We investigate the use of the cross-correlation between galaxies and galaxy groups to measure redshift-space distortions (RSD) and thus probe the growth rate of cosmological structure. This is compared to the classical approach based on using galaxy auto-correlation. We make use of realistic simulated galaxy catalogues that have been constructed by populating simulated dark matter haloes with galaxies through halo occupation prescriptions. We adapt the classical RSD dispersion model to the case of the group-galaxy cross-correlation function and estimate the RSD parameter $β$ by fitting both the full anisotropic correlation function $ξ(r_p,π)$ and its multipole moments. In addition, we define a modified version of the latter statistics by truncating the multipole moments to exclude strongly non-linear distortions at small transverse scales. We fit these three observable quantities in our set of simulated galaxy catalogues and estimate statistical and systematic errors on $β$ for the case of galaxy-galaxy, group-group, and group-galaxy correlation functions. When ignoring off-diagonal elements of the covariance matrix in the fitting, the truncated multipole moments of the group-galaxy cross-correlation function provide the most accurate estimate, with systematic errors below 3% when fitting transverse scales larger than $10Mpc/h$. Including the full data covariance enlarges statistical errors but keep unchanged the level of systematic error. Although statistical errors are generally larger for groups, the use of group-galaxy cross-correlation can potentially allow the reduction of systematics while using simple linear or dispersion models.
Many experiments in the near future will test dark energy through its effects on the linear growth of matter perturbations. In this paper we discuss the constraints that future large-scale redshift surveys can put on three different parameterizations of the linear growth factor and how these constraints will help ruling out different classes of dark energy and modified gravity models. We show that a scale-independent bias can be estimated to a few percent per redshift slice by combining redshift distortions with power spectrum amplitude, without the need of an external estimation. We find that…
Redshift space distortions caused by galaxy peculiar velocities provide a window onto the growth rate of large scale structure and a method for testing general relativity. We investigate through a comparison of N-body simulations to various extensions of perturbation theory beyond the linear regime, the robustness of cosmological parameter extraction, including the gravitational growth index, γ. We find that the Kaiser formula and some perturbation theory approaches bias the growth rate by 1-sigma or more relative to the fiducial at scales as large as k > 0.07 h/Mpc. This bias propagates to es…
Ongoing and future redshift surveys have the capability to measure the growth rate of large scale structure at the percent level over a broad range of redshifts, tightly constraining cosmological parameters. Beyond general relativity, however, the growth rate in the linear density perturbation regime can be not only redshift dependent but scale dependent, revealing important clues to modified gravity. We demonstrate that a fully model independent approach of binning the gravitational strength $G_{\rm eff}(k,z)$ matches scalar-tensor results for the growth rate $fσ_8(k,z)$ to $0.02\%$-$0.27\%$ …
The dispersion measure (DM) of high-redshift $(z \gtrsim 6)$ transient objects such as Fast Radio Bursts can be a powerful tool to probe the intergalactic medium during the Epoch of Reionization. In this paper, we study the variance of the DMs of objects with the same redshift as a potential probe of the size distribution of ionized bubbles. We calculate the DM variance with a simple model with randomly-distributed spherical bubbles. It is found that the DM variance reflects the characteristics of the probability distribution of the bubble size. We find the variance can be measured precisely e…
We measure the growth rate and its evolution using the anisotropic clustering of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) Data Release 14 (DR14) quasar sample, which includes $148\,659$ quasars covering the wide redshift range of $0.8 < z < 2.2$ and a sky area of $2112.90$ $\rm deg^2$. To optimise measurements we deploy a redshift-dependent weighting scheme, which allows us to avoid binning, and perform the data analysis consistently including the redshift evolution across the sample. We perform the analysis in Fourier space, and use the redshift evolving power spectrum mul…
