arXiv subjects

Simeon Bird

Publications and source records attributed to Simeon Bird.

135 records · Page 8Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Moving mesh cosmology: properties of neutral hydrogen in absorption

We examine the distribution of neutral hydrogen in cosmological simulations carried out with the new moving-mesh code AREPO and compare it with the corresponding GADGET simulations based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. The two codes use identical gravity solvers and baryonic physics implementations, but very different methods for solving the Euler equations, allowing us to assess how numerical effects associated with the hydro-solver impact the results of simulations. Here we focus on an analysis of the neutral gas, as detected in quasar absorption lines. We find that the high column density regime probed by Damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) and Lyman Limit Systems (LLS) exhibits significant differences between the codes. GADGET produces spurious artefacts in large halos in the form of gaseous clumps, boosting the LLS cross-section. Furthermore, it forms halos with denser central baryonic cores than AREPO, which leads to a substantially greater DLA cross-section from smaller halos. AREPO thus produces a significantly lower cumulative abundance of DLAs, which is intriguingly in much closer agreement with observations. The column density function, however, is not altered enough to significantly reduce the discrepancy with the observed value. For the low column density gas probed by the Lyman-alpha forest, the codes differ only at the level of a few percent, suggesting that this regime is quite well described by both methods, a fact that is reassuring for the many Lyman-alpha studies carried out with SPH thus far. While the residual differences are smaller than the errors on current Lyman-alpha forest data, we note that this will likely change for future precision experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

An efficient implementation of massive neutrinos in non-linear structure formation simulations

Massive neutrinos make up a fraction of the dark matter, but due to their large thermal velocities, cluster significantly less than cold dark matter (CDM) on small scales. An accurate theoretical modelling of their effect during the non-linear regime of structure formation is required in order to properly analyse current and upcoming high-precision large-scale structure data, and constrain the neutrino mass. Taking advantage of the fact that massive neutrinos remain linearly clustered up to late times, this paper treats the linear growth of neutrino overdensities in a non-linear CDM background. The evolution of the CDM component is obtained via N-body computations. The smooth neutrino component is evaluated from that background by solving the Boltzmann equation linearised with respect to the neutrino overdensity. CDM and neutrinos are simultaneously evolved in time, consistently accounting for their mutual gravitational influence. This method avoids the issue of shot-noise inherent to particle-based neutrino simulations, and, in contrast with standard Fourier-space methods, properly accounts for the non-linear potential wells in which the neutrinos evolve. Inside the most massive late-time clusters, where the escape velocity is larger than the neutrino thermal velocity, neutrinos can clump non-linearly, causing the method to formally break down. It is shown that this does not affect the total matter power spectrum, which can be very accurately computed on all relevant scales up to the present time.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Neutrino masses and cosmological parameters from a Euclid-like survey: Markov Chain Monte Carlo forecasts including theoretical errors

We present forecasts for the accuracy of determining the parameters of a minimal cosmological model and the total neutrino mass based on combined mock data for a future Euclid-like galaxy survey and Planck. We consider two different galaxy surveys: a spectroscopic redshift survey and a cosmic shear survey. We make use of the Monte Carlo Markov Chains (MCMC) technique and assume two sets of theoretical errors. The first error is meant to account for uncertainties in the modelling of the effect of neutrinos on the non-linear galaxy power spectrum and we assume this error to be fully correlated in Fourier space. The second error is meant to parametrize the overall residual uncertainties in modelling the non-linear galaxy power spectrum at small scales, and is conservatively assumed to be uncorrelated and to increase with the ratio of a given scale to the scale of non-linearity. It hence increases with wavenumber and decreases with redshift. With these two assumptions for the errors and assuming further conservatively that the uncorrelated error rises above 2% at k = 0.4 h/Mpc and z = 0.5, we find that a future Euclid-like cosmic shear/galaxy survey achieves a 1-sigma error on Mnu close to 32 meV/25 meV, sufficient for detecting the total neutrino mass with good significance. If the residual uncorrelated errors indeed rises rapidly towards smaller scales in the non-linear regime as we have assumed here then the data on non-linear scales does not increase the sensitivity to the total neutrino mass. Assuming instead a ten times smaller theoretical error with the same scale dependence, the error on the total neutrino mass decreases moderately from sigma(Mnu) = 18 meV to 14 meV when mildly non-linear scales with 0.1 h/Mpc < k < 0.6 h/Mpc are included in the analysis of the galaxy survey data.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Constraints on Massive Neutrinos from the CFHTLS Angular Power Spectrum

