The Universe is mostly composed of large and relatively empty domains known as cosmic voids, whereas its matter content is predominantly distributed along their boundaries. The remaining material inside them, either dark or luminous matter, is attracted to these boundaries and causes voids to expand faster and to grow emptier over time. Using the distribution of galaxies centered on voids identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and adopting minimal assumptions on the statistical motion of these galaxies, we constrain the average matter content $Ω_\mathrm{m}=0.281\pm0.031$ in the Universe today, as well as the linear growth rate of structure $f/b=0.417\pm0.089$ at median redshift $\bar{z}=0.57$, where $b$ is the galaxy bias ($68\%$ C.L.). These values originate from a percent-level measurement of the anisotropic distortion in the void-galaxy cross-correlation function, $\varepsilon = 1.003\pm0.012$, and are robust to consistency tests with bootstraps of the data and simulated mock catalogs within an additional systematic uncertainty of half that size. They surpass (and are complementary to) existing constraints by unlocking cosmological information on smaller scales through an accurate model of nonlinear clustering and dynamics in void environments. As such, our analysis furnishes a powerful probe of deviations from Einstein's general relativity in the low-density regime which has largely remained untested so far. We find no evidence for such deviations in the data at hand.
Galaxy bias, the unknown relationship between the clustering of galaxies and the underlying dark matter density field is a major hurdle for cosmological inference from large-scale structure. While traditional analyses focus on the absolute clustering amplitude of high-density regions mapped out by galaxy surveys, we propose a relative measurement that compares those to the underdense regions, cosmic voids. On the basis of realistic mock catalogs we demonstrate that cross correlating galaxies and voids opens up the possibility to calibrate galaxy bias and to define a static ruler thanks to the …
We report novel cosmological constraints obtained from cosmic voids in the final BOSS DR12 dataset. They arise from the joint analysis of geometric and dynamic distortions of average void shapes (i.e., the stacked void-galaxy cross-correlation function) in redshift space. Our model uses tomographic deprojection to infer real-space void profiles and self-consistently accounts for the Alcock-Paczynski (AP) effect and redshift-space distortions (RSD) without any prior assumptions on cosmology or structure formation. It is derived from first physical principles and provides an extremely good descr…
We use a spherical model and an extended excursion set formalism with drifting diffusive barriers to predict the abundance of cosmic voids in the context of general relativity as well as f(R) and symmetron models of modified gravity. We detect spherical voids from a suite of N-body simulations of these gravity theories and compare the measured void abundance to theory predictions. We find that our model correctly describes the abundance of both dark matter and galaxy voids, providing a better fit than previous proposals in the literature based on static barriers. We use the simulation abundanc…
Cosmic voids constitute promising cosmological laboratories. However, a full description of all the redshift-space effects that affect observational measurements is mandatory in order to obtain unbiased cosmological constraints. We make a description in a nutshell of these effects and lay the theoretical foundations for designing reliable cosmological tests based on the void size function and the void-galaxy cross-correlation function. We show that modern spectroscopic surveys offer a high signal-to-noise ratio to detect and study them.