Peculiar velocities are an important probe of the growth rate of mass density fluctuations in the Universe. Most previous studies have focussed exclusively on measuring peculiar velocities at intermediate ($0.2 < z < 1$) redshifts using statistical redshift-space distortions. Here we emphasize the power of peculiar velocities obtained directly from distance measurements at low redshift ($z \lesssim 0.05$), and show that these data break the usual degeneracies in the Ω_{m,0} -- $σ_{8,0}$ parameter space. Using only peculiar velocity data, we find $Ω_{m,0} = 0.259\pm0.045$ and $σ_{8,0} = 0.748\p…
We perform a meta-study of recently published Redshift Space Distortion (RSD) measurements of the cosmological growth rate, f(z) σ_8(z). We analyse the latest results from the 6dFGS, BOSS, LRG, WiggleZ and VIPERS galaxy redshift surveys, and compare the measurements to expectations from Planck. In this Letter we point out that the RSD measurements are consistently lower than the values expected from Planck, and the relative scatter between the RSD measurements is lower than expected. A full resolution of this issue may require a more robust treatment of non-linear effects in RSD models, althou…
Redshift-space distortions in the clustering of galaxy clusters provide a novel probe to test the gravity theory on cosmological scales. The aim of this work is to derive new constraints on the linear growth rate of cosmic structures from the redshift-space two-point correlation function of galaxy clusters. We construct a large spectroscopic catalogue of optically-selected clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The selected sample consists of $43,743$ clusters in the redshift range $0.1<z<0.42$, with masses estimated from weak-lensing calibrated scaling relations. We measure the transvers…
We present a new model for the cross-covariance between galaxy redshift-space distortions and peculiar velocities. We combine this with the auto-covariance models of both probes in a fully self-consistent, maximum-likelihood method, allowing us to extract enhanced cosmological parameter constraints. When applying our method to the 6-degree Field Galaxy Survey (6dFGS), our constraint on the growth rate of structure is $fσ_8 = 0.384 \pm 0.052 \rm{(stat)} \pm 0.061 \rm{(sys)}$ and our constraint for the redshift-space distortion parameter is $β= 0.289^{+0.044}_{-0.043} \rm{(stat)} \pm 0.049 \rm{(…
The growth rate of large scale structure can probe whether dark matter clusters at gravitational strength or deviates from this, e.g. due to self interactions. Measurement of the growth rate through redshift space distortions in galaxy redshift surveys constrains the clustering strength, and its redshift dependence. We compare such effects on growth to those from high redshift deviations (e.g. early dark energy) or modified gravity, and give a simple, highly accurate analytic prescription. Current observations can constrain the dark matter clustering strength to F_{cl}=0.99\pm0.02 of standard,…
We propose a new approach for measuring the mass profile and shape of groups and clusters of galaxies, which uses lensing magnification of distant background galaxies. The main advantage of lensing magnification is that, unlike lensing shear, it relies on accurate photometric redshifts only and not galaxy shapes, thus enabling the study of the dark matter distribution with unresolved source galaxies. We present a feasibility study, using a real population of z > 2.5 Lyman Break Galaxies as source galaxies, and where, similar to galaxy-galaxy lensing, foreground lenses are stacked in order to i…
Gravitational waves (GWs) from compact binary stars at cosmological distances are promising and powerful cosmological probes, referred to as the GW standard sirens. With future GW detectors, we will be able to precisely measure source luminosity distances out to a redshift $z\sim5$. To extract cosmological information, previously proposed cosmological studies using the GW standard sirens rely on source redshift information obtained through an extensive electromagnetic follow-up campaign. However, the redshift identification is typically time consuming and rather challenging. Here, we propose a…
Systematic errors in the galaxy redshift distribution $n(z)$ can propagate to systematic errors in the derived cosmology. We characterize how the degenerate effects in tomographic bin widths and galaxy bias impart systematic errors on cosmology inference using observational data from the Deep Lens Survey. For this we use a combination of galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing. We present two end-to-end analyses from the catalogue level to parameter estimation. We produce an initial cosmological inference using fiducial tomographic redshift bins derived from photometric redshifts, then com…
