arXiv subjects

N. Findlay

Publications and source records attributed to N. Findlay.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Fiducial-Cosmology-dependent systematics for the DESI 2024 Full-Shape Analysis

We assess the impact of the fiducial cosmology choice on cosmological inference from full-shape (FS) fits of the galaxy power spectrum in the DESI 2024 Data Release 1 (DR1). Using a suite of AbacusSummit DR1 mock catalogues based on the Planck 2018 best-fit cosmology, we quantify potential systematic shifts introduced by analysing the data under five secondary cosmologies - featuring variations in matter density, thawing dark energy, higher effective number of neutrino species, reduced clustering amplitude, and the DESI DR1 BAO best-fit $w_0w_a$CDM cosmology - relative to DESI's baseline Planck 2018 cosmology. We investigate two complementary FS analysis approaches: full-modelling (FM) and ShapeFit (SF), each with distinct sensitivities to the assumed fiducial model. Across all tracers, we find for FM that systematic shifts induced by fiducial cosmology mismatches remain well below the DESI DR1 statistical uncertainties, with maximum deviations of 0.22$\sigma_\mathrm{DR1}$ in $\Lambda$CDM scenarios and 0.12$\sigma_\mathrm{DR1+SN}$ when including SN Ia mock data in extended $w_0w_a$CDM fits. For SF, the shifts in the compressed parameters remain below $0.45\sigma_\mathrm{DR1}$ for all tracers and cosmologies.

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arXiv2025

Data Release 1 of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

In 2021 May the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration began a 5-year spectroscopic redshift survey to produce a detailed map of the evolving three-dimensional structure of the universe between $z=0$ and $z\approx4$. DESI's principle scientific objectives are to place precise constraints on the equation of state of dark energy, the gravitationally driven growth of large-scale structure, and the sum of the neutrino masses, and to explore the observational signatures of primordial inflation. We present DESI Data Release 1 (DR1), which consists of all data acquired during the first 13 months of the DESI main survey, as well as a uniform reprocessing of the DESI Survey Validation data which was previously made public in the DESI Early Data Release. The DR1 main survey includes high-confidence redshifts for 18.7M objects, of which 13.1M are spectroscopically classified as galaxies, 1.6M as quasars, and 4M as stars, making DR1 the largest sample of extragalactic redshifts ever assembled. We summarize the DR1 observations, the spectroscopic data-reduction pipeline and data products, large-scale structure catalogs, value-added catalogs, and describe how to access and interact with the data. In addition to fulfilling its core cosmological objectives with unprecedented precision, we expect DR1 to enable a wide range of transformational astrophysical studies and discoveries.

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arXiv2024

DESI 2024 II: Sample Definitions, Characteristics, and Two-point Clustering Statistics

We present the samples of galaxies and quasars used for DESI 2024 cosmological analyses, drawn from the DESI Data Release 1 (DR1). We describe the construction of large-scale structure (LSS) catalogs from these samples, which include matched sets of synthetic reference `randoms' and weights that account for variations in the observed density of the samples due to experimental design and varying instrument performance. We detail how we correct for variations in observational completeness, the input `target' densities due to imaging systematics, and the ability to confidently measure redshifts from DESI spectra. We then summarize how remaining uncertainties in the corrections can be translated to systematic uncertainties for particular analyses. We describe the weights added to maximize the signal-to-noise of DESI DR1 2-point clustering measurements. We detail measurement pipelines applied to the LSS catalogs that obtain 2-point clustering measurements in configuration and Fourier space. The resulting 2-point measurements depend on window functions and normalization constraints particular to each sample, and we present the corrections required to match models to the data. We compare the configuration- and Fourier-space 2-point clustering of the data samples to that recovered from simulations of DESI DR1 and find they are, generally, in statistical agreement to within 2\% in the inferred real-space over-density field. The LSS catalogs, 2-point measurements, and their covariance matrices will be released publicly with DESI DR1.