Starting from the geometrical concept of a 4-dimensional de-Sitter configuration of spheres in Euclidean 3-space and modelling voids in the Universe as spheres, we show that a uniform distribution over this configuration space implies a power-law for the void number density which is consistent with results from the excursion set formalism and with data, for an intermediate range of void volumes. The scaling dimension of the large scale structure can be estimated as well. We also discuss the effect of restricting the survey geometry on the void statistics. This work is a new application of de-S…
We study the fluctuations in luminosity distances due to gravitational lensing by large scale (> 35 Mpc) structures, specifically voids and sheets. We use a simplified "Swiss cheese" model consisting of a Λ-CDM Friedman-Robertson-Walker background in which a number of randomly distributed non-overlapping spherical regions are replaced by mass compensating comoving voids, each with a uniform density interior and a thin shell of matter on the surface. We compute the distribution of magnitude shifts using a variant of the method of Holz & Wald (1998), which includes the effect of lensing shear. T…
In this work, we study the cosmological constant problem and Hubble tension in the void-dominated cosmology scenario \cite{Yusofi:2022hgg}. For this goal, we will first consider the cosmic voids in the cosmic web as interconnected ideal spherical bubbles at the early Planck scale and late large scale. By heuristic calculations for each cosmic void, we obtain particular mass density and cosmological constant that are the same order of magnitude as the entire universe on any scale. The values obtained for the cosmological constant vary from scale to scale. As a result, it will be shown that ther…
We propose a new definition of cosmic voids based on methods of Lagrangian orbit reconstruction as well as an algorithm to find them in actual data called DIVA. Our technique is intended to yield results which can be modeled sufficiently accurately to create a new probe of precision cosmology. We then develop an analytical model of the ellipticity of voids found by our method based on Zel'dovich approximation. We measure in N-body simulation that this model is precise at the 0.1% level for the mean ellipticity of voids of size greater than ~4 Mpc/h. We estimate that at this scale, we are able …
How deep can a cosmic void be? Voids-informed theoretical bounds in Galileon gravity
Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”(那不勒斯费德里科二世大学);INFN Sezione di Napoli(意大利国家核物理研究所那不勒斯分部);ICTP, International Centre for Theoretical Physics(国际理论物理中心);Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute(平坦研究所计算天体物理学中心);Università degli Studi di Torino(都灵大学);INFN-Sezione di Torino(意大利国家核物理研究所都灵分部);INAF-Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino(意大利国家天体物理研究所都灵天文台)
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics(马克斯·普朗克地外物理研究所);Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute(平顿研究所计算天体物理学中心);ICTP, International Centre for Theoretical Physics(国际理论物理中心)
Cosmic voids in the large-scale structure of the Universe affect the peculiar motions of objects in their vicinity. Although these motions are difficult to observe directly, the clustering pattern of their surrounding tracers in redshift space is influenced in a unique way. This allows to investigate the interplay between densities and velocities around voids, which is solely dictated by the laws of gravity. With the help of $N$-body simulations and derived mock-galaxy catalogs we calculate the average density fluctuations around voids identified with a watershed algorithm in redshift space an…
We study the properties of voids in two different types of coupled scalar field theories. Due to the fifth force produced by the scalar field coupling, the matter particles feel stronger attraction amongst each other and cluster more quickly than they do in the standard LCDM model. Consequently voids in the coupled scalar field theories start to develop earlier and end up bigger, which is confirmed by our numerical simulations. We find that a significantly larger portion of the whole space is under-densed in the coupled scalar field theories and there are more voids whose sizes exceed given th…
The suggestion that we occupy a privileged position near the centre of a large, nonlinear, and nearly spherical void has recently attracted much attention as an alternative to dark energy. Putting aside the philosophical problems with this scenario, we perform the most complete and up-to-date comparison with cosmological data. We use supernovae and the full cosmic microwave background spectrum as the basis of our analysis. We also include constraints from radial baryonic acoustic oscillations, the local Hubble rate, age, big bang nucleosynthesis, the Compton y-distortion, and for the first tim…
A spherical hydrodynamical model of cosmic voids in ΛCDM and beyond
Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”(那不勒斯费德里科二世大学);INFN Sezione di Napoli(意大利国家核物理研究所那不勒斯分部);Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute(平顿研究所计算天体物理学中心);Università degli Studi di Torino(都灵大学);INFN-Sezione di Torino(意大利国家核物理研究所都灵分部);INAF-Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino(意大利国家天体物理研究所都灵天文台)
We present GIGANTES, the most extensive and realistic void catalog suite ever released -- containing over 1 billion cosmic voids covering a volume larger than the observable Universe, more than 20 TB of data, and created by running the void finder VIDE on QUIJOTE's halo simulations. The expansive and detailed GIGANTES suite, spanning thousands of cosmological models, opens up the study of voids, answering compelling questions: Do voids carry unique cosmological information? How is this information correlated with galaxy information? Leveraging the large number of voids in the GIGANTES suite, o…
The standard model of cosmology is dominated - at the present epoch - by dark energy. Its voids are rigid and Newtonian within a relativistic background. The model prevents them from becoming hyperbolic. Observations of rapid velocity flows out of voids are normally interpreted within the standard model that is rigid in comoving coordinates, instead of allowing the voids' density parameter to drop below critical and their curvature to become negative. Isn't it time to advance beyond nineteenth century physics and relegate dark energy back to the "no significant evidence" box?
