arXiv subjects

Ruth Durrer

Publications and source records attributed to Ruth Durrer.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

The Hawking Energy in a Perturbed Friedmann-Lemaître Universe

Hawking's quasi-local energy definition quantifies the energy enclosed by a spacelike 2-sphere in terms of the amount of lightbending on the sphere caused by the energy distribution inside the sphere. This paper establishes for the first time a direct connection between the formal mathematical definition of a quasi-local energy and observations, in the context of cosmological perturbation theory. This is achieved by studying the Hawking Energy of spherical sections of the past lightcone of a cosmic observer in a perturbed Friedmann-Lemaître spacetime. We express the Hawking Energy in terms of gauge-invariant perturbation variables and comment on the cosmic observables needed to in principle measure it. We then calculate its angular power spectrum and interpret its contributions.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2023

Biased tracers as a probe of beyond-$Λ$CDM cosmologies

Cosmological models beyond $Λ$CDM, like those featuring massive neutrinos or modifications of gravity, often display a characteristic change (scale-dependent suppression or enhancement) in the matter power spectrum when compared to a $Λ$CDM baseline. It is therefore a widely held view that constraints on those models can be obtained by searching for such features in the clustering statistics of large-scale structure. However, when using biased tracers of matter in the analysis, the situation is complicated by the fact that the bias also depends on cosmology. Here we investigate how the selection of tracers affects the observed signatures for two examples of beyond-$Λ$CDM cosmologies: massive neutrinos and clustering dark energy ($k$-essence). We study the signatures in the monopole, quadrupole, and hexadecapole of the redshift-space power spectra for halo catalogues from large $N$-body simulations and argue that a fixed selection criterion based on local attributes like tracer mass leads to a near loss of signal in most cases. Instead, the full signal is recovered only if the selection of tracers is done at fixed bias. This emphasises the need to model or measure the bias parameters accurately in order to get meaningful constraints on the cosmological model.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Constraining the bispectrum from bouncing cosmologies with Planck

Bouncing models of cosmology, as they arise e.g. in loop quantum cosmology, can be followed by an inflationary phase and generate close-to-scale-invariant fluctuation spectra as observed in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). However, they are typically not Gaussian and also generate a bispectrum. These models can help to mitigate the large-scale anomalies of the CMB by considering substantial non-Gaussianities on very large scales, which decay exponentially on sub-horizon scales. It was therefore thought that this non-Gaussianity would not be visible in observations, which can only probe sub-horizon scales. In this letter we show that bouncing models with parameters such that they can significantly mitigate the large-scale anomalies of the CMB are excluded by the Planck data with high significance of, depending on the specific model, $5.4$, $6.4$ or $14$ standard deviations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Statistical effects of the observer's peculiar velocity on source number counts

The velocity of the Sun with respect to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be extracted from the CMB dipole, provided its intrinsic dipole is assumed to be small in comparison. This interpretation is consistent, within fairly large error bars, with the measurement of the correlations between neighboring CMB multipoles induced by the velocity of the observer, which effectively breaks isotropy. In contrast, the source number count dipole was reported to privilege a velocity of the observer with an amplitude which is about twice as large as the one extracted from the entirely kinematic interpretation of the CMB dipole, with error bars which indicate a more and more significant tension. In this work, we study the effect of the peculiar velocity of the observer on correlations of nearby multipoles in the source number counts. We provide an unbiased estimator for the kinetic dipole amplitude, which is proportional to the peculiar velocity of the observer and we compute the expected signal to noise ratio. Near future experiments can achieve better than 5$\%$ constraints on the velocity of the Sun with our estimator.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Catastrophic Dark Matter Capture

