arXiv subjects

Oliver H. E. Philcox

Publications and source records attributed to Oliver H. E. Philcox.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Cosmology with the Galaxy Bispectrum Multipoles: Optimal Estimation and Application to BOSS Data

We present a framework for self-consistent cosmological analyses of the full-shape anisotropic bispectrum, including the quadrupole $(\ell=2)$ and hexadecapole $(\ell=4)$ moments. This features a novel window-free algorithm for extracting the latter quantities from data, derived using a maximum-likelihood prescription. Furthermore, we introduce a theoretical model for the bispectrum multipoles (which does not introduce new free parameters), and test both aspects of the pipeline on several high-fidelity mocks, including the PT Challenge suite of gigantic cumulative volume. This establishes that the systematic error is significantly below the statistical threshold, both for the measurement and modeling. As a realistic example, we extract the large-scale bispectrum multipoles from BOSS DR12 and analyze them in combination with the power spectrum data. Assuming a minimal $Λ$CDM model, with a BBN prior on the baryon density and a \textit{Planck} prior on $n_s$, we can extract the remaining cosmological parameters directly from the clustering data. The inclusion of the unwindowed higher-order $(\ell>0)$ large-scale bispectrum multipoles is found to moderately improve one-dimensional cosmological parameter posteriors (at the $5\%-10\%$ level), though these multipoles are detected only in three out of four BOSS data segments at $\approx 5σ$. Combining information from the power spectrum and bispectrum multipoles, the real space power spectrum, and the post-reconstructed BAO data, we find $H_0 = 68.2\pm 0.8~\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$, $Ω_m =0.33\pm 0.01$ and $σ_8 = 0.736\pm 0.033$ (the tightest yet found in perturbative full-shape analyses). Our estimate of the growth parameter $S_8=0.77\pm 0.04$ agrees with both weak lensing and CMB results.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

The Disordered Heterogeneous Universe: Galaxy Distribution and Clustering Across Length Scales

Studies of disordered heterogeneous media and galaxy cosmology share a common goal: analyzing the distribution of particles at `microscales' to predict physical properties at `macroscales', whether for a liquid, composite material, or entire Universe. The former theory provides an array of techniques to characterize a wide class of microstructures; in this work, we apply them to the distributions of galaxies. We focus on the lower-order correlation functions, `void' and `particle' nearest-neighbor functions, pair-connectedness functions, percolation properties, and a scalar order metric. Compared to homogeneous Poisson and typical disordered systems, the cosmological simulations exhibit enhanced large-scale clustering and longer tails in the nearest-neighbor functions, due to the presence of quasi-long-range correlations. On large scales, the system appears `hyperuniform', due to primordial density fluctuations, whilst on the smallest scales, the system becomes almost `antihyperuniform', and, via the order metric, is shown to be a highly correlated disordered system. Via a finite scaling analysis, we show that the percolation threshold of the galaxy catalogs is significantly lower than for Poisson realizations; this is consistent with the observation that the galaxy distribution contains larger voids. However, the two sets of simulations share a fractal dimension, implying that they lie in the same universality class. Finally, we consider the ability of large-scale clustering statistics to constrain cosmological parameters using simulation-based inference. Both the nearest-neighbor distribution and pair-connectedness function considerably tighten bounds on the amplitude of cosmological fluctuations at a level equivalent to observing twenty-five times more galaxies. These are a useful alternative to the three-particle correlation, and are computable in much reduced time. (Abridged)

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Squeezing $f_{\rm NL}$ out of the matter bispectrum with consistency relations

