We investigate local variations of the primordial non-Gaussianity parameter f_NL in the WMAP data, looking for possible influence of foreground contamination in the full-sky estimate of f_NL. We first improve the needlet bispectrum estimate in (Rudjord et al. 2009) on the full-sky to f_NL= 73 +/- 31 using the KQ75 mask on the co-added V+W channel. We find no particular values of f_NL estimates close to the galactic plane and conclude that foregrounds are unlikely to affect the estimate of f_NL in the V and W bands even for the smaller KQ85 mask. In the Q band however, we find unexpectedly high values of f_NL in local estimates close to the galactic mask, as well as significant discrepancies between Q band estimates and V/W band estimates. We therefore conclude that the Q band is too contaminated to be used for non-Gaussianity studies even with the larger KQ75 mask. We further noted that the local f_NL estimates on the V+W channel are positive on all equatorial bands from the north to the south pole. The probability for this to happen in a universe with f_NL = 0 is less than one percent.
We use the $Δ_{χ^2}$ statistic introduced in \cite{gup08,gup10} to study directional dependence, in the high-z supernovae data. This dependence could arise due to departures from the cosmological principle or from direction dependent statistical systematics in the data. We apply our statistic to the gold data set from \cite{rie04} and \cite{rie07}, and Union2 catalogue from \cite{aman10}. Our results show that all the three data sets show a weak but consistent direction dependence. In 2007 data errors are Gaussian, however other two data sets show non-Gaussian features.
We study the effect of non-trivial sound speeds on local-type non-Gaussianity during multiple-field inflation. To this end, we consider a model of multiple-field DBI and use the deltaN formalism to track the super-horizon evolution of perturbations. By adopting a sum separable Hubble parameter we derive analytic expressions for the relevant quantities in the two-field case, valid beyond slow variation. We find that non-trivial sound speeds can, in principle, curve the trajectory in such a way that significant local-type non-Gaussianity is produced. Deviations from slow variation, such as rapid…
We use the full bispectrum of spherical needlets applied to the WMAP data of the cosmic microwave background as an estimator for the primordial non-Gaussianity parameter f_NL. We use needlet scales up to l_max=1000 and the KQ75 galactic cut and find f_NL=84 +/- 40 corrected for point source bias. We also introduce a set of consistency tests to validate our results against the possible influence of foreground residuals or systematic errors. In particular, fluctuations in the value of f_NL obtained from different frequency channels, different masks and different multipoles are tested against sim…
Recent observations suggest that there are violations of the isotropy of the universe at large scales, an important part of the cosmological principle. In this paper, we use the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data to search for spatial variations of the cosmological parameters in the $Λ\mathrm{CDM}$ model. We fit the Planck temperature angular power spectrum $\mathcal{C}^{TT}_\ell$ for 48 different half-skies, centering on 48 different directions, to search for directional dependences of the standard cosmological parameters. There are $3(2)σ$-level directional variations in $Ω_bh^2$, $Ω_ch^…
The statistical properties of the primordial perturbations contain clues about the origins of those fluctuations. Although the Planck collaboration has recently obtained tight constraints on primordial non-gaussianity from cosmic microwave background measurements, it is still worthwhile to mine upcoming data sets in effort to place independent or competitive limits. The ionized bubbles that formed at redshift z~6-20 during the Epoch of Reionization are seeded by primordial overdensities, and so the statistics of the ionization field at high redshift are related to the statistics of the primord…
We present the clustering of galaxy clusters as a useful addition to the common set of cosmological observables. The clustering of clusters probes the large-scale structure of the Universe, extending galaxy clustering analysis to the high-peak, high-bias regime. Clustering of galaxy clusters complements the traditional cluster number counts and observable-mass relation analyses, significantly improving their constraining power by breaking existing calibration degeneracies. We use the maxBCG galaxy clusters catalogue to constrain cosmological parameters and cross-calibrate the mass-observable r…
The recent WMAP data have confirmed that exotic dark matter together with the vacuum energy (cosmological constant) dominate in the flat Universe. Modern particle theories naturally provide viable cold dark matter candidates with masses in the GeV-TeV region. Supersymmetry provides the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), theories in extra dimensions supply the lightest Kaluza-Klein particle (LKP) etc. The nature of dark matter can only be unraveled only by its direct detection in the laboratory. All such candidates will be called WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). In any case th…
We present the first halo model based description of the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) non-Gaussianity (NG) that is fully parametric. To this end, we introduce, for the first time, a diagrammatic method to compute high order polyspectra of the 3D galaxy density field. It allows an easy derivation and visualisation of the different terms of the polyspectrum. We apply this framework to the power spectrum and bispectrum, and we show how to project them on the celestial sphere in the purpose of the application to the CIB angular anisotropies. Furthermore, we show how to take into account the pa…
Primordial non-Gaussianity introduces a scale-dependent variation in the clustering of density peaks corresponding to rare objects. This variation, parametrized by the bias, is investigated on scales where a linear perturbation theory is sufficiently accurate. The bias is obtained directly in real space by comparing the one- and two-point probability distributions of density fluctuations. We show that these distributions can be reconstructed using a bivariate Edgeworth series, presented here up to an arbitrarily high order. The Edgeworth formalism is shown to be well-suited for 'local' cubic-o…
