arXiv subjects

Philip Bull

Publications and source records attributed to Philip Bull.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Core Cosmology Library: Precision Cosmological Predictions for LSST

The Core Cosmology Library (CCL) provides routines to compute basic cosmological observables to a high degree of accuracy, which have been verified with an extensive suite of validation tests. Predictions are provided for many cosmological quantities, including distances, angular power spectra, correlation functions, halo bias and the halo mass function through state-of-the-art modeling prescriptions available in the literature. Fiducial specifications for the expected galaxy distributions for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) are also included, together with the capability of computing redshift distributions for a user-defined photometric redshift model. A rigorous validation procedure, based on comparisons between CCL and independent software packages, allows us to establish a well-defined numerical accuracy for each predicted quantity. As a result, predictions for correlation functions of galaxy clustering, galaxy-galaxy lensing and cosmic shear are demonstrated to be within a fraction of the expected statistical uncertainty of the observables for the models and in the range of scales of interest to LSST. CCL is an open source software package written in C, with a python interface and publicly available at https://github.com/LSSTDESC/CCL.

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arXiv2019

Inflation and Dark Energy from spectroscopy at $z > 2$

The expansion of the Universe is understood to have accelerated during two epochs: in its very first moments during a period of Inflation and much more recently, at $z < 1$, when Dark Energy is hypothesized to drive cosmic acceleration. The undiscovered mechanisms behind these two epochs represent some of the most important open problems in fundamental physics. The large cosmological volume at $2 < z < 5$, together with the ability to efficiently target high-$z$ galaxies with known techniques, enables large gains in the study of Inflation and Dark Energy. A future spectroscopic survey can test the Gaussianity of the initial conditions up to a factor of ~50 better than our current bounds, crossing the crucial theoretical threshold of $σ(f_{NL}^{\rm local})$ of order unity that separates single field and multi-field models. Simultaneously, it can measure the fraction of Dark Energy at the percent level up to $z = 5$, thus serving as an unprecedented test of the standard model and opening up a tremendous discovery space.

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arXiv2019

Astro2020 Science White Paper: Synergies Between Galaxy Surveys and Reionization Measurements

The early phases of galaxy formation constitute one of the most exciting frontiers in astrophysics. It is during this era that the first luminous sources reionize the intergalactic medium - the moment when structure formation affects every baryon in the Universe. Here we argue that we will obtain a complete picture of this era by combining observations of galaxies with direct measurements of the reionization process: the former will provide a detailed understanding of bright sources, while the latter will constrain the (substantial) faint source population. We further describe how optimizing the comparison of these two measurements requires near-infrared galaxy surveys covering large volumes and retaining redshift information and also improvements in 21-cm analysis, moving those experiments into the imaging regime.

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arXiv2019

Astro2020 Science White Paper: Insights Into the Epoch of Reionization with the Highly-Redshifted 21-cm Line

The epoch of reionization, when photons from early galaxies ionized the intergalactic medium about a billion years after the Big Bang, is the last major phase transition in the Universe's history. Measuring the characteristics of the transition is important for understanding early galaxies and the cosmic web and for modeling dwarf galaxies in the later Universe. But such measurements require probes of the intergalactic medium itself. Here we describe how the 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen provides a powerful probe of the reionization process and therefore important constraints on both the galaxies and intergalactic absorbers at that time. While existing experiments will make precise statistical measurements over the next decade, we argue that improved 21-cm analysis techniques - allowing imaging of the neutral gas itself - as well as improved theoretical models, are crucial for testing our understanding of this important era.

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arXiv2019

Primordial Non-Gaussianity

Our current understanding of the Universe is established through the pristine measurements of structure in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the distribution and shapes of galaxies tracing the large scale structure (LSS) of the Universe. One key ingredient that underlies cosmological observables is that the field that sources the observed structure is assumed to be initially Gaussian with high precision. Nevertheless, a minimal deviation from Gaussianityis perhaps the most robust theoretical prediction of models that explain the observed Universe; itis necessarily present even in the simplest scenarios. In addition, most inflationary models produce far higher levels of non-Gaussianity. Since non-Gaussianity directly probes the dynamics in the early Universe, a detection would present a monumental discovery in cosmology, providing clues about physics at energy scales as high as the GUT scale.

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arXiv2019

Astro 2020 Science White Paper: Fundamental Cosmology in the Dark Ages with 21-cm Line Fluctuations

The Dark Ages are the period between the last scattering of the cosmic microwave background and the appearance of the first luminous sources, spanning approximately 1100 < z < 30. The only known way to measure fluctuations in this era is through the 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen. Such observations have enormous potential for cosmology, because they span a large volume while the fluctuations remain linear even on small scales. Observations of 21-cm fluctuations during this era can therefore constrain fundamental aspects of our Universe, including inflation and any exotic physics of dark matter. While the observational challenges to these low-frequency 21-cm observations are enormous, especially from the terrestrial environment, they represent an important goal for cosmology.

