancellation of infrared singularities locally in the integrands. Final predictions are obtained by contracting these precomputed integrals with the cosmology-dependent coordinates of the expansion in the fixed basis. We present and publicly release the precomputed integrals for the renormalized two-loop dark-matter power spectrum in the EFTofLSS. These require eight EFT counterterms, which include the effect of generated vorticity, and are sufficient to analyze the lensing galaxy signal in LSS surveys at this order.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

The Spectroscopic Stage-5 Experiment

The existence, properties, and dynamics of the dark sectors of our universe pose fundamental challenges to our current model of physics, and large-scale astronomical surveys may be our only hope to unravel these long-standing mysteries. In this white paper, we describe the science motivation, instrumentation, and survey plan for the next-generation spectroscopic observatory, the Stage-5 Spectroscopic Experiment (Spec-S5). Spec-S5 is a new all-sky spectroscopic instrument optimized to efficiently carry out cosmological surveys of unprecedented scale and precision. The baseline plan for Spec-S5 involves upgrading two existing 4-m telescopes to new 6-m wide-field facilities, each with a highly multiplexed spectroscopic instrument capable of simultaneously measuring the spectra of 13,000 astronomical targets. Spec-S5, which builds and improves on the hardware used for previous cosmology experiments, represents a cost-effective and rapid approach to realizing a more than 10$\times$ gain in spectroscopic capability compared to the current state-of-the-art represented by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument project (DESI). Spec-S5 will provide a critical scientific capability in the post-Rubin and post-DESI era for advancing cosmology, fundamental physics, and astrophysics in the 2030s.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Direct signatures of the formation time of galaxies

We show that it is possible to directly measure the formation time of galaxies using large-scale structure. In particular, we show that the large-scale distribution of galaxies is sensitive to whether galaxies form over a narrow period of time before their observed times, or are formed over a time scale on the order of the age of the Universe. Along the way, we derive simple recursion relations for the perturbative terms of the most general bias expansion for the galaxy density, thus fully extending the famous dark-matter recursion relations to generic tracers.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

The one-loop bispectrum of galaxies in redshift space from the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure

We derive the kernels and the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure counterterms for the one-loop bispectrum of dark matter and of biased tracers in real and redshift space. This requires the expansion of biased tracers up to fourth order in fluctuations. In the process, we encounter several subtleties related to renormalization. One is the fact that, in renormalizing the momentum, a local counterterm contributes non-locally. A second subtlety is related to the renormalization of local products of the velocity fields, which need to be expressed in terms of the renormalized velocity in order to preserve Galilean symmetry. We check that the counterterms we identify are necessary and sufficient to renormalize the one-loop bispectrum at leading and subleading order in the derivative expansion. The kernels that we originally present here have already been used for the first analyses of the one-loop bispectrum in BOSS data [1, 2].

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Double-copy towards supergravity inflation with $\alpha$-attractor models

Key to the simplicity of supergravity $\alpha$-attractor models of inflation are Volkov-Akulov fermions, often in the form of nilpotent superfields. Here we explore the possibility of using the double-copy to construct theories of Dirac-Born-Infeld-Volkov-Akulov (DBIVA) coupled to supergravity. A color-dual bootstrap admits scattering amplitudes involving pions and vectors through five-point tree-level order by order in mass-dimension, but requires the introduction of a $\text{Tr}(F^3)$ operator. Gauge theories with this operator were recently found to require a tower of higher-derivative operators to be compatible with color-kinematics duality. Adjoint-type double-copy construction at its most conservative seems to require the UV completion of DBIVA + pure Poincar\'{e} supergravity scattering amplitudes to a family of theories involving DBIVA-like particles coupled to Weyl-Einstein supergravity. We also point out an alternative solution to color-dual gauged pions that allows adjoint double-copy without a tower of higher derivative corrections but at the cost of exchange symmetry between scalars.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Snowmass Theory Frontier: Effective Field Theory

We summarize recent progress in the development, application, and understanding of effective field theories and highlight promising directions for future research. This Report is prepared as the TF02 "Effective Field Theory" topical group summary for the Theory Frontier as part of the Snowmass 2021 process.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Snowmass Theory Frontier: Astrophysics and Cosmology

We summarize progress made in theoretical astrophysics and cosmology over the past decade and areas of interest for the coming decade. This Report is prepared as the TF09 "Astrophysics and Cosmology" topical group summary for the Theory Frontier as part of the Snowmass 2021 process.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

The BOSS bispectrum analysis at one loop from the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure

