arXiv subjects

Roy Maartens

Publications and source records attributed to Roy Maartens.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Overview: Cosmology with the SKAO

The SKA telescopes will revolutionise our ability to do cosmology at radio wavelengths, via both their own data and in synergy with other wavelengths. SKAO will be the first instrument able to conduct large-scale cosmological surveys as done in the last decades in the optical and near-infrared. This complementarity will be vital as cosmology hits the limit of systematic uncertainties. Radio cosmology surveys will have radically different systematics, allowing data combinations across surveys to calibrate systematics and increase overall constraining power. Neutral hydrogen (HI) intensity mapping surveys are now reaching maturity, as demonstrated by the progress made by the MeerKLASS survey with MeerKAT. Along with continuum galaxy surveys, they will provide detailed maps of the Universe covering large fractions of the sky, allowing us to answer questions about fundamental physics which can only be measured on the largest scales. In combination with weak lensing and HI galaxy probes, HI intensity maps will also measure the distributions of matter and velocities to give precisions tests of the $Λ$CDM model, including its foundational assumptions of isotropy and homogeneity. In combination with gravitational wave observations and fast radio bursts, they will also help us measure the expansion history and baryon content of the Universe. Here we provide an overview of the achievements of precursor surveys and the progress towards SKA cosmology, starting with AA* and reaching full maturity with AA4 telescopes.

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arXiv2026

Beyond ΛCDM with the SKA Observatory -- II: Unveiling the Secrets of the Early Universe

The origins of the universe remain one of the biggest mysteries in modern cosmology. While the Planck satellite has provided a wealth of information about the early universe, there is still much to be discovered. The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) offers a unique opportunity to probe the universe's infancy, going beyond the current limitations of our knowledge. By measuring the power spectrum of biased tracers of the dark matter distribution on the largest cosmological scales and exploring beyond 2-point statistics, SKAO will enable us to refine our understanding of the primordial universe, including the shape of the inflationary power spectrum and the presence of primordial non-Gaussianity. In this chapter we will review recent works looking at the potential of SKAO's surveys, and how synergies with other surveys can revolutionize our understanding of the origins of the cosmos.

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arXiv2026

Cosmology with Intensity Mapping via Statistics Beyond the Power Spectrum in the SKAO Era

The cosmological distribution of neutral hydrogen (HI) during the post-reionization era is highly non-Gaussian due to the underlying non-linear structure formation, complex galaxy biasing, and potential primordial non-Gaussianity. One needs higher-order (beyond two-point) statistics to maximally extract the non-Gaussian information out of the 21-cm intensity maps. This chapter summarizes the potential of several higher-order statistics, including voxel intensity distribution, emission line stacking, probability density functions, $\ell_1$-norm, bispectrum, and various marked statistics. Additionally, image-based morphological descriptors, such as the Largest Cluster Statistic, local dimensions, and Minkowski functionals, etc., can potentially characterize the morphology and geometry of the cosmic web encoded in the 21-cm intensity maps. This chapter presents forecasts of the detectability of these higher-order statistics in the context of the future SKAO observations. These forecasts incorporate instrumental noise, observational effects, and, in some cases, foreground removal in their analyses. With its unprecedented sensitivity, the future SKAO 21-cm observations will enable us to measure these higher-order statistics more precisely, possibly helping to break degeneracies between astrophysical and cosmological parameters, and maximizing the science outcome from these surveys.

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arXiv2026

Searching for primordial features with radio surveys: synergy between the power spectrum and bispectrum

We present a comprehensive forecasting framework to assess the detection of primordial oscillatory features by exploiting the synergy between future neutral hydrogen (HI) intensity mapping (IM) surveys and cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements. Focusing on next-generation single-dish (SKAO) and interferometric (HIRAX) radio configurations, we perform a joint analysis of the redshift-space power spectrum and bispectrum, consistently incorporating scale-dependent bias, redshift-space distortions, and non-Gaussian covariance. We investigate phenomenological templates with linear and logarithmic primordial oscillations, together with a physically motivated sharp-feature model. We find that including the large-scale structure bispectrum improves marginalised constraints on feature amplitudes by $30$--$40\%$ relative to the power spectrum alone and helps break parameter degeneracies. In several cases, the bispectrum contains more information on the power-spectrum feature parameters than the power spectrum itself. Much of this gain arises from the late-time gravitational contribution, which inherits the oscillatory structure of the primordial feature signal and acts as an independent source of information. While the CMB angular power spectrum is crucial for constraining low oscillation frequencies, joint interferometric IM analyses ($P+B$) outperform CMB amplitude constraints by up to $75\%$ in the linear regime. We also show that, despite non-Gaussian covariance degrading the independent constraining power of the bispectrum by $55$--$90\%$, the combined HI+CMB probe achieves percent-level precision on the frequency of primordial features, providing a powerful test of non-slow-roll inflation.