We study the formation of voids in a modified gravity model in which gravity is generically stronger or weaker on large scales. We show that void abundances provide complementary information to halo abundances: if normalized to the CMB, models with weaker large-scale gravity have smaller large scale power, fewer massive halos and fewer large voids, although the scalings are not completely degenerate with $σ_8$. Our results suggest that, in addition to their abundances, halo and void density profiles may also provide interesting constraints on such models: stronger large scale gravity produces …
Multiprobe cosmology forecasts from halo-occupation-distribution-based forward modeling of galaxy and void statistics
Steward Observatory, University of Arizona(亚利桑那大学斯图尔德天文台);Department of Physics, University of Arizona(亚利桑那大学物理系);Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS/IN2P3, CPPM(艾克斯-马赛大学,法国国家科学研究中心/法国国家核子和粒子物理研究所,粒子与宇宙学中心);Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Peyton Hall, Princeton University(普林斯顿大学天体物理学系);Universitäts-Sternwarte München, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität(慕尼黑大学天文台,慕尼黑大学物理学院)
We investigate the potential of weak lensing by voids to test for deviations from General Relativity. We calculate the expected lensing signal of a scalar field with derivative couplings, finding that it has the potential to boost the tangential shear both within and outside the void radius. We use voids traced by Luminous Red Galaxies in SDSS to demonstrate the methodology of testing these predictions. We find that the void central density parameter, as inferred from the lensing signal, can shift from its GR value by up to 20% in some galileon gravity models. Since this parameter can be estim…
Combining galaxy cluster and void abundances is a novel, powerful way to constrain deviations from General Relativity and the $Λ$CDM model. For a flat $w$CDM model with growth of large-scale structure parameterized by the redshift-dependent growth index $γ(z) = γ_0 + γ_1 z/(1+z)$ of linear matter perturbations, combining void and cluster abundances in future surveys with Euclid and the 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) could improve the Figure of Merit for ($w, γ_0, γ_1$) by a factor of 20 compared to individual abundances. In an ideal case, improvement on current cosmologic…
Towards precision cosmology with Void x CMB correlations (II): Impact of mock catalogs on the Void x CMB lensing signal
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias(加那利群岛天体物理研究所);Universidad de La Laguna(拉戈纳大学);MTA–CSFK Lendület “Momentum” Large-Scale Structure (LSS) Research Group(匈牙利科学院-塞格德大学“动量”大尺度结构研究组);Konkoly Observatory, HUN-REN Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences(孔科利天文台,匈牙利研究与创新网络地球与天文学研究中心);CPPM, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS/IN2P3(地中海粒子与核物理中心,艾克斯-马赛大学,法国国家科学研究中心/法国国家核与粒子物理研究所);Princeton University(普林斯顿大学);California Institute of Technology(加州理工学院)
研究通过分析模拟目录对Void x CMB引力透镜信号的影响,探讨了未来宇宙学约束的潜力,发现该信号对模拟目录的依赖性较低,预计罗马任务结合现有和未来CMB观测将显著提高信号噪声比。
Modifications to General Relativity (GR) often incorporate screening mechanisms in order to remain compatible with existing tests of gravity. The screening is less efficient in underdense regions, which suggests that cosmic voids can be a useful cosmological probe for constraining modified gravity models. In particular, weak lensing by voids has been proposed as a promising test of such theories. Usually, voids are identified from galaxy distributions, making them biased tracers of the underlying matter field. An alternative approach is to study voids identified in weak lensing maps -- weak le…
I briefly outline a new physical interpretation to the average cosmological parameters for an inhomogeneous universe with backreaction. The variance in local geometry and gravitational energy between ideal isotropic observers in bound structures and isotropic observers at the volume average location in voids plays a crucial role. Fits of a model universe to observational data suggest the possibility of a new concordance cosmology, in which dark energy is revealed as a mis-identification of gravitational energy gradients that become important when voids grow at late epochs.