We present some theoretical results relevant to the direct dark matter detection experiments, paying particular attention to directional experiments, i.e. experiments in which, not only the energy but the direction of the recoiling nucleus is observed. In directional experiments the detection rate depends on the angle between the line observation and the sun's direction of motion. Since, however, the direction of observation is fixed with respect the earth, while the Earth is rotating around its axis, in a directional experiment the angle between the direction of observation and the Sun's dire…
Direction sensitive direct detection of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) as dark matter would provide an unambiguous non-gravitational signature of dark matter (DM). The diurnal variation of DM signal due to earth's rotation around its own axis can be a significant signature for galactic WIMPs. Because of particular orientation of earth's axis of rotation with respect to WIMP wind direction, the apparent direction of WIMP wind as observed at a detector can alter widely over a day. In this work we calculate the directional detection rates with their daily and yearly modulations in e…
We perform a detailed analysis on a primordial gravitational-wave background amplified during a Kasner-like pre-inflationary phase allowing for general triaxial anisotropies. It is found that the predicted angular distribution map of gravitational-wave intensity on large scales exhibits topologically distinctive patterns according to the degree of the pre-inflationary anisotropy, thereby serving as a potential probe for the pre-inflationary early universe with future all-sky observations of gravitational waves. We also derive an observational limit on the amplitude of such anisotropic gravitat…
Primordial non-Gaussianity -- Fast simulations and persistent summary statistics
Universidad de Valparaíso（瓦尔帕莱索大学）；University of Nova Gorica（新戈里察大学）；Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati（国际高等研究院）；Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso（天主教瓦尔帕莱索大学）；University of Wisconsin-Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）
If the initial quantum state of the primordial perturbations broke rotational invariance, that would be seen as a statistical anisotropy in the angular correlations of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) temperature fluctuations. This can be described by a general parameterisation of the initial conditions that takes into account the possible direction-dependence of both the amplitude and the phase of particle creation during inflation. The leading effect in the CMBR two-point function is typically a quadrupole modulation, whose coefficient is analytically constrained here to be $…
We present the model-independent studies of non attractor inflation in the context of effective field theory (EFT) of inflation. Within the EFT approach two independent branches of non-attractor inflation solutions are discovered in which a near scale-invariant curvature perturbation power spectrum is generated from the interplay between the variation of sound speed and the second slow roll parameter η. The first branch captures and extends the previously studied models of non-attractor inflation in which the curvature perturbation is not frozen on super-horizon scales and the single field non…
The radiations from the first luminous sources drive the fluctuations in the 21-cm signal at Cosmic Dawn (CD) via two dominant astrophysical processes i.e. the Ly$α$ coupling and X-ray heating, making this signal highly non-Gaussian. The impact of these processes on the 21-cm signal and its non-Gaussianity vary depending on the properties of these first sources of light. In this work, we consider different CD scenarios by varying two major source parameters i.e. the minimum halo mass $M_{\rm h,\, min}$ and X-ray photon production efficiency $f_{\rm X}$ in a 1D radiative transfer code GRIZZLY. …
We investigate how the background evolution affects the curvature perturbations generated by the curvaton, assuming a curvaton potential that may deviate slightly from the quadratic one, and parameterizing the background fluid density as ρ\propto a^{-α}, where a is the scale factor, and αdepends on the background fluid. It turns out that the more there is deviation from the quadratic case, the more pronounced is the dependence of the curvature perturbation on α. We also show that the background can have a significant effect on the nonlinearity parameters f_NL and g_NL. As an example, if at the…
We develop an analysis pipeline for characterizing the topology of large scale structure and extracting cosmological constraints based on persistent homology. Persistent homology is a technique from topological data analysis that quantifies the multiscale topology of a data set, in our context unifying the contributions of clusters, filament loops, and cosmic voids to cosmological constraints. We describe how this method captures the imprint of primordial local non-Gaussianity on the late-time distribution of dark matter halos, using a set of N-body simulations as a proxy for real data analysi…
The Impact of Galaxy Formation on Galaxy Biasing, and Implications for Primordial non-Gaussianity Constraints
Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute（平顿研究所计算天体物理学中心）；Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University（普林斯顿大学天体物理科学系）；Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University（哥伦比亚大学哥伦比亚天体物理学实验室）；Steward Observatory, University of Arizona（亚利桑那大学斯图尔德天文台）
Ohio University（俄亥俄大学）；The Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）；University of Waterloo（滑铁卢大学）；Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics（圆周理论物理研究所）；University of North Carolina（北卡罗来纳大学）；University of Portsmouth（朴茨茅斯大学）
We investigate the large-scale clustering of the final spectroscopic sample of quasars from the recently completed extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). The sample contains $343708$ objects in the redshift range $0.8<z<2.2$ and $72667$ objects with redshifts $2.2<z<3.5$, covering an effective area of $4699~{\rm deg}^{2}$. We develop a neural network-based approach to mitigate spurious fluctuations in the density field caused by spatial variations in the quality of the imaging data used to select targets for follow-up spectroscopy. Simulations are used with the same angular …