Combining different observational probes, such as galaxy clustering and weak lensing, is a promising technique for unveiling the physics of the Universe with upcoming dark energy experiments. Whilst this strategy significantly improves parameter constraints, decreasing the degeneracies of individual analyses and controlling the systematics, processing data from tens of millions of galaxies is not a trivial task. In this work we derive and test a new estimator for joint clustering and lensing data analysis, maximising the scientific return and decreasing the computational cost. Our estimator co…
We explore potential strategies for testing General Relativity via the coherent motions of galaxies. Our position at z=0 provides the reference point for distance measures in cosmology. By contrast, the Cosmic Microwave Background at z ~ 1100 acts as the point of reference for the growth of large scale structure. As a result, we find there is a lack of synergy between growth and distance measures. We show that when measuring the gravitational growth index gamma using redshift-space distortions, typically 80% of the signal corresponds to the local growth rate at the galaxy bin location, while t…
Persisting tensions between the cosmological constraints derived from low-redshift probes and the ones obtained from temperature and polarisation anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background -- although not yet providing compelling evidence against the $Λ$CDM model -- seem to consistently indicate a slower growth of density perturbations as compared to the predictions of the standard cosmological scenario. Such behavior is not easily accommodated by the simplest extensions of General Relativity, such as f(R) models, which generically predict an enhanced growth rate. In the present work we p…
We present precise measurements of the growth rate of cosmic structure for the redshift range 0.1 < z < 0.9, using redshift-space distortions in the galaxy power spectrum of the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. Our results, which have a precision of around 10% in four independent redshift bins, are well-fit by a flat LCDM cosmological model with matter density parameter Omega_m = 0.27. Our analysis hence indicates that this model provides a self-consistent description of the growth of cosmic structure through large-scale perturbations and the homogeneous cosmic expansion mapped by supernovae and ba…
Gravitational-wave detectors on earth have detected gravitational waves from merging compact objects in the local Universe. In future we will detect gravitational waves from higher-redshift sources, which trace the high-redshift structure formation history. That is, by observing high-redshift gravitational-wave events we will be able to probe structure formation history. This will provide additional insight into the early Universe when primordial fluctuations are generated and also into the nature of dark matter.
It is well known that positive values of redshift drift is a signature of dark energy within the conventionally studied Friedmann-Lema\^ıtre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) universe models. Here we show -- without making assumptions on the metric tensor of the Universe -- that redshift drift is a promising direct probe of violation of the strong energy condition within the theory of general relativity.
We test the history of structure formation from redshift 1 to today by matching galaxies from VIPERS and SDSS with dark matter haloes in the MultiDark SMDPL N-body simulation. We first show that the standard subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) recipe implemented with MultiDark characterizes the clustering of galaxies well both at redshift 0 for SDSS and at redshift 1 for VIPERS. This is an important validation of the SHAM model at high redshift. We then remap the simulation timesteps to test alternative growth histories and infer the growth index $γ=0.6\pm0.3$. This analysis demonstrates the pow…
We present measurements of the growth rate of cosmological structure from the modelling of the anisotropic galaxy clustering measured in the final data release of the VIPERS survey. The analysis is carried out in configuration space and based on measurements of the first two even multipole moments of the anisotropic galaxy auto-correlation function, in two redshift bins spanning the range $0.5 < z < 1.2$. We provide robust and cosmology-independent corrections for the VIPERS angular selection function, allowing recovery of the underlying clustering amplitude at the percent level down to the Mp…