We show how consistency relations can be used to robustly extract the amplitude of local primordial non-Gaussianity ($f_{\rm NL}$) from the squeezed limit of the matter bispectrum, well into the non-linear regime. First, we derive a non-perturbative relation between primordial non-Gaussianity and the leading term in the squeezed bispectrum, revising some results present in the literature. This relation is then used to successfully measure $f_{\rm NL}$ from $N$-body simulations. We discuss the dependence of our results on different scale cuts and redshifts. Specifically, the analysis is strongly dependent on the choice of the smallest soft momentum, $q_{\rm min}$, which is the most sensitive to primordial bispectrum contributions, but is largely independent of the choice of the largest hard momentum, $k_{\rm max}$, due to the non-Gaussian nature of the covariance. We also show how the constraints on $f_{\rm NL}$ improve at higher redshift, due to a reduced off-diagonal covariance. In particular, for a simulation with $f_{\rm NL} = 100$ and a volume of $(2.4 \text{ Gpc}/h)^3$, we measure $f_{\rm NL} = 98 \pm 12$ at redshift $z=0$ and $f_{\rm NL} = 97 \pm 8$ at $z=0.97$. Finally, we compare our results with a Fisher forecast, showing that the current version of the analysis is satisfactorily close to the Fisher error. We regard this as a first step towards the realistic application of consistency relations to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity using observations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Novel Cosmological Tests from Combining Galaxy Lensing and the Polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

The polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (pSZ) effect is sourced by the Thomson scattering of CMB photons from distant free electrons and yields a novel view of the CMB quadrupole throughout the observable Universe. Galaxy shear measures the shape distortions of galaxies, probing both their local environment and the intervening matter distribution. Both observables give interesting constraints on the cosmological model; here we ask: what can be learnt from their combination? The pSZ-shear cross-spectrum measures the shear-galaxy-polarization bispectrum and contains contributions from (1) the Sachs-Wolfe (SW) effect, (2) the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect, and (3) inflationary gravitational waves. Since the modes contributing to the pSZ signal are not restricted to the Earth's past lightcone, the low-redshift cross-spectra could provide a novel constraint on dark energy via the ISW effect, whilst the SW signal couples scalar modes at very different times but at similar positions; this provides a unique probe of the Universe's homogeneous time evolution. We give expressions for all major contributions to the shear, galaxy, and pSZ auto- and cross-spectra, and evaluate their detectability via Fisher forecasts. Despite significant theoretical utility, the cross-spectra will be challenging to detect: combining CMB-S4 with Rubin yields a $1.6σ$ detection of the ISW contribution, which increases to $5.2σ$ for a futuristic experiment involving CMB-HD and a higher galaxy sample density. For parity-even (parity-odd) tensors, we predict a $1σ$ limit of $σ(r) = 0.9$ ($0.2$) for CMB-S4 and Rubin, or $0.3$ ($0.06$) for the more futuristic setup. Whilst this is significantly better than the constraints from galaxy shear alone (and less sensitive to systematics), it is unlikely to be competitive, but may serve as a useful cross-check.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Determining the Hubble Constant without the Sound Horizon: A $3.6\%$ Constraint on $H_0$ from Galaxy Surveys, CMB Lensing and Supernovae

Many theoretical resolutions to the so-called "Hubble tension" rely on modifying the sound horizon at recombination, $r_s$, and thus the acoustic scale used as a standard ruler in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large scale structure (LSS) datasets. As shown in a number of recent works, these observables can also be used to compute $r_s$-independent constraints on $H_0$ by making use of the horizon scale at matter-radiation equality, $k_{\rm eq}$, which has different sensitivity to high redshift physics than $r_s$. As such, $r_s$- and $k_{\rm eq}$-based measurements of $H_0$ (within a $Λ$CDM framework) may differ if there is new physics present pre-recombination. In this work, we present the tightest constraints on the latter from current data, finding $H_0=64.8^{+2.2}_{-2.5}$ at 68% CL (in $\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ units) from a combination of BOSS galaxy power spectra, Planck CMB lensing, and the newly released Pantheon+ supernova constraints, as well as physical priors on the baryon density, neutrino mass, and spectral index. The BOSS and Planck measurements have different degeneracy directions, leading to the improved combined constraints, with a bound of $H_0 = 67.1^{+2.5}_{-2.9}$ ($63.6^{+2.9}_{-3.6}$) from BOSS (Planck) alone. The results show some dependence on the neutrino mass bounds, with the constraint broadening to $H_0 = 68.0^{+2.9}_{-3.2}$ if we instead impose a weak prior on $\sum m_ν$ from terrestrial experiments, or shifting to $H_0 = 64.6\pm2.4$ if the neutrino mass is fixed to its minimal value. Even without dependence on the sound horizon, our results are in $\approx 3σ$ tension with those obtained from the Cepheid-calibrated distance ladder, which begins to cause problems for new physics models that vary $H_0$ by changing acoustic physics or the expansion history immediately prior to recombination.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Cosmology with the Redshift-Space Galaxy Bispectrum Monopole at One-Loop Order