Unveiling $f(R)$ Gravity with Void-Galaxy Cross-Correlation Multipoles
National Institute of Technology, Tokuyama College(国立技术大学 Tokuyama 学院);Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study (UTIAS), The University of Tokyo(东京大学宇宙物理数学研究所(WPI),东京大学高等研究院(UTIAS))
We use properties of void populations identified in $N$-body simulations to forecast the ability of upcoming galaxy surveys to differentiate models of f(R) gravity from \lcdm~cosmology. We analyze multiple simulation realizations, which were designed to mimic the expected number densities, volumes, and redshifts of the upcoming Euclid satellite and a lower-redshift ground-based counterpart survey, using the public {\tt VIDE} toolkit. We examine void abundances, ellipicities, radial density profiles, and radial velocity profiles at redshifts 1.0 and 0.43. We find that stronger f(R) coupling str…
Cosmic voids evolution in modified gravity via hydrodynamics
Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”(那不勒斯费德里科二世大学);INFN Sezione di Napoli(意大利国家核物理研究所那不勒斯分部);ICTP, International Centre for Theoretical Physics(国际理论物理中心);Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute(平顿研究所计算天体物理学中心);Università degli Studi di Torino(都灵大学);INFN-Sezione di Torino(意大利国家核物理研究所都灵分部);INAF-Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino(意大利国家天体物理研究所都灵天文台)
We study the ellipticity probability distribution function (PDF) of voids in redshift space with galaxies as tracers of the shapes of voids. We find that the redshift space distortion on the shape of voids statistically increases the ellipticities of voids, and leaves a prominent feature on the ellipticity PDF as a substantial reduction in the probability of having voids with small ellipticity. The location of this characteristic cutoff of the ellipticity PDF is an explicit function of the logarithmic growth rate, and it can be used as a probe of cosmology once the radial density profile of vo…
We revisit the excursion set approach to calculate void abundances in chameleon-type modified gravity theories, which was previously studied by Clampitt, Cai and Li (2013). We focus on properly accounting for the void-in-cloud effect, i.e., the growth of those voids sitting in over-dense regions may be restricted by the evolution of their surroundings. This effect may change the distribution function of voids hence affect predictions on the differences between modified gravity and GR. We show that the thin-shell approximation usually used to calculate the fifth force is qualitatively good but …
We present a public catalogue of voids in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 11 LOWZ and CMASS galaxy surveys. This catalogue contains information on the location, sizes, densities, shapes and bounding surfaces of 8956 independent, disjoint voids, making it the largest public void catalogue to date. Voids are identified using a version of the ZOBOV algorithm, the operation of which has been calibrated through tests on mock galaxy populations in N-body simulations, as well as on a suite of 4096 mock catalogues which fully reproduce the galaxy clustering, survey mask…
Upcoming surveys such as \LSST{} and \Euclid{} will significantly improve the power of weak lensing as a cosmological probe. To maximise the information that can be extracted from these surveys, it is important to explore novel statistics that complement standard weak lensing statistics such as the shear-shear correlation function and peak counts. In this work, we use a recently proposed weak lensing observable -- weak lensing voids -- to make parameter constraint forecasts for an LSST-like survey. We use the \cosmoslics{} $w$CDM simulation suite to measure void statistics as a function of cos…
Using a Monte Carlo random walks of a log-normal distribution, we show how to qualitatively study void properties for non-standard cosmologies. We apply this method to an f(R) modified gravity model and recover the N-body simulation results of (Achitouv et al. 2016) for the void profiles and their deviation from GR. This method can potentially be extended to study other properties of the large scale structures such as the abundance of voids or overdense environments. We also introduce a new way to identify voids in the cosmic web, using only a few measurements of the density fluctuations aroun…
An alternative to the postulate of dark energy required to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe is to adopt an inhomogeneous cosmological model to explain the supernovae data without dark energy. We adopt a void cosmology model, based on the inhomogeneous Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi solution of Einstein's field equations. The model can resolve observational anomalies in the $ΛCDM$ model, such as the discrepancy between the locally measured value of the Hubble constant, $H_0=73.24\pm 1.74\,{\rm km}\,{\rm s}^{-1}\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, and the $H_0=66.93\pm 0.62\,{\rm km}\,{\rm s}^{-1}\,{\rm M…