We analyze the BOSS power spectrum monopole and quadrupole, and the bispectrum monopole and quadrupole data, using the predictions from the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure (EFTofLSS). Specifically, we use the one loop prediction for the power spectrum and the bispectrum monopole, and the tree level for the bispectrum quadrupole. After validating our pipeline against numerical simulations as well as checking for several internal consistencies, we apply it to the observational data. We find that analyzing the bispectrum monopole to higher wavenumbers thanks to the one-loop prediction, as well as the addition of the tree-level quadrupole, significantly reduces the error bars with respect to our original analysis of the power spectrum at one loop and bispectrum monopole at tree level. After fixing the spectral tilt to Planck preferred value and using a Big Bang Nucleosynthesis prior, we measure $\sigma_8=0.794\pm 0.037$, $h = 0.692\pm 0.011$, and $\Omega_m = 0.311\pm 0.010$ to about $4.7\%$, $1.6\%$, and $3.2\%$, at $68\%$ CL, respectively. This represents an error bar reduction with respect to the power spectrum-only analysis of about $30\%$, $18\%$, and $13\%$ respectively. Remarkably, the results are compatible with the ones obtained with a power-spectrum-only analysis, showing the power of the EFTofLSS in simultaneously predicting several observables. We find no tension with Planck.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Snowmass White Paper: Effective Field Theories in Cosmology

Small fluctuations around homogeneous and isotropic expanding backgrounds are the main object of study in cosmology. Their origin and evolution is sensitive to the physical processes that happen during inflation and in the late Universe. As such, they hold the key to answering many of the major open questions in cosmology. Given a large separation of relevant scales in many examples of interest, the most natural description of these fluctuations is formulated in terms of effective field theories. This was the main avenue for many of the important modern developments in theoretical cosmology, which provided a unifying framework for a plethora of cosmological models and made a clear connection between the fundamental cosmological parameters and observables. In this review we summarize these results in the context of effective field theories of inflation, large-scale structure, and dark energy.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

The Color-Dual Fates of $F^3$, $R^3$, and $\mathcal{N}=4$ Supergravity

We find that the duality between color and kinematics can be used to inform the high energy behavior of effective field theories. Namely, we demonstrate that the massless gauge theory of Yang-Mills deformed by a higher-derivative $F^3$ operator cannot be tree-level color-dual while consistently factorizing without a tower of additional four-point counterterms with rigidly fixed Wilson coefficients that reaches to the ultraviolet (UV). We find through explicit calculation a suggestive resummation, namely that their amplitudes are consistent with the $\alpha'$ expansion of those generated by the $(DF)^2+\text{YM}$ theory, a known color-dual theory where the $F^2$ term has been given a mass squared proportional to $1 / \alpha'$. As a result, considering consistent double-copy construction as a physical principle implies that an $F^3$-based color-dual resolution of the UV divergence in $\mathcal{N}=4$ supergravity comes at the cost of field-theoretic locality. Similarly, when double-copying $F^3$ with itself, double-copy consistency lifts $R^3$ gravity to a family of gravity theories with an all-order tower of higher-derivative corrections, which includes the closed bosonic string as a standard adjoint-type double-copy.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Limits on primordial non-Gaussianities from BOSS galaxy-clustering data

We analyze the power spectrum and the bispectrum of BOSS galaxy-clustering data using the prediction from the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure at one-loop order for $\textit{both}$ the power spectrum $\textit{and}$ the bispectrum. With $\Lambda$CDM parameters fixed to Planck preferred values, we set limits on three templates of non-Gaussianities predicted by many inflationary models: the equilateral, the orthogonal, and the local shapes. After validating our analysis against simulations, we find $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm equil.}= 207 \pm 292\, , f_{\rm NL}^{\rm orth.}= -68 \pm 73\, , f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc.}= 52 \pm 34$, at $68\%$ confidence level. These bispectrum-based constraints from Large-Scale Structure, not far from the ones of WMAP, suggest promising results from upcoming surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Gravitational Causality and the Self-Stress of Photons

We study causality in gravitational systems beyond the classical limit. Using on-shell methods, we consider the one-loop corrections from charged particles to the photon energy-momentum tensor - the self-stress - that controls the quantum interaction between two on-shell photons and one off-shell graviton. The self-stress determines in turn the phase shift and time delay in the scattering of photons against a spectator particle of any spin in the eikonal regime. We show that the sign of the $\beta$-function associated to the running gauge coupling is related to the sign of time delay at small impact parameter. Our results show that, at first post-Minkowskian order, asymptotic causality, where the time delay experienced by any particle must be positive, is respected quantum mechanically. Contrasted with asymptotic causality, we explore a local notion of causality, where the time delay is longer than the one of gravitons, which is seemingly violated by quantum effects.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Baryonic effects in the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure and an analytic recipe for lensing in CMB-S4