In this paper we describe a new idea which may be relevant to the formation of galaxies via the infall of baryonic matter (BM) and dark matter (DM) onto a pre-existing over density. Unlike BM, DM particles can fly through a static over density without being captured. We propose a simple model for DM capture: if during the passage through it, the mass of the over density increases, then slow DM particles are captured by it, further increasing its mass, while faster particles slow down, transferring part of their energy to the galaxy. We estimate the minimum initial velocity of a particle required for a passage without capture through the center of the galaxy and derive a nonlinear equation describing the rate of galaxy mass increase. An analysis carried out using the ideas of catastrophes theory shows that if the increase in the mass of baryonic matter exceeds a certain threshold value, this can lead to a very intensive capture of dark matter. We speculate that this process may be associated with the accretion of matter or with the merger of galaxies. Additionally, for the studied process to take place, the density of intergalactic DM must exceed some threshold value. Then the rate of increase in the mass of DM can be much higher than the one of baryonic matter. The capture sharply decreases after the DM density drops below the threshold value, e.g., due to the expansion of the Universe.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

Capture of dark matter particles by a galaxy in the case of a bimodal distribution of their velocities

We have analyzed the rate of capture of dark matter (DM) particles by the galaxy in the case of the existence of two different types of DM or a bimodal velocity distribution function for DM. It is shown that, in addition to the scenario considered in our previous work which is based on the assumption of an unimodal distribution, more complex scenarios are possible in which the transition to the state of intense capture and/or exit from it can occur in two stages. A detailed description is given of the change in the curve describing the rate of capture of dark matter particles as a function of the rate of increase in the baryon mass of the galaxy for various values of the rate of decrease of the DM density.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

The halo bias for number counts on the light cone from relativistic N-body simulations

We present the halo number counts and its two-point statistics, the observable angular power spectrum, extracted for the first time from relativistic N-body simulations. The halo catalogues used in this work are built from the relativistic N-body code gevolution, and the observed redshift and angular positions of the sources are computed using a non-perturbative ray-tracing method, which includes all relativistic scalar contributions to the number counts. We investigate the validity and limitations of the linear bias prescription to describe our simulated power spectra. In particular, we assess the consistency of different bias measurements on large scales, and we estimate up to which scales a linear bias is accurate in modelling the data, within the statistical errors. We then test a second-order perturbative bias expansion for the angular statistics, on a range of redshifts and scales previously unexplored in this context, that is $0.4 \le \bar{z} \le 2$ up to scales $\ell_\mathrm{max} \sim 1000$. We find that the angular power spectra at equal redshift can be modelled with high accuracy with a minimal extension of the number of bias parameters, that is using a two-parameter model comprising linear bias and tidal bias. We show that this model performs significantly better than a model without tidal bias but with quadratic bias as extra degree of freedom, and that the latter is inaccurate at $\bar{z} \ge 0.7$. Finally, we extract from our simulations the cross-correlation of halo number counts and lensing convergence. We show that the estimate of the linear bias from this cross-correlation is consistent with the measurements based on the clustering statistics alone, and that it is crucial to take into account the effect of magnification in the halo number counts to avoid systematic shifts in the computed bias.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Redshift weighted galaxy number counts

In this paper we introduce the `redshift fluctuation' as a gauge-invariant cosmological observable and give its fully relativistic expression at first order in cosmological perturbation theory. We show that this corresponds effectively to number counts with a radial window function with vanishing mean which therefore resolve smaller scale radial modes than standard number counts. In a detailed analysis of the angular power spectrum of this new variable, we study the relevance of different relativistic contributions, and how it differs from the conventional observable galaxy number count fluctuations. In order to investigate its utility for future spectroscopic surveys, we perform Fisher forecasts for a Euclid-like and an SKAII-like configuration, as examples. Particular focus is placed on the dependence of the results on the size of the redshift bins and on the cutoff in $\ell$ adopted in the analysis.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

The gauge invariant cosmological Jacobi map from weak lensing at leading order

We compute the weak lensing Jacobi map at first order in perturbation theory and show that it is both, gauge invariant and symmetric. Linear perturbations therefore do not induce any rotation. However, vector and tensor perturbations do induce $B$-modes in the shear. We show that contrary to what is often claimed in the literature, the shear $B$-mode power spectrum is not fully determined by the rotation power spectrum. Also the $E$-mode shear power spectrum is not determined by the convergence power spectrum. While this difference is small for scalar perturbations, it becomes very relevant for tensor perturbations, i.e. gravitational waves.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