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arXiv2024

DESI 2024 VII: Cosmological Constraints from the Full-Shape Modeling of Clustering Measurements

We present cosmological results from the measurement of clustering of galaxy, quasar and Lyman-$\alpha$ forest tracers from the first year of observations with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI Data Release 1). We adopt the full-shape (FS) modeling of the power spectrum, including the effects of redshift-space distortions, in an analysis which has been validated in a series of supporting papers. In the flat $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, DESI (FS+BAO), combined with a baryon density prior from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and a weak prior on the scalar spectral index, determines matter density to $\Omega_\mathrm{m}=0.2962\pm 0.0095$, and the amplitude of mass fluctuations to $\sigma_8=0.842\pm 0.034$. The addition of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data tightens these constraints to $\Omega_\mathrm{m}=0.3056\pm 0.0049$ and $\sigma_8=0.8121\pm 0.0053$, while further addition of the the joint clustering and lensing analysis from the Dark Energy Survey Year-3 (DESY3) data leads to a 0.4% determination of the Hubble constant, $H_0 = (68.40\pm 0.27)\,{\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}}$. In models with a time-varying dark energy equation of state, combinations of DESI (FS+BAO) with CMB and type Ia supernovae continue to show the preference, previously found in the DESI DR1 BAO analysis, for $w_0>-1$ and $w_a<0$ with similar levels of significance. DESI data, in combination with the CMB, impose the upper limits on the sum of the neutrino masses of $\sum m_\nu < 0.071\,{\rm eV}$ at 95% confidence. DESI data alone measure the modified-gravity parameter that controls the clustering of massive particles, $\mu_0=0.11^{+0.45}_{-0.54}$, while the combination of DESI with the CMB and the clustering and lensing analysis from DESY3 constrains both modified-gravity parameters, giving $\mu_0 = 0.04\pm 0.22$ and $\Sigma_0 = 0.044\pm 0.047$, in agreement with general relativity. [Abridged.]

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arXiv2024

Exploring HOD-dependent systematics for the DESI 2024 Full-Shape galaxy clustering analysis

We analyse the robustness of the DESI 2024 cosmological inference from the full shape of the galaxy power spectrum to uncertainties in the Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) model of the galaxy-halo connection and the choice of priors on nuisance parameters. We assess variations in the recovered cosmological parameters across a range of mocks populated with different HOD models and find that shifts are often greater than 20% of the expected statistical uncertainties from the DESI data. We encapsulate the effect of such shifts in terms of a systematic covariance term, $\mathsf{C}_{\rm HOD}$, and an additional diagonal contribution quantifying the impact of our choice of nuisance parameter priors on the ability of the effective field theory (EFT) model to correctly recover the cosmological parameters of the simulations. These two covariance contributions are designed to be added to the usual covariance term, $\mathsf{C}_{\rm stat}$, describing the statistical uncertainty in the power spectrum measurement, in order to fairly represent these sources of systematic uncertainty. This novel approach should be more general and robust to the choice of model or additional external datasets used in cosmological fits than the alternative approach of adding systematic uncertainties to the recovered marginalised parameter posteriors. We compare the approaches within the context of a fixed $\Lambda$CDM model and demonstrate that our method gives conservative estimates of the systematic uncertainty that nevertheless have little impact on the final posteriors obtained from DESI data.

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arXiv2024

DESI 2024 V: Full-Shape Galaxy Clustering from Galaxies and Quasars

We present the measurements and cosmological implications of the galaxy two-point clustering using over 4.7 million unique galaxy and quasar redshifts in the range $0.1<z<2.1$ divided into six redshift bins over a $\sim 7,500$ square degree footprint, from the first year of observations with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI Data Release 1). By fitting the full power spectrum, we extend previous DESI DR1 baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements to include redshift-space distortions and signals from the matter-radiation equality scale. For the first time, this Full-Shape analysis is blinded at the catalogue-level to avoid confirmation bias and the systematic errors are accounted for at the two-point clustering level, which automatically propagates them into any cosmological parameter. When analysing the data in terms of compressed model-agnostic variables, we obtain a combined precision of 4.7\% on the amplitude of the redshift space distortion signal reaching similar precision with just one year of DESI data than with 20 years of observation from previous generation surveys. We analyse the data to directly constrain the cosmological parameters within the $\Lambda$CDM model using perturbation theory and combine this information with the reconstructed DESI DR1 galaxy BAO. Using a Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Gaussian prior on the baryon density parameter, and a Gaussian prior on the spectral index, we constrain the matter density is $\Omega_m=0.296\pm 0.010 $ and the Hubble constant $H_0=(68.63 \pm 0.79)[{\rm km\, s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}}]$. Additionally, we measure the amplitude of clustering $\sigma_8=0.841 \pm 0.034$. The DESI DR1 results are in agreement with the $\Lambda$CDM model based on general relativity with parameters consistent with those from Planck. The cosmological interpretation of these results in combination with external datasets are presented in a companion paper.