We study the cosmological information content of the redshift-space galaxy bispectrum monopole at one-loop order in perturbation theory. We incorporate all effects necessary for comparison to data: fourth-order galaxy bias, infrared resummation (accounting for the non-linear evolution of baryon acoustic oscillations), ultraviolet counterterms, non-linear redshift-space distortions, stochastic contributions, projection, and binning effects. The model is implemented using FFTLog, and validated with the PT Challenge suite of $N$-body simulations, whose large volume allows for high-precision tests. Focusing on the mass fluctuation amplitude, $σ_8$, and galaxy bias parameters, we find that including one-loop corrections allow us to significantly extend the range of scales over which the bispectrum can be modeled, and greatly tightens constraints on bias parameters. However, this does not lead to noticeable improvements in the $σ_8$ errorbar due to the necessary marginalization over a large number of nuisance parameters with conservative priors. Analyzing a BOSS-volume likelihood, we find that the addition of the one-loop bispectrum may lead to improvements on primordial non-Gaussianity constraints by $\lesssim 30\%$ and on $σ_8$ by $\approx 10\%$, though we caution that this requires pushing the analysis to short scales where the galaxy bias parameters may not be correctly recovered; this may lead to biases in the recovered parameter values. We conclude that restrictive priors from simulations or higher-order statistics such as the bispectrum multipoles will be needed in order to realize the full information content of the galaxy bispectrum.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Constraints on Multi-Field Inflation from the BOSS Galaxy Survey

We use redshift-space galaxy clustering data from the BOSS survey to constrain local primordial non-Gaussianity (LPNG). This is of particular importance due to the consistency relations, which imply that a detection of LPNG would rule out all single-field inflationary models. Our constraints are based on the consistently analyzed redshift-space galaxy power spectra and bispectra, extracted from the public BOSS data with optimal window-free estimators. We use a complete perturbation theory model including all one-loop power spectrum corrections generated by LPNG. Our constraint on the amplitude of the local non-Gaussian shape is $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local}=-33\pm 28$ at 68\%\,CL, yielding no evidence for primordial non-Gaussianity. The addition of the bispectrum tightens the $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm local}$ constraints from BOSS by $20\%$, and allows breaking of degeneracies with non-Gaussian galaxy bias. These results set the stage for the analysis of future surveys, whose larger volumes will yield significantly tighter constraints on LPNG.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Cosmological constraints without fingers of God

Non-linear redshift-space distortions ("fingers of God") are challenging to model analytically, a fact that limits the applicability of perturbation theory in redshift space as compared to real space. We show how this problem can be mitigated using a new observable, $Q_0$, which can be easily estimated from the redshift space clustering data and is approximately equal to the real space power spectrum. The new statistic does not suffer from fingers of God and can be accurately described with perturbation theory down to $k_{\rm max}\simeq 0.4~h~\text{Mpc}^{-1}$. It can be straightforwardly included in the likelihood at negligible additional computational cost, and yields noticeable improvements on cosmological parameters compared to standard power spectrum multipole analyses. Using both simulations and observational data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, we show that improvements vary from $10\%$ to $100\%$ depending on the cosmological parameter considered, the galaxy sample and the survey volume.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Efficient Computation of $N$-point Correlation Functions in $D$ Dimensions