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arXiv2019

Cosmology with the Highly Redshifted 21cm Line

In addition to being a probe of Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization astrophysics, the 21cm line at $z>6$ is also a powerful way to constrain cosmology. Its power derives from several unique capabilities. First, the 21cm line is sensitive to energy injections into the intergalactic medium at high redshifts. It also increases the number of measurable modes compared to existing cosmological probes by orders of magnitude. Many of these modes are on smaller scales than are accessible via the CMB, and moreover have the advantage of being firmly in the linear regime (making them easy to model theoretically). Finally, the 21cm line provides access to redshifts prior to the formation of luminous objects. Together, these features of 21cm cosmology at $z>6$ provide multiple pathways toward precise cosmological constraints. These include the "marginalizing out" of astrophysical effects, the utilization of redshift space distortions, the breaking of CMB degeneracies, the identification of signatures of relative velocities between baryons and dark matter, and the discovery of unexpected signs of physics beyond the $Λ$CDM paradigm at high redshifts.

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arXiv2019

Mapping Cosmic Dawn and Reionization: Challenges and Synergies

Cosmic dawn and the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) are among the least explored observational eras in cosmology: a time at which the first galaxies and supermassive black holes formed and reionized the cold, neutral Universe of the post-recombination era. With current instruments, only a handful of the brightest galaxies and quasars from that time are detectable as individual objects, due to their extreme distances. Fortunately, a multitude of multi-wavelength intensity mapping measurements, ranging from the redshifted 21 cm background in the radio to the unresolved X-ray background, contain a plethora of synergistic information about this elusive era. The coming decade will likely see direct detections of inhomogenous reionization with CMB and 21 cm observations, and a slew of other probes covering overlapping areas and complementary physical processes will provide crucial additional information and cross-validation. To maximize scientific discovery and return on investment, coordinated survey planning and joint data analysis should be a high priority, closely coupled to computational models and theoretical predictions.

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arXiv2018

Mitigating Complex Dust Foregrounds in Future CMB Polarization Experiments

Polarized Galactic foregrounds are one of the primary sources of systematic error in measurements of the B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Experiments are becoming increasingly sensitive to complexities in the foreground frequency spectra that are not captured by standard parametric models, potentially affecting our ability to efficiently separate out these components. Employing a suite of dust models encompassing a variety of physical effects, we simulate observations of a future seven-band CMB experiment to assess the impact of these complexities on parametric component separation. We identify configurations of frequency bands that minimize the `model errors' caused by fitting simple parametric models to more complex `true' foreground spectra, which bias the inferred CMB signal. We find that: (a) fits employing a simple two parameter modified blackbody (MBB) dust model tend to produce significant bias in the recovered polarized CMB signal in the presence of physically realistic dust foregrounds; (b) generalized MBB models with three additional parameters reduce this bias in most cases, but non-negligible biases can remain, and can be hard to detect; and (c) line of sight effects, which give rise to frequency decorrelation, and the presence of iron grains are the most problematic complexities in the dust emission for recovering the true CMB signal. More sophisticated simulations will be needed to demonstrate that future CMB experiments can successfully mitigate these more physically realistic dust foregrounds.

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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.

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arXiv2018

Weak gravitational lensing with CO galaxies

Optical weak lensing surveys have become a powerful tool for precision cosmology, but remain subject to systematic effects that can severely bias cosmological parameter estimates if not carefully removed. We discuss the possibility of performing complementary weak lensing surveys at radio/microwave frequencies, using detections of CO-emitting galaxies with resolved continuum images from ngVLA. This method has completely different systematic uncertainties to optical weak lensing shear measurements (e.g. in terms of blending, PSF, and redshift uncertainties), and can provide additional information to help disentangle intrinsic alignments from the cosmological shear signal. A combined analysis of optical and CO galaxy lensing surveys would therefore provide an extremely stringent validation of highly-sensitive future surveys with Euclid, LSST, and WFIRST, definitively rejecting biases due to residual systematic effects. A lensing survey on ngVLA would also provide valuable spectral (kinematic) and polarimetric information, which can be used to develop novel cosmological analyses that are not currently possible in the optical.

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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.

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arXiv2017

Line-Intensity Mapping: 2017 Status Report

Following the first two annual intensity mapping workshops at Stanford in March 2016 and Johns Hopkins in June 2017, we report on the recent advances in theory, instrumentation and observation that were presented in these meetings and some of the opportunities and challenges that were identified looking forward. With preliminary detections of CO, [CII], Lya and low-redshift 21cm, and a host of experiments set to go online in the next few years, the field is rapidly progressing on all fronts, with great anticipation for a flood of new exciting results. This current snapshot provides an efficient reference for experts in related fields and a useful resource for nonspecialists. We begin by introducing the concept of line-intensity mapping and then discuss the broad array of science goals that will be enabled, ranging from the history of star formation, reionization and galaxy evolution to measuring baryon acoustic oscillations at high redshift and constraining theories of dark matter, modified gravity and dark energy. After reviewing the first detections reported to date, we survey the experimental landscape, presenting the parameters and capabilities of relevant instruments such as COMAP, mmIMe, AIM-CO, CCAT-p, TIME, CONCERTO, CHIME, HIRAX, HERA, STARFIRE, MeerKAT/SKA and SPHEREx. Finally, we describe recent theoretical advances: different approaches to modeling line luminosity functions, several techniques to separate the desired signal from foregrounds, statistical methods to analyze the data, and frameworks to generate realistic intensity map simulations.