Peculiar-velocity surveys of the low-redshift universe have significant leverage to constrain the growth rate of cosmic structure and test gravity. Wide-field imaging surveys combined with multi-object spectrographs (e.g. ZTF2, LSST, DESI, 4MOST) can use Type Ia supernovae as informative tracers of the velocity field, reaching few percent constraints on the growth rate $fσ_8$ at $z\lesssim0.2$ where density tracers cannot do better than $\sim10\%$. Combining the high-redshift DESI survey mapping redshift space distortions with a low-redshift supernova peculiar velocity survey using LSST and DE…
We use current and future simulated data of the growth rate of large scale structure in combination with data from supernova, BAO, and CMB surface measurements, in order to put constraints on the growth index parameters. We use a recently proposed parameterization of the growth index that interpolates between a constant value at high redshifts and a form that accounts for redshift dependencies at small redshifts. We also suggest here another exponential parameterization with a similar behaviour. The redshift dependent parametrizations provide a sub-percent precision level to the numerical grow…
Context: The cosmological concordance model ($Λ$CDM) matches the cosmological observations exceedingly well. This model has become the standard cosmological model with the evidence for an accelerated expansion provided by the type Ia supernovae (SNIa) Hubble diagram. However, the robustness of this evidence has been addressed recently with somewhat diverging conclusions. Aims: The purpose of this paper is to assess the robustness of the conclusion that the Universe is indeed accelerating if we rely only on low-redshift (z$\lesssim$2) observations, that is to say with SNIa, baryonic acoustic os…
We identify a physical mechanism that would have resulted in rapid, obscured growth of seed super-massive black-holes in galaxies at z>6. Specifically, we find that the density at the centre of typical high redshift galaxies was at a level where the Bondi accretion rate implies a diffusion speed of photons that was slower than the gravitational infall velocity, resulting in photons being trapped within the accretion flow and advected into the black-hole. We show that there is a range of black-hole masses (M_bh ~ 10^3-10^5 solar masses) where the accretion flow traps radiation, corresponding to…
We place firm upper limits on the global accretion history of massive black holes at z>5 from the recently measured unresolved fraction of the cosmic X-ray background. The maximum allowed unresolved intensity observed at 1.5 keV implies a maximum accreted-mass density onto massive black holes of rho_acc < 1.4E4 M_sun Mpc^{-3} for z>5. Considering the contribution of lower-z AGNs, the value reduces to rho_acc < 0.66E4 M_sun Mpc^{-3}. The tension between the need for the efficient and rapid accretion required by the observation of massive black holes already in place at z>7 and the strict upper …
In this Letter we point out that redshift surveys can break the degeneracy between the galaxy bias, the power spectrum normalization, σ_{8,0} and the growth factor, without the need for external information by using a simple and rather general parametrization for the growth rate, the well known γ-parametrization and measuring the power spectrum at least at two different redshifts. We find that in next-generation surveys like Euclid, σ_{8,0} and γcan be measured to within 1% and 5%, respectively, while the bias b(z) can be measured to within 1-2% in each of 14 equal-width redshift bins spanning…
We use growth of structure data to constrain the effective field theory of dark energy. Considering as case study Horndeski theories with the speed of gravitational waves equal to that of light, we show how constraints on the free parameters and the large-scale structure phenomenological functions can be improved by two ingredients: firstly by complementing the set of redshift-space distortions data with the three recent measurements of the growth rate $f$ and the amplitude of matter fluctuations $σ_8$ from the VIPERS and SDSS collaborations; secondly by applying a local Solar System bound on …
Redshift-space distortions (RSD) offers an exciting opportunity to test the gravity on cosmological scales. In the presence of galaxy bias, however, the RSD measurement at large scales, where the linear theory prediction is safely applied, is known to exhibit a degeneracy between the parameters of structure growth f and fluctuation amplitude sigma8, and one can only constrain the parameters in the form of fsigma8. In order to disentangle this degeneracy, in this paper, we go beyond the linear theory, and consider the model of RSD applicable to a weakly nonlinear regime. Based on the Fisher mat…
Massive neutrinos leave a unique signature in the large scale clustering of matter. We investigate the wavenumber dependence of the growth factor arising from neutrino masses and use a Fisher analysis to determine the aspects of a galaxy survey needed to measure this scale dependence.