We use the galaxy angular power spectrum at $z\sim0.5-1.2$ from the Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope Legacy Survey Wide fields (CFHTLS-Wide) to constrain separately the total neutrino mass $\sum{m_ν}$ and the effective number of neutrino species $N_{\rm{eff}}$. This survey has recently benefited from an accurate calibration of the redshift distribution, allowing new measurements of the (non-linear) matter power spectrum in a unique range of scales and redshifts sensitive to neutrino free streaming. Our analysis makes use of a recent model for the effect of neutrinos on the weakly non-linear matter power spectrum derived from accurate N-body simulations. We show that CFHTLS, combined with WMAP7 and a prior on the Hubble constant provides an upper limit of $\sum{m_ν}<0.29\,$eV and $N_{\rm{eff}} =4.17^{+1.62}_{-1.26}$ (2$\,σ$ confidence levels). If we omit smaller scales which may be affected by non-linearities, these constraints become $\sum{m_ν}<0.41\,$eV and $N_{\rm{eff}} =3.98^{+2.02}_{-1.20}$ (2$\,σ$ confidence levels). Finally we show that the addition of other large scale structures probes can further improve these constraints, demonstrating that high redshift large volumes surveys such as CFHTLS are complementary to other cosmological probes of the neutrino mass.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

Minimally Parametric Power Spectrum Reconstruction from the Lyman-alpha Forest

Current results from the Lyman alpha forest assume that the primordial power spectrum of density perturbations follows a simple power law form, with running. We present the first analysis of Lyman alpha data to study the effect of relaxing this strong assumption on primordial and astrophysical constraints. We perform a large suite of numerical simulations, using them to calibrate a minimally parametric framework for describing the power spectrum. Combined with cross-validation, a statistical technique which prevents over-fitting of the data, this framework allows us to reconstruct the power spectrum shape without strong prior assumptions. We find no evidence for deviation from scale-invariance; our analysis also shows that current Lyman alpha data do not have sufficient statistical power to robustly probe the shape of the power spectrum at these scales. In contrast, the ongoing Baryon Oscillation Sky Survey (BOSS) will be able to do so with high precision. Furthermore, this near-future data will be able to break degeneracies between the power spectrum shape and astrophysical parameters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Minimally Parametric Constraints on the Primordial Power Spectrum from Lyman-alpha

Current analyses of the Lyman-alpha forest assume that the primordial power spectrum of density perturbations obeys a simple power law, a strong theoretical assumption which should be tested. Employing a large suite of numerical simulations which drop this assumption, we reconstruct the shape of the primordial power spectrum using Lyman-alpha data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Our method combines a minimally parametric framework with cross-validation, a technique used to avoid over-fitting the data. Future work will involve predictions for the upcoming Baryon Oscillation Sky Survey (BOSS), which will provide new Lyman-alpha data with vastly decreased statistical errors.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Brane Inflation and the Overshoot Problem

We investigate recent claims that brane inflation solves the overshoot problem through a combination of microphysical restrictions on the phase space of initial conditions and the existence of the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) attractor in regimes where the slow-roll attractor does not apply. Carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the parameter space allowed by the latest advances in brane inflation model-building, we find that these restrictions are insufficient to solve the overshoot problem. The vast majority of the phase space of initial conditions is still dominated by overshoot trajectories. We present an analytic proof that the brane-inflationary attractor must be close to the slow-roll limit, and update the predictions for observables such as non-Gaussianity, cosmic string tension and tensor modes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

CMBPol Mission Concept Study: Probing Inflation with CMB Polarization

We summarize the utility of precise cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements as probes of the physics of inflation. We focus on the prospects for using CMB measurements to differentiate various inflationary mechanisms. In particular, a detection of primordial B-mode polarization would demonstrate that inflation occurred at a very high energy scale, and that the inflaton traversed a super-Planckian distance in field space. We explain how such a detection or constraint would illuminate aspects of physics at the Planck scale. Moreover, CMB measurements can constrain the scale-dependence and non-Gaussianity of the primordial fluctuations and limit the possibility of a significant isocurvature contribution. Each such limit provides crucial information on the underlying inflationary dynamics. Finally, we quantify these considerations by presenting forecasts for the sensitivities of a future satellite experiment to the inflationary parameters.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Fine-tuning criteria for inflation and the search for primordial gravitational waves

We revisit arguments that simple models of inflation with a small red tilt in the scalar power spectrum generically yield an observable tensor spectrum. We show that criteria for fine-tuning based upon the algebraic simplicity of the potential depend strongly upon the explicit assumptions they incorporate, particularly regarding the end of inflation. In addition, some models with algebraically simple potentials require carefully tuned initial field configurations, and not all types of fine-tuning are identifiable via the algebraic simplicity of the potential. Conversely, in the absence of a strong prior on the mechanism that ends inflation, we demonstrate the existence of potentials with vanishingly small tensor amplitudes which are natural in terms of both their algebraic form and initial conditions. We thus argue that proposed experiments (CMBPol or BBO) which make highly sensitive measurements of the tensor amplitude cannot definitively rule out the inflationary paradigm.

astro-ph↗