We present efficient algorithms for computing the $N$-point correlation functions (NPCFs) of random fields in arbitrary $D$-dimensional homogeneous and isotropic spaces. Such statistics appear throughout the physical sciences, and provide a natural tool to describe stochastic processes. algorithms for computing the NPCF components have $\mathcal{O}(n^N)$ complexity (for a data set containing $n$ particles); their application is thus computationally infeasible unless $N$ is small. By projecting the statistic onto a suitably-defined angular basis, we show that the estimators can be written in a separable form, with complexity $\mathcal{O}(n^2)$, or $\mathcal{O}(n_{\rm g}\log n_{\rm g})$ if evaluated using a Fast Fourier Transform on a grid of size $n_{\rm g}$. Our decomposition is built upon the $D$-dimensional hyperspherical harmonics; these form a complete basis on the $(D-1)$-sphere and are intrinsically related to angular momentum operators. Concatenation of $(N-1)$ such harmonics gives states of definite combined angular momentum, forming a natural separable basis for the NPCF. As $N$ and $D$ grow, the number of basis components quickly becomes large, providing a practical limitation to this (and all other) approaches: however, the dimensionality is greatly reduced in the presence of symmetries; for example, isotropic correlation functions require only states of zero combined angular momentum. We provide a \textsc{Julia} package implementing our estimators, and show how they can be applied to a variety of scenarios within cosmology and fluid dynamics. The efficiency of such estimators will allow higher-order correlators to become a standard tool in the analysis of random fields.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

The BOSS DR12 Full-Shape Cosmology: $Λ$CDM Constraints from the Large-Scale Galaxy Power Spectrum and Bispectrum Monopole

We present a full $Λ$CDM analysis of the BOSS DR12 dataset, including information from the power spectrum multipoles, the real-space power spectrum, the reconstructed power spectrum and the bispectrum monopole. This is the first analysis to feature a complete treatment of the galaxy bispectrum, including a consistent theoretical model and without large-scale cuts. Unlike previous works, the statistics are measured using window-free estimators: this greatly reduces computational costs by removing the need to window-convolve the theory model. Our pipeline is tested using a suite of high-resolution mocks and shown to be robust and precise, with systematic errors far below the statistical thresholds. Inclusion of the bispectrum yields consistent parameter constraints and shrinks the $σ_8$ posterior by $13\%$ to reach $<5\%$ precision; less conservative analysis choices would reduce the error-bars further. Our constraints are broadly consistent with Planck: in particular, we find $H_0 = 69.6^{+1.1}_{-1.3}\,\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$, $σ_8 = 0.692^{+0.035}_{-0.041}$ and $n_s=0.870^{+0.067}_{-0.064}$, including a BBN prior on the baryon density. When $n_s$ is set by Planck, we find $H_0 = 68.31^{+0.83}_{-0.86}\,\mathrm{km}\,\mathrm{s}^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ and $σ_8 = 0.722^{+0.032}_{-0.036}$. Our $S_8$ posterior, $0.751\pm0.039$, is consistent with weak lensing studies, but lower than Planck. Constraints on the higher-order bias parameters are significantly strengthened from the inclusion of the bispectrum, and we find no evidence for deviation from the dark matter halo bias relations. These results represent the most complete full-shape analysis of BOSS DR12 to-date, and the corresponding spectra will enable a variety of beyond-$Λ$CDM analyses, probing phenomena such as the neutrino mass and primordial non-Gaussianity.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Constraints on Single-Field Inflation from the BOSS Galaxy Survey

Non-local primordial non-Gaussianity (NLPNG) is a smoking gun of interactions in single-field inflationary models, and can be written as a combination of the equilateral and orthogonal templates. We present the first constraints on these from the redshift-space galaxy power spectra and bispectra of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) data. These are the first such measurements independent of the cosmic microwave background fluctuations. We perform a consistent analysis that includes all necessary nonlinear corrections generated by NLPNG, and vary all relevant cosmological and nuisance parameters in a global fit to the data. Our conservative analysis yields joint limits on the amplitudes of the equilateral and orthogonal shapes, $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm equil}=940\pm 600$, $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm ortho}= -170\pm 170$ (both at 68\% CL). These can be used to derive constraints on coefficients of the effective single-field inflationary Lagrangian; in particular, we find that the sound speed of inflaton fluctuations has the bound $c_s\geq 0.013$ at 95\% CL. Fixing the quadratic galaxy bias and cosmological parameters, the constraints can be tightened to $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm equil}=260\pm 300$, $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm ortho}= -23\pm 120$ (68\% CL).