We investigate the behavior of the fifth force in voids in chameleon models using the spherical collapse method. Contrary to Newtonian gravity, we find the fifth force is repulsive in voids. The strength of the fifth force depends on the density inside and outside the void region as well as its radius. It can be many times larger than the Newtonian force and their ratio is in principle unbound. This is very different from the case in halos, where the fifth force is no more than 1/3 of gravity. The evolution of voids is governed by the Newtonian gravity, the effective dark energy force and the …
The Vainshtein mechanism, present in many models of gravity, is very effective at screening dark matter halos such that the fifth force is negligible and general relativity is recovered within their Vainshtein radii. Vainshtein screening is independent of halo mass and environment, in contrast to e.g. chameleon screening, making it difficult to test. However, our previous studies have found that the dark matter particles in filaments, walls, and voids are not screened by the Vainshtein mechanism. We therefore investigate whether cosmic voids, identified as local density minima using a watershe…
We use properties of void populations identified in N-body simulations to forecast the ability of upcoming galaxy surveys to differentiate models of f(R) gravity from ΛCDM cosmology. We analyze simulations designed to mimic the densities, volumes, and clustering statistics of upcoming surveys, using the public VIDE toolkit. We examine void abundances as a basic probe at redshifts 1.0 and 0.4. We find that stronger f(R) coupling strengths produce voids up to ~20% larger in radius, leading to a significant shift in the void number function. As an initial estimate of the constraining power of voi…
Cosmic voids are progressively emerging as a new viable cosmological probe. Their abundance and density profiles are sensitive to modifications of gravity, as well as to dark energy and neutrinos. The main goal of this work is to investigate the possibility of exploiting cosmic void statistics to disentangle the degeneracies resulting from a proper combination of $f(R)$ modified gravity and neutrino mass. We use N-body simulations to analyse the density profiles and size function of voids traced by both dark matter particles and haloes. We find clear evidence of the enhancement of gravity in $…
We study the fluctuations in luminosity distance due to gravitational lensing produced both by galaxy halos and large scale voids. Voids are represented via a "Swiss cheese" model consisting of a \LambdaCDM Friedman-Robertson-Walker background in which a number of randomly distributed, spherical regions of comoving radius 35 Mpc are removed. A fraction of the removed mass is then placed on the shells of the spheres, in the form of randomly located halos, modeled with Navarro-Frenk-White profiles. The remaining mass is placed in the interior of the spheres, either smoothly distributed, or as ra…
In this paper, we study the distribution of dark matter halos and voids using high resolution simulations in f(R) gravity models with the chameleon mechanism to screen the fifth force in dense environment. For dark matter halos, we show that the semi-analytic thin shell condition, with a suitably-defined environment, provides a good approximation to describe the mass and environmental dependence of the screening of the fifth force in halos. Due to stronger gravity, there are far more massive halos and large voids in f(R) models compared with the ΛCDM model. The numbers of voids with an effecti…
We present a systematic comparison of several existing and new void finding algorithms, focusing on their potential power to test a particular class of modified gravity models - chameleon $f(R)$ gravity. These models deviate from standard General Relativity (GR) more strongly in low-density regions and thus voids are a promising venue to test them. We use Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) prescriptions to populate haloes with galaxies, and tune the HOD parameters such that the galaxy two-point correlation functions are the same in both f(R) and GR models. We identify both 3D voids as well as …
Modified gravity has garnered interest as a backstop against dark matter and dark energy (DE). As one possible modification, the graviton can become massive, which introduces a new scalar field - here with a Galileon-type symmetry. The field can lead to a nontrivial equation of state (EOS) of DE which is density-and-scale-dependent. Tension between Type Ia supernovae and Planck could be reduced. In voids the scalar field dramatically alters the EOS of DE, induces a soon-observable gravitational slip between the two metric potentials, and develops a topological defect (domain wall) due to a non…
Using computer simulations we study the geometry of a typical quantum universe, i.e. the geometry one might expect before a possible period of inflation. We display it using coordinates defined by means of four classical scalar fields satisfying the Laplace equation with non-trivial boundary conditions. The field configurations reveal cosmic web structures surprisingly similar to the ones observed in the present-day Universe. Inflation might make these structures relevant for our Universe.