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arXiv2024

Comparing Compressed and Full-modeling Analyses with FOLPS: Implications for DESI 2024 and beyond

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will provide unprecedented information about the large-scale structure of our Universe. In this work, we study the robustness of the theoretical modelling of the power spectrum of FOLPS, a novel effective field theory-based package for evaluating the redshift space power spectrum in the presence of massive neutrinos. We perform this validation by fitting the AbacusSummit high-accuracy $N$-body simulations for Luminous Red Galaxies, Emission Line Galaxies and Quasar tracers, calibrated to describe DESI observations. We quantify the potential systematic error budget of FOLPS, finding that the modelling errors are fully sub-dominant for the DESI statistical precision within the studied range of scales. Additionally, we study two complementary approaches to fit and analyse the power spectrum data, one based on direct Full-Modelling fits and the other on the ShapeFit compression variables, both resulting in very good agreement in precision and accuracy. In each of these approaches, we study a set of potential systematic errors induced by several assumptions, such as the choice of template cosmology, the effect of prior choice in the nuisance parameters of the model, or the range of scales used in the analysis. Furthermore, we show how opening up the parameter space beyond the vanilla $\Lambda$CDM model affects the DESI observables. These studies include the addition of massive neutrinos, spatial curvature, and dark energy equation of state. We also examine how relaxing the usual Cosmic Microwave Background and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis priors on the primordial spectral index and the baryonic matter abundance, respectively, impacts the inference on the rest of the parameters of interest. This paper pathways towards performing a robust and reliable analysis of the shape of the power spectrum of DESI galaxy and quasar clustering using FOLPS.

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arXiv2024

A comparison of effective field theory models of redshift space galaxy power spectra for DESI 2024 and future surveys

In preparation for the next generation of galaxy redshift surveys, and in particular the year-one data release from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), we investigate the consistency of a variety of effective field theory models that describe the galaxy-galaxy power spectra in redshift space into the quasi-linear regime using 1-loop perturbation theory. These models are employed in the pipelines \texttt{velocileptors}, \texttt{PyBird}, and \texttt{Folps$\nu$}. While these models have been validated independently, a detailed comparison with consistent choices has not been attempted. After briefly discussing the theoretical differences between the models we describe how to provide a more apples-to-apples comparison between them. We present the results of fitting mock spectra from the \texttt{AbacusSummit} suite of N-body simulations provided in three redshift bins to mimic the types of dark time tracers targeted by the DESI survey. We show that the theories behave similarly and give consistent constraints in both the forward-modeling and ShapeFit compressed fitting approaches. We additionally generate (noiseless) synthetic data from each pipeline to be fit by the others, varying the scale cuts in order to show that the models agree within the range of scales for which we expect 1-loop perturbation theory to be applicable. This work lays the foundation of Full-Shape analysis with DESI Y1 galaxy samples where in the tests we performed, we found no systematic error associated with the modeling of the galaxy redshift space power spectrum for this volume.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

An analysis of parameter compression and full-modeling techniques with Velocileptors for DESI 2024 and beyond

In anticipation of forthcoming data releases of current and future spectroscopic surveys, we present the validation tests and analysis of systematic effects within \texttt{velocileptors} modeling pipeline when fitting mock data from the \texttt{AbacusSummit} N-body simulations. We compare the constraints obtained from parameter compression methods to the direct fitting (Full-Modeling) approaches of modeling the galaxy power spectra, and show that the ShapeFit extension to the traditional template method is consistent with the Full-Modeling method within the standard $\Lambda$CDM parameter space. We show the dependence on scale cuts when fitting the different redshift bins using the ShapeFit and Full-Modeling methods. We test the ability to jointly fit data from multiple redshift bins as well as joint analysis of the pre-reconstruction power spectrum with the post-reconstruction BAO correlation function signal. We further demonstrate the behavior of the model when opening up the parameter space beyond $\Lambda$CDM and also when combining likelihoods with external datasets, namely the Planck CMB priors. Finally, we describe different parametrization options for the galaxy bias, counterterm, and stochastic parameters, and employ the halo model in order to physically motivate suitable priors that are necessary to ensure the stability of the perturbation theory.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