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

The CAMELS project: public data release

The Cosmology and Astrophysics with MachinE Learning Simulations (CAMELS) project was developed to combine cosmology with astrophysics through thousands of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and machine learning. CAMELS contains 4,233 cosmological simulations, 2,049 N-body and 2,184 state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations that sample a vast volume in parameter space. In this paper we present the CAMELS public data release, describing the characteristics of the CAMELS simulations and a variety of data products generated from them, including halo, subhalo, galaxy, and void catalogues, power spectra, bispectra, Lyman-$α$ spectra, probability distribution functions, halo radial profiles, and X-rays photon lists. We also release over one thousand catalogues that contain billions of galaxies from CAMELS-SAM: a large collection of N-body simulations that have been combined with the Santa Cruz Semi-Analytic Model. We release all the data, comprising more than 350 terabytes and containing 143,922 snapshots, millions of halos, galaxies and summary statistics. We provide further technical details on how to access, download, read, and process the data at \url{https://camels.readthedocs.io}.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Precision analysis of the redshift-space galaxy bispectrum

We study the information content of the angle-averaged (monopole) redshift space galaxy bispectrum. The main novelty of our approach is the use of a systematic tree-level perturbation theory model that includes galaxy bias, IR resummation, and also accounts for nonlinear redshift space distortions, binning, and projection effects. We analyze data from the PT challenge simulations, whose cumulative volume of 566 $h^{-3}$Gpc$^3$ allows for a precise comparison to theoretical predictions. Fitting the power spectrum and bispectrum of our simulated data, and varying all necessary cosmological and nuisance parameters in a consistent Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis, we find that our tree-level bispectrum model is valid up to $k_{\max}=0.08~h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ (at $z=0.61$). We also find that inclusion of the bispectrum monopole improves constraints on cosmological parameters by $(5-15)\%$ relative to the power spectrum. The improvement is more significant for the quadratic bias parameters of our simulated galaxies, which we also show to deviate from biases of the host dark matter halos at the $\sim 3σ$ level. Finally, we adjust the covariance and scale cuts to match the volume of the BOSS survey, and estimate that within the minimal $Λ$CDM model the bispectrum data can tighten the constraint on the mass fluctuation amplitude $σ_8$ by roughly $10\%$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

ENCORE: An $\mathcal{O}(N_{\rm g}^2)$ Estimator for Galaxy $N$-Point Correlation Functions

We present a new algorithm for efficiently computing the $N$-point correlation functions (NPCFs) of a 3D density field for arbitrary $N$. This can be applied both to a discrete spectroscopic galaxy survey and a continuous field. By expanding the statistics in a separable basis of isotropic functions built from spherical harmonics, the NPCFs can be estimated by counting pairs of particles in space, leading to an algorithm with complexity $\mathcal{O}(N_{\rm g}^2)$ for $N_{\rm g}$ particles, or $\mathcal{O}\left(N_\mathrm{FFT}\log N_\mathrm{FFT}\right)$ when using a Fast Fourier Transform with $N_\mathrm{FFT}$ grid-points. In practice, the rate-limiting step for $N>3$ will often be the summation of the histogrammed spherical harmonic coefficients, particularly if the number of radial and angular bins is large. In this case, the algorithm scales linearly with $N_{\rm g}$. The approach is implemented in the ENCORE code, which can compute the 3PCF, 4PCF, 5PCF, and 6PCF of a BOSS-like galaxy survey in $\sim$ $100$ CPU-hours, including the corrections necessary for non-uniform survey geometries. We discuss the implementation in depth, along with its GPU acceleration, and provide practical demonstration on realistic galaxy catalogs. Our approach can be straightforwardly applied to current and future datasets to unlock the potential of constraining cosmology from the higher-point functions.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2021