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arXiv2026

Unbiased analysis of primordial non-Gaussianity: the multipoles of the full relativistic power spectrum

A major goal of ongoing and future cosmological surveys of the large-scale structure is to measure local type primordial non-Gaussianity in the galaxy power spectrum through the scale-dependent bias. General relativistic effects have been shown to be degenerate with this measurement, therefore requiring a non-Newtonian approach. In this work, we develop a consistent framework to compute integrated effects, including lensing convergence, time delay, and integrated Sachs--Wolfe, along with the local relativistic projection and wide-separation corrections in the multipoles of the power spectrum. We show that, for a \textit{Euclid}-like H$α$-line galaxy survey and a MegaMapper-like Lyman-break galaxy survey, ignoring these effects leads to a bias on the best fit measurement of the amplitude of primordial non-Gaussianity, $f_{\rm NL}$, of around $ 3\,σ$ and $ 20 \, σ$ respectively. When we include these corrections, the uncertainty in our knowledge of the luminosity function leads to further uncertainty in our measurement of $f_{\rm NL}$. In this work, we show that this degeneracy can be partly mitigated by using a bright-faint multi-tracer analysis, where the observed galaxy sample is subdivided into two separate populations based on luminosity, which provides a $15$--$20\%$ improvement on the forecasted constraints of local type $f_{\rm NL}$. In addition, we present a novel calculation of the full multi-tracer covariance with the inclusion of wide-separation corrections~-- all of these results are implemented in the \textit{Python} code \textsc{CosmoWAP}.

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arXiv2026

Impact of lensing magnification on the power spectrum turnover

The turnover scale $k_0$ of the matter power spectrum -- and consequently of the standard galaxy power spectrum monopole -- encodes a fundamental signature of matter-radiation equality and constitutes an important standard ruler independent of baryon acoustic oscillations. In principle, we can detect the turnover at multiple redshifts and amplify the signal by stacking redshift bins. However, in spectroscopic surveys reaching high redshifts, such as the Euclid H$α$ survey and the proposed MegaMapper Lyman-break galaxy survey, the monopole of the observed galaxy power spectrum receives a scale-dependent correction from lensing magnification. This can modify the signal shape and shift the turnover scale, undermining its use as a standard ruler. Using mock surveys similar to Euclid and MegaMapper, we forecast this shift and the consequent bias in the turnover scale that is recovered from the mock data. The shift in the turnover scale grows with redshift, leading to a maximum bias of $\sim 0.4σ$ (Euclid-like) and $\sim 3.6σ$ (MegaMapper-like). To avoid a bias $>1σ$, the maximum redshift for a MegaMapper-like survey is $z\approx 2.9$. Data in the remaining range $2.9\lesssim z\le 5$ does not directly provide a reliable recovery of the intrinsic turnover. In fact, we find that the turnover vanishes in a MegaMapper-like survey for $z\gtrsim 3.7$. Our results show that the lensing correction to the monopole should be included and carefully modelled when surveys are used to measure the cosmological turnover at high redshifts.

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arXiv2026

No evidence for phantom crossing: local goodness-of-fit improvements do not persist under global Bayesian model comparison

Recent cosmological data have been interpreted as indicating deviations from $Λ$CDM within the standard $w_0w_a$ parametrization, including hints of phantom crossing and dynamical dark energy. However, such inferences can be parametrization-dependent and need not imply a statistically robust detection. We test these claims by comparing $Λ$CDM, $w_0w_a$, and thawing quintessence models, using the Deviance Information Criterion (DIC) and the Bayesian evidence $\ln \mathcal{Z}$. We find that $w_0w_a$ can provide a slightly improved local fit; however, this improvement is confined to a limited region of the parameter space. The global Bayesian evidence does not support it once the full prior volume is accounted for. In particular, cases with $Δ{\rm DIC}<0$ but $Δ\ln \mathcal{Z}<0$ indicate that these improvements are not statistically significant. We show that all models are statistically indistinguishable, and that there is no statistically consistent evidence across different datasets for either dynamical dark energy or phantom crossing.