Using a new large-scale (~ 0.75 Gpc)^3 hydrodynamic cosmological simulation we investigate the growth rate of supermassive black holes in the early universe (z > 4.75). Remarkably, we find a clear peak in the typical Eddington ratio at black hole masses of 4-8 * 10^7 solar masses (typically found in halos of ~7 * 10^11 to 10^12 solar masses), independent of redshift and indicative that most of BH growth occurs in the cold-flow dominated regime. Black hole growth is by and large regulated by the evolution of gas density. The typical Eddington ratio at a given mass scales simply as cosmological …
We identified voids in the completed VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS), using an algorithm based on searching for empty spheres. We measured the cross-correlation between the centres of voids and the complete galaxy catalogue. The cross-correlation function exhibits a clear anisotropy in both VIPERS fields (W1 and W4), which is characteristic of linear redshift space distortions. By measuring the projected cross-correlation and then deprojecting it we are able to estimate the undistorted cross-correlation function. We propose that given a sufficiently well measured cross-corr…
General relativity reproduces main current cosmological observations, assuming the validity of cosmic distance duality relation (CDDR) at all scales and epochs. However, CDDR is poorly tested in the redshift interval between the farthest observed Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) and that of the Cosmic Microwave background (CMB). We present a new idea of testing the validity of CDDR, through the multiple measurements of high-redshift quasars. Luminosity distances are derived from the relation between the UV and X-ray luminosities of quasars, while angular diameter distances are obtained from the comp…
An observational program focused on the high redshift ($2<z<6$) Universe has the opportunity to dramatically improve over upcoming LSS and CMB surveys on measurements of both the standard cosmological model and its extensions. Using a Fisher matrix formalism that builds upon recent advances in Lagrangian perturbation theory, we forecast constraints for future spectroscopic and 21-cm surveys on the standard cosmological model, curvature, neutrino mass, relativistic species, primordial features, primordial non-Gaussianity, dynamical dark energy, and gravitational slip. We compare these constrain…
Redshift-space clustering anisotropies caused by cosmic peculiar velocities provide a powerful probe to test the gravity theory on large scales. However, to extract unbiased physical constraints, the clustering pattern has to be modelled accurately, taking into account the effects of non-linear dynamics at small scales, and properly describing the link between the selected cosmic tracers and the underlying dark matter field. We use a large hydrodynamic simulation to investigate how the systematic error on the linear growth rate, $f$, caused by model uncertainties, depends on sample selections …
We apply the Lagrangian perturbation theory with time-dependent growth functions at second and third order of perturbation with the aim to model the effect of dynamical dark energy on redshift-space distortions. Our fiducial galaxy redshift surveys are modeled after the upcoming SKA and DESI redshift surveys. We include PLANCK CMB priors and the 20\% uncertainty on the linear bias parameter, incorporating the unknown instrumentation noise. After the marginalizing, our results show that the constraints on the density parameter could potentially get better than $\sim$1\%, while the constraints o…
The cosmological information encapsulated within a weak lensing signal can be accessed via the power spectrum of the so called convergence. We use the Fisher information matrix formalism with the convergence power spectrum as the observable to predict how future weak lensing surveys will constrain the expansion rate and the growth function as functions of redshift without using any specific model to parameterize these two quantities. To do this, we divide redshift space into bins and linearly interpolate the functions with the centers of the redshift bins as sampling points, using a fiducial s…
Cosmological measurements of both the expansion history and growth history have matured, and the two together provide an important test of general relativity. We consider their joint evolutionary track, showing that this has advantages in distinguishing cosmologies relative to considering them individually or at isolated redshifts. In particular, the joint comparison relaxes the shape degeneracy that makes $fσ_8(z)$ curves difficult to separate from the overall growth amplitude. The conjoined method further helps visualization of which combinations of redshift ranges provide the clearest discr…