A new observable for cosmic shear

In this paper we introduce a new observable to measure cosmic shear. We show that if we can measure with good accuracy both, the orientation of a galaxy and the polarisation direction of its radio emission, the angle between them is sensitive to the foreground cosmic shear. Even if the signal-to-noise ratio for a single measurement is expected to be rather small, the fact that all galaxies in a given pixel are subject to the same shear can be used to overcome the noise. An additional advantage of this observable is that the signal is not plagued by intrinsic alignment. We estimate the SNR for the shear correlation functions measured in this way with the future SKA II survey.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Testing General Relativity with Cosmological Large Scale Structure

In this paper I investigate the possibility to test Einstein's equations with observations of cosmological large scale structure. I first show that we have not tested the equations in observations concerning only the homogeneous and isotropic Universe. I then show with several examples how we can do better when considering the fluctuations of both, the energy momentum tensor and the metric. This is illustrated with galaxy number counts, intensity mapping and cosmic shear, three examples that are by no means exhaustive.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Small scale effects in the observable power spectrum at large angular scales

In this paper we show how effects from small scales can enter the angular-redshift power spectrum $C_\ell(z,z')$. In particular, we show that spectroscopic surveys with high redshift resolution are already affected on large angular scales, i.e. at low multipoles, by features from small scales. When considering the angular power spectrum with spectroscopic redshift resolution, it is therefore important to account for non-linearities relevant on small scales, even at low multipoles. This may also motivate the use of the correlation function in relatively wide redshift bins, which is not affected by non-linearities on large scales, instead of the angular power spectrum. The extent to which small-scale effects become visible on large scales, which is more relevant for bin auto-correlations than for cross-correlations, is quantified in detail.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

Generation of chiral asymmetry via helical magnetic fields

It is well known that helical magnetic fields undergo a so-called inverse cascade by which their correlation length grows due to the conservation of magnetic helicity in classical ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). At high energies above approximately $10$ MeV, however, classical MHD is necessarily extended to chiral MHD and then the conserved quantity is $\langle\mathcal{H}\rangle + 2 \langleμ_5\rangle / λ$ with $\langle\mathcal{H}\rangle$ being the mean magnetic helicity and $\langleμ_5\rangle$ being the mean chiral chemical potential of charged fermions. Here, $λ$ is a (phenomenological) chiral feedback parameter. In this paper, we study the evolution of the chiral MHD system with the initial condition of nonzero $\langle\mathcal{H}\rangle$ and vanishing $μ_5$. We present analytic derivations for the time evolution of $\langle\mathcal{H}\rangle$ and $\langleμ_5\rangle$ that we compare to a series of laminar and turbulent three-dimensional direct numerical simulations. We find that the late-time evolution of $\langle\mathcal{H}\rangle$ depends on the magnetic and kinetic Reynolds numbers ${\rm Re}_{_\mathrm{M}}$ and ${\rm Re}_{_\mathrm{K}}$. For a high ${\rm Re}_{_\mathrm{M}}$ and ${\rm Re}_{_\mathrm{K}}$ where turbulence occurs, $\langle\mathcal{H}\rangle$ eventually evolves in the same way as in classical ideal MHD where the inverse correlation length of the helical magnetic field scales with time $t$ as $k_\mathrm{p} \propto t^{-2/3}$. For a low Reynolds numbers where the velocity field is negligible, the scaling is changed to $k_\mathrm{p} \propto t^{-1/2}\mathrm{ln}\left(t/t_\mathrm{log}\right)$. After being rapidly generated, $\langleμ_5\rangle$ always decays together with $k_\mathrm{p}$, i.e. $\langleμ_5\rangle \approx k_\mathrm{p}$, with a time evolution that depends on whether the system is in the limit of low or high Reynolds numbers.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2022