Cosmology Without Window Functions: Cubic Estimators for the Galaxy Bispectrum

When analyzing the galaxy bispectrum measured from spectroscopic surveys, it is imperative to account for the effects of non-uniform survey geometry. Conventionally, this is done by convolving the theory model with the the window function; however, the computational expense of this prohibits full exploration of the bispectrum likelihood. In this work, we provide a new class of estimators for the unwindowed bispectrum; a quantity that can be straightforwardly compared to theory. This builds upon the work of Philcox (2021) for the power spectrum, and comprises two parts (both obtained from an Edgeworth expansion): a cubic estimator applied to the data, and a Fisher matrix, which deconvolves the bispectrum components. In the limit of weak non-Gaussianity, the estimator is minimum-variance; furthermore, we give an alternate form based on FKP weights that is close-to-optimal and easy to compute. As a demonstration, we measure the binned bispectrum monopole of a suite of simulations both using conventional estimators and our unwindowed equivalents. Computation times are comparable, except that the unwindowed approach requires a Fisher matrix, computable in an additional $\mathcal{O}(100)$ CPU-hours. Our estimator may be straightforwardly extended to measure redshift-space distortions and the components of the bispectrum in arbitrary separable bases. The techniques of this work will allow the bispectrum to straightforwardly be included in the cosmological analysis of current and upcoming survey data.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

A First Detection of the Connected 4-Point Correlation Function of Galaxies Using the BOSS CMASS Sample

We present an $8.1σ$ detection of the non-Gaussian 4-Point Correlation Function (4PCF) using a sample of $N_{\rm g} \approx 8\times 10^5$ galaxies from the BOSS CMASS dataset. Our measurement uses the $\mathcal{O}(N_{\rm g}^2)$ NPCF estimator of Philcox et al. (2021), including a new modification to subtract the disconnected 4PCF contribution (arising from the product of two 2PCFs) at the estimator level. This approach is unlike previous work and ensures that our signal is a robust detection of gravitationally-induced non-Gaussianity. The estimator is validated with a suite of lognormal simulations, and the analytic form of the disconnected contribution is discussed. Due to the high dimensionality of the 4PCF, data compression is required; we use a signal-to-noise-based scheme calibrated from theoretical covariance matrices to restrict to $\sim$ $100$ basis vectors. The compression has minimal impact on the detection significance and facilitates traditional $χ^2$-like analyses using a suite of mock catalogs. The significance is stable with respect to different treatments of noise in the sample covariance (arising from the limited number of mocks), but decreases to $4.7σ$ when a minimum galaxy separation of $14 h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$ is enforced on the 4PCF tetrahedra (such that the statistic can be modelled more easily). The detectability of the 4PCF in the quasi-linear regime implies that it will become a useful tool in constraining cosmological and galaxy formation parameters from upcoming spectroscopic surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Analytic Gaussian Covariance Matrices for Galaxy $N$-Point Correlation Functions

We derive analytic covariance matrices for the $N$-Point Correlation Functions (NPCFs) of galaxies in the Gaussian limit. Our results are given for arbitrary $N$ and projected onto the isotropic basis functions of Cahn & Slepian (2020), recently shown to facilitate efficient NPCF estimation. A numerical implementation of the 4PCF covariance is compared to the sample covariance obtained from a set of lognormal simulations, Quijote dark matter halo catalogues, and MultiDark-Patchy galaxy mocks, with the latter including realistic survey geometry. The analytic formalism gives reasonable predictions for the covariances estimated from mock simulations with a periodic-box geometry. Furthermore, fitting for an effective volume and number density by maximizing a likelihood based on Kullback-Leibler divergence is shown to partially compensate for the effects of a non-uniform window function.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Kepler's Goat Herd: An Exact Solution to Kepler's Equation for Elliptical Orbits

A fundamental relation in celestial mechanics is Kepler's equation, linking an orbit's mean anomaly to its eccentric anomaly and eccentricity. Being transcendental, the equation cannot be directly solved for eccentric anomaly by conventional treatments; much work has been devoted to approximate methods. Here, we give an explicit integral solution, utilizing methods recently applied to the "geometric goat problem" and to the dynamics of spherical collapse. The solution is given as a ratio of contour integrals; these can be efficiently computed via numerical integration for arbitrary eccentricities. The method is found to be highly accurate in practice, with our C++ implementation outperforming conventional root-finding and series approaches by a factor greater than two.

physics.comp-ph↗