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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).

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arXiv2017

A Galaxy-Halo Model for Multiple Cosmological Tracers

The information extracted from large galaxy surveys with the likes of DES, DESI, Euclid, LSST, SKA, and WFIRST will be greatly enhanced if the resultant galaxy catalogues can be cross-correlated with one another. Predicting the nature of the information gain, and developing the tools to realise it, depends on establishing a consistent model of how the galaxies detected by each survey trace the same underlying matter distribution. Existing analytic methods, such as halo occupation distribution (HOD) modelling, are not well-suited for this task, and can suffer from ambiguities and tuning issues when applied to multiple tracers. In this paper, we take the first steps towards constructing an alternative that provides a common model for the connection between galaxies and dark matter halos across a wide range of wavelengths (and thus tracer populations). This is based on a chain of parametrised statistical distributions that model the connection between (a) halo mass and bulk physical properties of galaxies, such as star-formation rate; and (b) those same physical properties and a variety of emission processes. The result is a flexible parametric model that allows analytic halo model calculations of 1-point functions to be carried out for multiple tracers, as well as providing semi-realistic galaxy properties for fast mock catalogue generation.

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arXiv2017

Dipolar modulation in the size of galaxies: The effect of Doppler magnification

Objects falling into an overdensity appear larger on its near side and smaller on its far side than other objects at the same redshift. This produces a dipolar pattern of magnification, primarily as a consequence of the Doppler effect. At low redshift this Doppler magnification completely dominates the usual integrated gravitational lensing contribution to the lensing magnification. We show that one can optimally observe this pattern by extracting the dipole in the cross-correlation of number counts and galaxy sizes. This dipole allows us to almost completely remove the contribution from gravitational lensing up to redshift 0.5, and even at high redshift z~1 the dipole picks up the Doppler magnification predominantly. Doppler magnification should be easily detectable in current and upcoming optical and radio surveys; by forecasting for telescopes such as the SKA, we show that this technique is competitive with using peculiar velocities via redshift-space distortions to constrain dark energy. It produces similar yet complementary constraints on the cosmological model to those found using measurements of the cosmic shear.

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arXiv2017

Priors on the effective Dark Energy equation of state in scalar-tensor theories

Constraining the Dark Energy (DE) equation of state, w, is one of the primary science goals of ongoing and future cosmological surveys. In practice, with imperfect data and incomplete redshift coverage, this requires making assumptions about the evolution of w with redshift z. These assumptions can be manifested in a choice of a specific parametric form, which can potentially bias the outcome, or else one can reconstruct w(z) non-parametrically, by specifying a prior covariance matrix that correlates values of w at different redshifts. In this work, we derive the theoretical prior covariance for the effective DE equation of state predicted by general scalar-tensor theories with second order equations of motion (Horndeski theories). This is achieved by generating a large ensemble of possible scalar-tensor theories using a Monte Carlo methodology, including the application of physical viability conditions. We also separately consider the special sub-case of the minimally coupled scalar field, or quintessence. The prior shows a preference for tracking behaviors in the most general case. Given the covariance matrix, theoretical priors on parameters of any specific parametrization of w(z) can also be readily derived by projection.

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arXiv2016

Distinguishing screening mechanisms with environment-dependent velocity statistics

Alternative theories of gravity typically invoke an environment-dependent screening mechanism to allow phenomenologically interesting deviations from general relativity (GR) to manifest on larger scales, while reducing to GR on small scales. The observation of the transition from screened to unscreened behavior would be compelling evidence for beyond-GR physics. We show that pairwise peculiar velocity statistics, in particular the relative radial velocity dispersion, $σ_\parallel$ , can be used to observe this transition when they are binned by some measure of halo environment. We established this by measuring the radial velocity dispersion between pairs of halos in N-body simulations for three $f(R)$ gravity and four symmetron models. We developed an estimator involving only line-of-sight velocities to show that this quantity is observable, and binned the results in halo mass, ambient density, and the isolatedness of halos. Ambient density is found to be the most relevant measure of environment; it is distinct from isolatedness, and correlates well with theoretical expectations for the symmetron model. By binning $σ_\parallel$ in ambient density, we find a strong environment-dependent signature for the symmetron models, with the velocities showing a clear transition from GR to non-GR behavior. No such transition is observed for $f(R)$, as the relevant scales are deep in the unscreened regime. Observations of the relative radial velocity dispersion in forthcoming peculiar velocity surveys, if binned appropriately by environment, therefore offer a valuable way of detecting the screening signature of modified gravity.

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