An Estimator for the lensing potential from galaxy number counts

We derive an estimator for the lensing potential from galaxy number counts which contains a linear and a quadratic term. We show that this estimator has a much larger signal-to-noise ratio than the corresponding estimator from intensity mapping. We show that this is due to the additional lensing term in the number count angular power spectrum which is present already at linear order. We estimate the signal-to-noise ratio for future photometric surveys. We find that particularly at high redshifts, $z\gtrsim 1.5$, the signal to noise ratio can become of order 30. We therefore claim that number counts in photometric surveys are an excellent means to measure tomographic lensing spectra.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Cosmological Simulations of Number Counts

In this paper we present for the first time the angular power spectra $C_\ell(z,z')$ for number counts from relativistic N-body simulations. We use the relativistic N-body code gevolution with its exact integration of lightlike geodesics which include all relativistic scalar contributions to the number counts. We compare our non-perturbative numerical results with the results from CLASS using the HMCODE approximation for the non-linear matter power spectrum. We find that this simple description is excellent for both, the density and the convergence. On the other hand, the current implementation of redshift-space distortions in Boltzmann codes is not accurate. We also find that the largest contribution to the unequal-redshift power spectra is the cross-correlation of the density and the lensing contribution to the number counts, especially for redshift bins that are far apart. Correlating the number counts with the convergence map we find that the signal is dominated by the lensing-lensing term when the convergence field redshift is not higher than the number counts one, while it is dominated by the density-lensing term in the opposite case. In the present study, the issue of galaxy bias is deliberately left aside by considering only unbiased samples of matter particles from the simulations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

A new way to test the Cosmological Principle: measuring our peculiar velocity and the large scale anisotropy independently

We present a novel approach to disentangle two key contributions to the largest-scale anisotropy of the galaxy distribution: (i) the intrinsic dipole due to clustering and anisotropic geometry, and (ii) the kinematic dipole due to our peculiar velocity. Including the redshift and angular size of galaxies, in addition to their fluxes and positions allows us to measure both the direction and amplitude of our velocity independently of the intrinsic dipole of the source distribution. We find that this new approach applied to future galaxy surveys (LSST and Euclid) and a SKA radio continuum survey will allow to measure our velocity ($β= v/c$) with a relative error in the amplitude $σ(β)/β\sim (1.3 - 4.5)\%$ and in direction, $θ_β \sim 0.9^\circ - 3.9^\circ$, well beyond what can be achieved when analysing only the number count dipole. We also find that galaxy surveys are able to measure the intrinsic large-scale anisotropy with a relative uncertainty of $\lesssim 5\%$ (measurement error, not including cosmic variance). Our method enables two simultaneous tests of the Cosmological Principle: comparing the observations of our peculiar velocity with the CMB dipole, and testing for a significant intrinsic anisotropy on large scales which would indicate effects beyond the standard cosmological model.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

The CMB bispectrum from bouncing cosmologies

In this paper we compute the CMB bispectrum for bouncing models motivated by Loop Quantum Cosmology. Despite the fact that the primordial bispectrum of these models is decaying exponentially above a large pivot scale, we find that the cumulative signal-to-noise ratio of the bispectrum induced in the CMB from scales $\ell < 30$ is larger than $10$ in all cases of interest and therefore can, in principle, be detected in the Planck data.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2021

Image Rotation from weak Lensing

Forthcoming radio surveys will include full polarisation information, which can be potentially useful for weak lensing observations. We propose a new method to measure the (integrated) gravitational field between a source and the observer, by looking at the angle between the morphology of a radio galaxy and the orientation of the polarisation. For this we use the fact that, while the polarisation of a photon is parallel transported along the photon geodesic, the infinitesimal shape of the source, e.g. its principal axis in the case of an ellipse, is Lie transported. As an example, we calculate the rotation of the shape vector with respect to the polarisation direction which is generated by lensing by a distribution of foreground Schwarzschild lenses. For radio galaxies, the intrinsic morphological orientation of a source and its polarised emission are correlated. It follows that observing both the polarisation and the morphological orientation provides information on both the unlensed source orientation and on the gravitational potential along the line of sight.

astro-ph.GA↗