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arXiv2026

Cosmological peculiar velocities in general relativity

We reconsider the late-time evolution of galaxy peculiar velocities in the 1+3 covariant approach to cosmological perturbation theory. It has recently been claimed that this approach predicts substantially stronger growth of peculiar velocities than standard metric-based perturbation theory -- on the grounds that the covariant treatment is fully relativistic whereas standard treatments are effectively Newtonian. We show that this is not the case. When the covariant equations are applied consistently, the $1+3$ approach reproduces exactly the standard perturbative result for peculiar-velocity growth. The stronger growth laws claimed in recent work arise from an inconsistent treatment of the coupled covariant system, in which terms constrained by the field equations are treated as if they were independent sources. Further claims are made that the stronger bulk flows can mimic accelerated expansion in a dust universe. We argue that these claims rest on a confusion between the kinematics of an arbitrarily chosen observer congruence and the physical expansion of the matter congruence traced by galaxies. We conclude that the standard treatment of peculiar velocities is correct and fully relativistic~-- and does not lead to anomalous bulk flows or to apparent accelerated expansion.

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arXiv2026

Calibration-independent consistency test of BAO and SNIa data: update

In a recent paper, arXiv:2509.19899, we presented a new method to test the consistency between uncalibrated BAO and SNIa data through a common parameter, the Alcock-Paczynski variable. Using Gaussian Processes, we can determine if various datasets are consistent, independently of dark energy or modified gravity models, and of the sound horizon and SNIa peak magnitude. We found that the DES-Y5 SNIa data showed non-negligible tension with other datasets. However, the recent update DES-Dovekie removes this tension. We find that all uncalibrated data from DESI DR2 BAO and three SNIa datasets, Union3, Pantheon+, and DES-Dovekie, are consistent with each other within $\sim 1σ$.

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arXiv2026

The anisotropic expansion rate of the local Universe and its covariant cosmographic interpretation

Without making any assumption on the underlying geometry and metric of the local Universe, we provide a measurement of the expansion rate fluctuation field using the Cosmicflows-4 and Pantheon+ samples in the redshift range $0.01 < z < 0.1$ ($30 \,h^{-1}\,\mathrm{Mpc} < R < 300\,h^{-1}\,\mathrm{Mpc}$). The amplitude of the anisotropic fluctuations is found to be of order a few percent relative to the monopole of the expansion rate. We further decompose the expansion rate fluctuation field into spherical harmonic components and analyze their evolution with redshift across the studied redshift range. At low redshift, the dipole is clearly dominant, with an amplitude of $\sim (2.2 \pm 0.15)\times 10^{-2}$, significantly larger than the higher--order modes. As redshift increases, the dipole amplitude steadily decreases, reaching roughly half its value in the highest redshift bin investigated. The quadrupole is also significant, at about half the dipole amplitude, and persists across all redshift bins, with no clear decreasing trend, although uncertainties grow at higher redshift. A nonzero octupole is also detected at low redshift. The dipole, quadrupole, and octupole components are found to be aligned, exhibiting axial symmetry around a common axis ($l = 295^\circ,\, b = 5^\circ$). We interpret the observed fluctuations in the expansion rate within the framework of covariant cosmography. Our results indicate that the multipoles of the expansion rate fluctuation field are primarily driven by a strong quadrupole in the covariant Hubble parameter, together with dipole and octupole contributions from the covariant deceleration parameter. These few parameters suffice to reconstruct the luminosity distance with high precision out to $z \sim 0.1$, in a manner that is model--independent, non--perturbative, and free from assumptions about peculiar velocities.