To discriminate between different dust formation processes is a key issue in order to understand its properties. We analysed six submillimeter galaxies at redshifts 4<z<5 and nine quasars at 5<z<6.4. We estimated their dust masses from their (sub)millimeter emission and their stellar masses from the spectral energy distribution modelling or from the dynamical and gas masses obtained from the CO line detections. We calculated the dust yields per AGB star and per SN required to explain these dust masses and concluded that AGB stars are not efficient enough to form dust in the majority of these g…
We investigate the ability of state-of-the-art redshift-space distortions models for the galaxy anisotropic two-point correlation function ξ(r_p, π), to recover precise and unbiased estimates of the linear growth rate of structure f, when applied to catalogues of galaxies characterised by a realistic bias relation. To this aim, we make use of a set of simulated catalogues at z = 0.1 and z = 1 with different luminosity thresholds, obtained by populating dark-matter haloes from a large N-body simulation using halo occupation prescriptions. We examine the most recent developments in redshift-spac…
Tomographic intensity mapping of the HI using the redshifted 21 cm observations opens up a new window towards our understanding of cosmological background evolution and structure formation. This is a key science goal of several upcoming radio telescopes including the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). In this article we focus on the post-reionization signal and investigate the of cross correlating the 21 cm signal with other tracers of the large scale structure. We consider the cross-correlation of the post-reionization 21 cm signal with the Lyman-alpha forest, Lyman-break galaxies and late time an…
Model Independent Probe of Variation of Cosmic Opacity with Redshift
Department of Physics, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, (University of Delhi)（德里大学迪恩·达亚尔·乌帕迪亚亚学院物理系）；Department of Physics, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences, (University of Delhi)（德里大学巴斯卡拉查里亚应用科学学院物理系）
When using distance measurements to probe spatial curvature, the geometric degeneracy between curvature and dark energy in the distance-redshift relation typically requires either making strong assumptions about the dark energy evolution or sacrificing precision in a more model-independent approach. Measurements of the redshift evolution of the linear growth of perturbations can break the geometric degeneracy, providing curvature constraints that are both precise and model-independent. Future supernova, CMB, and cluster data have the potential to measure the curvature with an accuracy of sigma…
Measurements of the growth rate of structure, $fσ_8$ in the low-redshift Universe allow stringent tests of the cosmological model. In this work, we provide new constraints on $fσ_{8}$ at an effective redshift of $z=0.03$ using the combined density and velocity fields measured by the 2MTF and 6dFGSv surveys. We do this by applying a new estimator of the redshift-space density and momentum (density-weighted velocity) power spectra, developed in the first paper of this series, to measured redshifts and peculiar velocities from these datasets. We combine this with models of the density and momentu…
A number of current and future experiments aim to detect the reionization of neutral hydrogen by the first stars and galaxies in the Universe via the redshifted 21cm line. Using the \textsc{BlueTides} simulation, we investigate the measurement of an \textit{average} ionised region towards the beginning of reionization by stacking redshifted 21cm images around optically identified bright galaxies using mock observations. We find that with an SKA 1000 hour observation, assuming perfect foreground subtraction, a $5σ$ detection of a stacked HII region can be made with 30 images around some of the …
Recent studies have shown that massive quiescent galaxies at high redshift are much more compact than present-day galaxies of the same mass. Here we compare the radial stellar density profiles and the number density of a sample of massive galaxies at z ~ 2.3 to nearby massive elliptical galaxies. We confirm that the average stellar densities of the z ~ 2.3 galaxies within the effective radius, rho(<r_e), are two orders of magnitude higher than those of local elliptical galaxies of the same stellar mass. However, we also find that the densities measured within a constant physical radius of 1 kp…
Observational studies have revealed a "downsizing" trend in black hole (BH) growth: the number densities of luminous AGN peak at higher redshifts than those of faint AGN. This would seem to imply that massive black holes formed before low mass black holes, in apparent contradiction to hierarchical clustering scenarios. We investigate whether this observed "downsizing" in BH growth is reproduced in a semi-analytic model for the formation and evolution of galaxies and black holes, set within the hierarchical paradigm for structure formation (Somerville et al. 2008; S08). In this model, black hol…