Voids have emerged as a novel probe of cosmology and large-scale structure. These regions of extreme underdensity are sensitive to physics beyond the standard model of cosmology, and can potentially be used as a testing ground to constrain new physics. We present the first determination of the linear void bias measured in separate universe simulations. Our methods are validated by comparing the separate universe response bias with the clustering bias of voids. We find excellent agreement between the two methods for voids identified in the halo field and the down-sampled dark matter field. For …
Modified gravity (MG) theories aim to reproduce the observed acceleration of the Universe by reducing the dark sector while simultaneously recovering General Relativity (GR) within dense environments. Void studies appear to be a suitable scenario to search for imprints of alternative gravity models on cosmological scales. Voids cover an interesting range of density scales where screening mechanisms fade out, which reaches from a density contrast $δ\approx -1$ close to their centers to $δ\approx 0$ close to their boundaries. We present an analysis of the level of distinction between GR and two …
In this paper we present formulae for chord length distribution in the framework of Poissonian Voronoi Tessellation (PVT) and non Poissonian Voronoi Tessellation (NPVT). The introduction of the scale parameter in the obtained distributions allows us to model the chord for cosmic voids. A graphical comparison between cosmic voids visible on two catalogs of galaxies, 2dFGRS and VIPERS, and theoretical random chords is reported.
We explore voids in dark matter and halo fields from simulations of $Λ$CDM and Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ models. In $f(R)$ gravity, dark matter void abundances are greater than that of general relativity (GR). However, when using haloes to identify voids, the differences of void abundances become much smaller, but can still be told apart, in principle, at the 2, 6 and 14 $σ$ level for the $f(R)$ model parameter amplitudes of $|f_{R0}|=10^{-6}$, $10^{-5}$ and $10^{-4}$. In contrast, the abundance of large voids found using haloes in $f(R)$ gravity is lower than in GR. The more efficient halo formation …
We study the impact of cosmological scale modifications to General Relativity on the dynamics of halos within voids by comparing N-body simulations incorporating Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ gravity, with $|f_{R0}|=10^{-6}$ and $10^{-5}$, to those of $Λ$CDM. By examining the radial velocity statistics within voids classified based on their size and density-profile, as "rising" ($R$-type) or "shell" ($S$-type), we find that halo motions in small $R$-type voids, with effective radius $<15 Mpc/h$, reveal distinctive differences between $f(R)$ and $Λ$CDM cosmologies. To understand this observed effect, we st…
We investigate void properties in $f(R)$ models using N-body simulations, focusing on their differences from General Relativity (GR) and their detectability. In the Hu-Sawicki $f(R)$ modified gravity (MG) models, the halo number density profiles of voids are not distinguishable from GR. In contrast, the same $f(R)$ voids are more empty of dark matter, and their profiles are steeper. This can in principle be observed by weak gravitational lensing of voids, for which the combination of a spectroscopic redshift and a lensing photometric redshift survey over the same sky is required. Neglecting th…
Combining galaxy cluster and void abundances breaks the degeneracy between mean matter density $Ω_{\rm m}$ and power spectrum normalization $σ_8$. In a first for voids, we constrain $Ω_{\rm m} = 0.21 \pm 0.10$ and $σ_8 = 0.95 \pm 0.21$ for a flat $Λ$CDM universe, using extreme-value statistics on the claimed largest cluster and void. The Planck-consistent results detect dark energy with two objects, independently of other dark energy probes. Cluster-void studies also offer complementarity in scale, density, and non-linearity - of particular interest for testing modified-gravity models.