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arXiv2026

Covariant cosmography in the presence of local structures: comparing exact solutions and perturbation theory

Recent observational evidence of axially symmetric anisotropies in the local cosmic expansion rate motivates an investigation of whether they can be accounted for within the Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) framework with an off-center observer. Within this setting, we compute the exact relativistic luminosity distance via the Sachs equation and compare it with the approximate expression obtained from the covariant cosmographic approach (including Hubble, deceleration, jerk and curvature parameters). This comparison allows us to identify the regimes in which the covariant cosmographic method remains reliable. In addition, we compare the LTB relativistic distance for small inhomogeneities with the corresponding result derived from linear perturbation theory (LPT) in the standard cosmological model. This analysis establishes a precise correspondence between the LTB and LPT approaches, offering a consistent dictionary for the interpretation of the observed anisotropies of the large-scale gravitational field. This analysis will be instrumental in interpreting expansion-rate anisotropies, facilitating investigations of the local Universe beyond the FLRW framework with a fully non-perturbative metric approach.

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arXiv2026

Halving and Doubling: Boosting the Detection of Relativistic Effects in the Galaxy Bispectrum with Optimal Subsample Selection

On the scale of the cosmic horizon, signatures that are unique to general relativity are concealed within the statistics of the large scale distribution of galaxies. These were thought to be beyond the reach of all but the most ambitious galaxy surveys, as they are substantially suppressed relative to standard redshift-space distortions. We show that the detectability of these higher-order relativistic effects can be dramatically enhanced by a sampling strategy that splits a galaxy catalogue into faint and bright subsamples and then combines their auto-bispectra. For current surveys such as DESI, this implies that this new signal will be detectable for the first time using our new strategy.

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arXiv2026

Turnover detection using the power spectrum and bispectrum

The turnover at the peak of the Fourier matter power spectrum encodes a fundamental signature of matter-radiation equality in the early Universe. This delivers a potential standard ruler, independent of baryon acoustic oscillations and therefore able to break parameter degeneracies and improve precision. Furthermore, the turnover scale is independent of redshift and clustering bias, allowing for stacking of the signals from redshift bins. In practice, the very large scale of the turnover means that sample variance and systematics are serious impediments to its detection. Detections of the turnover and measurements of its scale have been made in the WiggleZ, eBOSS, Quaia, and DESI surveys. Upcoming surveys should improve the detection significance and reduce errors on the turnover scale. We use MCMC forecasts for turnover detection in a spectroscopic Euclid-like survey and a futuristic MegaMapper-like survey. In addition to the power spectrum, we include the signal from the bispectrum in equilateral configurations. These surveys are forecast to detect the turnover at $\sim\! 6σ$ (Euclid-like) and $\sim\! 15σ$ (MegaMapper-like), with precision on the turnover scale of $\sim\! 4\%$ and $\sim\! 2\%$. The inclusion of the bispectrum delivers a modest improvement of $\sim\! 10-17\%$ in the constraints on the turnover scale.

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arXiv2026

Phantom crossing or dark interaction?

Recent results from DESI BAO measurements, together with Planck CMB and Pantheon+ data, suggest that there may be a `phantom' phase ($w_{\rm de}<-1$) in the expansion of the Universe. This inference follows when the $w_0, w_a$ parametrization for the dark energy equation of state $w_{\rm de}$ is used to fit the data. Since phantom dark energy in general relativity is unphysical, we investigate the possibility that the phantom behaviour is not intrinsic, but effective -- due to a non-gravitational interaction between dark matter and non-phantom dark energy. To this end, we assume a physically motivated thawing quintessence-like form of the intrinsic dark energy equation of state $w_{\rm de}$. Then we use a $w_0, w_a$ model for the \emph{effective} equation of state of dark energy. We find that the data favours a phantom crossing for the effective dark energy, but only at low significance. The intrinsic equation of state of dark energy is non-phantom, without imposing any non-phantom priors. A nonzero interaction is favoured at more than $3σ$ at $z\sim0.3$. The energy flows from dark matter to dark energy at early times and reverses at later times.

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arXiv2025

Probing the Cosmological Principle with CMB lensing and cosmic shear

The standard cosmological model assumes the Cosmological Principle. However, recent observations hint at possible violations of isotropy on large scales, possibly through late-time anisotropic expansion. Here we investigate the potential of cross-correlations between CMB lensing convergence $κ$ and galaxy cosmic shear $B$-modes as a novel probe of such late-time anisotropies. Our signal-to-noise forecasts reveal that information from the $κ$-$B$ cross-correlation is primarily contained on large angular scales ($\ell \lesssim 200$). We find that this cross-correlation for a Euclid-like galaxy survey is sensitive to anisotropy at the percent level. Making use of tomography yields a modest improvement of $\sim 20\%$ in detection power. Incorporating the galaxy $E$-$B$ cross-correlations would further enhance these constraints.