The cosmological peculiar velocity field (deviations from the pure Hubble flow) of matter carries significant information on dark energy, dark matter and the underlying theory of gravity on large scales. Peculiar motions of galaxies introduce systematic deviations between the observed galaxy redshifts z and the corresponding cosmological redshifts z_cos. A novel method for estimating the angular power spectrum of the peculiar velocity field based on observations of galaxy redshifts and apparent magnitudes m (or equivalently fluxes) is presented. This method exploits the fact that a mean relati…
The growth history of large-scale structure in the Universe is a powerful probe of the cosmological model, including the nature of dark energy. We study the growth rate of cosmic structure to redshift $z = 0.9$ using more than $162{,}000$ galaxy redshifts from the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. We divide the data into four redshift slices with effective redshifts $z = [0.2,0.4,0.6,0.76]$ and in each of the samples measure and model the 2-point galaxy correlation function in parallel and transverse directions to the line-of-sight. After simultaneously fitting for the galaxy bias factor we recover …
The linear growth factor of density perturbations is believed to be a powerful observable of future redshift surveys to probe physical properties of dark energy and to distinguish among gravity theories. We investigate systematic effects on determination of the growth factor f from a measurement of redshift-space distortions. Using N-body simulations we identify dark matter halos over a broad mass range. We compute the power spectra and correlation functions for the halos and then examine how well the redshift distortion parameter beta=f/b can be reconstructed as a function of halo mass. We fi…
Beyond the standard cosmological model the late-time accelerated expansion of the universe can be reproduced by the introduction of an additional dynamical scalar field. In this case, the field is expected to be naturally coupled to the rest of the theory's fields, unless a (still unknown) symmetry suppresses this coupling. Therefore, this would possibly lead to some observational consequences, such as space-time variations of nature's fundamental constants. In this paper we investigate the coupling between a dynamical Dark Energy model and the electromagnetic field, and the corresponding evol…
We compile a list of $14$ independent measurements of large-scale structure growth rate between redshifts $0.067 \leq z \leq 0.8$ and use this to place constraints on model parameters of constant and time-evolving general-relativistic dark energy cosmologies. With the assumption that gravity is well-modeled by general relativity, we discover that growth-rate data provide restrictive cosmological parameter constraints. In combination with type Ia supernova apparent magnitude versus redshift data and Hubble parameter measurements, the growth rate data are consistent with the standard spatially-f…
We develop a new method, which is based on the optimal redshift weighting scheme, to extract the maximal tomographic information of baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) and redshift space distortions (RSD) from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) Data Release 14 quasar (DR14Q) survey. We validate our method using the EZ mocks, and apply our pipeline to the eBOSS DR14Q sample in the redshift range of $0.8<z<2.2$. We report a joint measurement of $fσ_8$ and two-dimensional BAO parameters $D_{\rm A}$ and $H$ at four effective redshifts of $z_{\rm eff}=0.98, 1.23, 1.52$ an…
The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is one of the first of a new generation of galaxy redshift surveys that will cover a large range in redshift with sufficient resolution to measure the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) signal. For surveys covering a large redshift range we can no longer ignore cosmological evolution, meaning that either the redshift shells analysed have to be significantly narrower than the survey, or we have to allow for the averaging over evolving quantities. Both of these have the potential to remove signal: analysing small volumes increases the …
The linear growth rate is commonly defined through a simple deterministic relation between the velocity divergence and the matter overdensity in the linear regime. We introduce a formalism that extends this to a nonlinear, stochastic relation between $θ= \nabla \cdot v({\bf x},t)/aH$ and $δ$. This provides a new phenomenological approach that examines the conditional mean $< θ|δ>$, together with the fluctuations of $θ$ around this mean. We measure these stochastic components using N-body simulations and find they are non-negative and increase with decreasing scale from $\sim$10% at $k<0.2 h $M…