DESI 2024 IV: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from the Lyman Alpha Forest

We present the measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) from the Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) forest of high-redshift quasars with the first-year dataset of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Our analysis uses over $420\,000$ Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra and their correlation with the spatial distribution of more than $700\,000$ quasars. An essential facet of this work is the development of a new analysis methodology on a blinded dataset. We conducted rigorous tests using synthetic data to ensure the reliability of our methodology and findings before unblinding. Additionally, we conducted multiple data splits to assess the consistency of the results and scrutinized various analysis approaches to confirm their robustness. For a given value of the sound horizon ($r_d$), we measure the expansion at $z_{\rm eff}=2.33$ with 2\% precision, $H(z_{\rm eff}) = (239.2 \pm 4.8) (147.09~{\rm Mpc} /r_d)$ km/s/Mpc. Similarly, we present a 2.4\% measurement of the transverse comoving distance to the same redshift, $D_M(z_{\rm eff}) = (5.84 \pm 0.14) (r_d/147.09~{\rm Mpc})$ Gpc. Together with other DESI BAO measurements at lower redshifts, these results are used in a companion paper to constrain cosmological parameters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

DESI 2024 VI: Cosmological Constraints from the Measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations

We present cosmological results from the measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in galaxy, quasar and Lyman-$\alpha$ forest tracers from the first year of observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), to be released in the DESI Data Release 1. DESI BAO provide robust measurements of the transverse comoving distance and Hubble rate, or their combination, relative to the sound horizon, in seven redshift bins from over 6 million extragalactic objects in the redshift range $0.1 -1$ and $w_a<0$. This preference is 2.6$\sigma$ for the DESI+CMB combination, and persists or grows when SN~Ia are added in, giving results discrepant with the $\Lambda$CDM model at the $2.5\sigma$, $3.5\sigma$ or $3.9\sigma$ levels for the addition of Pantheon+, Union3, or DES-SN5YR datasets respectively. For the flat $\Lambda$CDM model with the sum of neutrino mass $\sum m_\nu$ free, combining the DESI and CMB data yields an upper limit $\sum m_\nu < 0.072$ $(0.113)$ eV at 95% confidence for a $\sum m_\nu>0$ $(\sum m_\nu>0.059)$ eV prior. These neutrino-mass constraints are substantially relaxed in models beyond $\Lambda$CDM. [Abridged.]

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

DESI 2024 III: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Galaxies and Quasars

We present the DESI 2024 galaxy and quasar baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) measurements using over 5.7 million unique galaxy and quasar redshifts in the range 0.1<z<2.1. Divided by tracer type, we utilize 300,017 galaxies from the magnitude-limited Bright Galaxy Survey with 0.1<z<0.4, 2,138,600 Luminous Red Galaxies with 0.4<z<1.1, 2,432,022 Emission Line Galaxies with 0.8<z<1.6, and 856,652 quasars with 0.8<z<2.1, over a ~7,500 square degree footprint. The analysis was blinded at the catalog-level to avoid confirmation bias. All fiducial choices of the BAO fitting and reconstruction methodology, as well as the size of the systematic errors, were determined on the basis of the tests with mock catalogs and the blinded data catalogs. We present several improvements to the BAO analysis pipeline, including enhancing the BAO fitting and reconstruction methods in a more physically-motivated direction, and also present results using combinations of tracers. We present a re-analysis of SDSS BOSS and eBOSS results applying the improved DESI methodology and find scatter consistent with the level of the quoted SDSS theoretical systematic uncertainties. With the total effective survey volume of ~ 18 Gpc$^3$, the combined precision of the BAO measurements across the six different redshift bins is ~0.52%, marking a 1.2-fold improvement over the previous state-of-the-art results using only first-year data. We detect the BAO in all of these six redshift bins. The highest significance of BAO detection is $9.1\sigma$ at the effective redshift of 0.93, with a constraint of 0.86% placed on the BAO scale. We find our measurements are systematically larger than the prediction of Planck-2018 LCDM model at z<0.8. We translate the results into transverse comoving distance and radial Hubble distance measurements, which are used to constrain cosmological models in our companion paper [abridged].

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