Upcoming Large-Scale Structure surveys will likely become the next leading sources of cosmological information, making it crucial to have a precise understanding of the influence of baryons on cosmological observables. The Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure (EFTofLSS) provides a consistent way to predict the clustering of dark matter and baryons on large scales, where their leading corrections in perturbation theory are given by a simple and calculable functional form even after the onset of baryonic processes. In this paper, we extend the two-fluid-like system up to two-loop order in perturbation theory. Along the way, we show that a new linear counterterm proportional to the relative velocity of the fluids could generically be present, but we show that its effects are expected to be small in our universe. Regardless, we show how to consistently perform perturbation theory in the presence of this new term. We find that the EFTofLSS at two-loop order can accurately account for the details of baryonic processes on large scales. We compare our results to a hydrodynamical $N$-body simulation at many redshifts and find that the counterterms associated with the leading corrections to dark matter and baryons start to differ between redshifts $z \approx 3$ and $z \approx 2$, signaling the onset of star-formation physics. We then use these fits to compute the lensing power spectrum, show that the understanding of baryonic processes will be important for analyzing CMB-S4 data, and show that the two-loop EFTofLSS accurately captures these effects for $\ell \lesssim 2000$. Our results are also potentially of interest for current and future weak lensing surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Violation of the consistency relations for large-scale structure with dark energy

We study infrared effects in perturbation theory for large-scale structure coupled to the effective field theory of dark energy, focusing on, in particular, Degenerate Higher-Order Scalar-Tensor (DHOST) theories. In the subhorizon, Newtonian limit, DHOST theories introduce an extra large-scale velocity $v^i_\pi$ which is in general different from the matter velocity $v^i$. Contrary to the case in Horndeski theories, the presence of this extra large-scale velocity means that one cannot eliminate the long-wavelength effects of both $v^i$ and $v^i_\pi$ with a single coordinate transformation, and thus the standard $\Lambda$CDM consistency relations for large-scale structure are violated by terms proportional to the relative velocity $v^i - v^i_\pi$. We show, however, that in non-linear quantities this violation is determined by the linear equations and the symmetries of the fluid system. We find that the size of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the squeezed limit of the bispectrum is modified, that the bias expansion contains extra terms which contribute to the squeezed limit of the galaxy bispectrum, that infrared modes in the one-loop power spectrum no longer cancel, and that the equal-time double soft limit of the tree-level trispectrum is non-vanishing. In addition, we give explicit expressions for how these violations depend on the relative velocity. Many of our computations are also relevant for perturbation theory in $\Lambda$CDM with exact time dependence.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Consistency relations for large-scale structure in modified gravity and the matter bispectrum

We study perturbation theory for large-scale structure in the most general scalar-tensor theories propagating a single scalar degree of freedom, which include Horndeski theories and beyond. We model the parameter space using the effective field theory of dark energy. For Horndeski theories, the gravitational field and fluid equations are invariant under a combination of time-dependent transformations of the coordinates and fields. This symmetry allows one to construct a physical adiabatic mode which fixes the perturbation-theory kernels in the squeezed limit and ensures that the well-known consistency relations for large-scale structure, originally derived in general relativity, hold in modified gravity as well. For theories beyond Horndeski, instead, one generally cannot construct such an adiabatic mode. Because of this, the perturbation-theory kernels are modified in the squeezed limit and the consistency relations for large-scale structure do not hold. We show, however, that the modification of the squeezed limit depends only on the linear theory. We investigate the observational consequences of this violation by computing the matter bispectrum. In the squeezed limit, the largest effect is expected when considering the cross-correlation between different tracers. Moreover, the individual contributions to the 1-loop matter power spectrum do not cancel in the infrared limit of the momentum integral, modifying the power spectrum on non-linear scales.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2019

Vainshtein regime in Scalar-Tensor gravity: constraints on DHOST theories

We study the screening mechanism in the most general scalar-tensor theories that leave gravitational waves unaffected and are thus compatible with recent LIGO/Virgo observations. Using the effective field theory of dark energy approach, we consider the general action for perturbations beyond linear order, focussing on the quasi-static limit. When restricting to the subclass of theories that satisfy the gravitational wave constraints, the fully nonlinear effective Lagrangian contains only three independent parameters. One of these, $\beta_1$, is uniquely present in degenerate higher-order theories. We compute the two gravitational potentials for a spherically symmetric matter source and we find that for $\beta_1 \ge 0$ they decrease as the inverse of the distance, as in standard gravity, while the case $\beta_1 < 0$ is ruled out. For $\beta_1 > 0$, the two potentials differ and their gravitational constants are not the same on the inside and outside of the body. Generically, the bound on anomalous light bending in the Solar System constrains $\beta_1 \lesssim 10^{-5}$. Standard gravity can be recovered outside the body by tuning the parameters of the model, in which case $\beta_1 \lesssim 10^{-2}$ from the Hulse-Taylor pulsar.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2019

Amplitudes' Positivity, Weak Gravity Conjecture, and Modified Gravity

We derive new positivity bounds for scattering amplitudes in theories with a massless graviton in the spectrum in four spacetime dimensions, of relevance for the weak gravity conjecture and modified gravity theories. The bounds imply that extremal black holes are self-repulsive, $M/|Q|<1$ in suitable units, and that they are unstable to decay to smaller extremal black holes, providing an S-matrix proof of the weak gravity conjecture. We also present other applications of our bounds to the effective field theory of axions, $P(X)$ theories, weakly broken galileons, and curved spacetimes.

hep-th↗