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arXiv2025

Calibration-independent consistency test of DESI DR2 BAO and SNIa

We investigate the consistency between DESI DR2 BAO and three SNIa datasets, Pantheon+, Union3, and DES-Y5. Our consistency test is {calibration}-independent since it is independent of cosmological nuisance parameters such as the absolute peak magnitude $M_B$ and the comoving sound horizon at the baryon drag epoch $r_d$. Importantly, the test is also model-agnostic, independent of any model of dark energy or modified gravity. We define a tension parameter to quantify tension across different datasets compared to DESI DR2 BAO. The Pantheon+ and Union3 data have tension $\lesssim\! 1σ$ across their redshift ranges, whereas the DES-Y5 tension is $\gtrsim3σ$ near $z=1$. This hints that DES-Y5 data has significant offset values for redshifts close to 1, compared to the other SNIa datasets. Since this consistency test is independent of cosmological nuisance parameters, the tension is minimal: other consistency tests involving differences in nuisance parameters may show greater tension.

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arXiv2025

Multi-tracing the primordial Universe with future surveys

The fluctuations generated by Inflation are nearly Gaussian in the simplest models, but may be non-Gaussian in more complex models, potentially leading to signatures in the late Universe. In particular, local type primordial non-Gaussianity induces scale-dependent bias in tracers of the matter distribution. This non-Gaussian imprint in the tracer power spectrum survives at late times on ultra-large scales where nonlinearity is negligible. In order to combat the problem of growing cosmic variance on these scales, we use a multi-tracer analysis that combines different tracers to maximise any primordial signal. Previous work has investigated the combination of a spectroscopic galaxy survey with a 21cm intensity mapping survey in single-dish mode. We extend this work by considering instead the case where the 21cm intensity mapping survey is optimised for interferometer mode. As examples, we use two multi-tracer pairs of surveys: one at high redshift ($1 \le z \le 2$) and one at very high redshift ($2 \le z \le 5$). The 21cm surveys are idealised surveys based on HIRAX and PUMA. We implement foreground-avoidance filters and use detailed models of the interferometer thermal noise. The galaxy surveys are idealised surveys based on Euclid and MegaMapper. Via a simple Fisher forecast, we illustrate the potential of the multi-tracer. Our results show a $\sim 20 - 30\%$ improvement in precision on local primordial non-Gaussianity from the multi-tracer. Furthermore, we investigate the effects on constraints of varying the parameter of non-Gaussian galaxy assembly bias and of varying the parameters of the intensity mapping foreground filters. We find that the non-Gaussian galaxy assembly bias parameter causes a greater change in the constraints on local primordial non-Gaussianity than the foreground filter parameters.

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arXiv2025

Decoupling Local Primordial non-Gaussianity from Relativistic Effects in the Galaxy Bispectrum

Upcoming galaxy surveys aim to map the Universe with unprecedented precision, depth and sky coverage. The galaxy bispectrum is a prime source of information as it allows us to probe primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG), a key factor in differentiating various models of inflation. On the scales where local PNG is strongest, Doppler and other relativistic effects become important and need to be included. We investigate the detectability of relativistic and local PNG contributions in the galaxy bispectrum. We compute the signal-to-noise ratio for the detection of the bispectrum including such effects. Furthermore, we perform information matrix forecasts on the local PNG parameter $f_{\rm NL}$ and on the parametrised amplitudes of the relativistic corrections. Finally, we quantify the bias on the measurement of $f_{\rm NL}$ that arises from neglecting relativistic effects. Our results show that detections of both first- and second-order relativistic effects are promising with forthcoming spectroscopic survey specifications -- and are largely unaffected by the uncertainty in $f_{\rm NL}$. Conversely, we show for the first time that neglecting relativistic corrections in the galaxy bispectrum can lead to $>\!1.5σ(f_{\rm NL})$ shift on the detected value of $f_{\rm NL}$, highlighting the importance of including relativistic effects in our modelling.

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