The interpretation of cosmological observations relies on a notion of an average Universe, which is usually considered as the homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model. However, inhomogeneities may statistically bias the observational averages with respect to FLRW, notably for distance measurements, due to a number of effects such as gravitational lensing and redshift perturbations. In this article, we review the main known theoretical results on average distance measures in cosmology, based on second-order perturbation theory, and we fill in some of their gaps. We then comprehensively test these theoretical predictions against ray tracing in a high-resolution dark-matter $N$-body simulation. This method allows us to describe the effect of small-scale inhomogeneities deep into the non-linear regime of structure formation on light propagation up to $z=10$. We find that numerical results are in remarkably good agreement with theoretical predictions in the limit of super-sample variance. No unexpectedly large bias originates from very small scales, whose effect is fully encoded in the non-linear power spectrum. Specifically, the directional average of the inverse amplification and the source-averaged amplification are compatible with unity; the change in area of surfaces of constant cosmic time is compatible with zero; the biases on other distance measures, which can reach slightly less than $1\%$ at high redshift, are well understood. As a side product, we also confront the predictions of the recent finite-beam formalism with numerical data and find excellent agreement.
In this thesis, I present three projects I carried out during m PhD. In the first project, I introduce Conformal Transformations and the Galaxy Number County. I explicitly show that the Galaxy Number Counts is invariant under Conformal Transformations, which makes it a good physical observable. In the second project, I study how weak lensing, and in particular cosmic shear, affects the shape of the galaxy images. I show that, if the light polarisation is also measured, the rotation of the main axes of the elliptical galaxy shape becomes a cosmological observable. I show how this can be used to…
Cosmological and astrophysical surveys in various wavebands, in particular from the radio to the far-infrared, offer a unique view of the universe's properties and the formation and evolution of its structures. After a preamble on the so-called tension problem, which occurs when different types of data are used to determine cosmological parameters, we discuss the role of fast radio bursts in cosmology, in particular for the missing baryon problem, and the perspectives from the analysis of the 21 cm redshifted line from neutral hydrogen. We then describe the Planck Legacy Archive, its wealth of…
Alternative Explanations of the Cosmic Microwave Background: A Historical and an Epistemological Perspective
我们回顾了对宇宙微波背景起源的各种非传统解释，并讨论了它们的价值，同时分析了它们被拒绝的动力学，以及相关的物理和方法论原因。事实证明，有许多这样的非正统解释;不仅是那些在完全拒绝相对论（“大爆炸”）范式的理论背景下发展起来的解释（例如，宇宙大爆炸理论），而且是那些在宇宙大爆炸理论背景下发展起来的解释。由阿尔芬，霍伊尔和纳利卡），但也有那些来自阵营的原始思想家牢牢扎根在相对论环境（例如，作者：Rees，Ellis，Rowan-Robinson，Layzer and Hively）。事实上，正统解释在其多阶段发展的30年中只是逐步战胜了替代解释。虽然总的来说，没有一个替代热大爆炸的场景是有说服力的今天，我们讨论建立正统和消除替代品在科学中的认识论的后果，一个问题，最近讨论的哲学家和历史学家的科学物理学的其他领域。最后，我们挑选出一些似是而非的和可能富有成效的想法提供的替代品。
Discrepancies between observations at early and late cosmic epochs, and the vacuum energy problem associated with the interpretation of cosmological constant, are questioning the $Λ$CDM model. Motivated by these conceptual and observational facts, extensions of Einstein's gravity are recently intensively considered in view of curing unsolved issues suffered by General Relativity at ultraviolet and infrared scales. Here, we provide a short overview of some aspects of $f(R)$ gravity, focusing, in particular, on cosmological applications. Specifically, Noether symmetries are adopted as a criterio…
The shapes of individual self-gravitating structures of an ensemble of identical, collisionless particles have remained elusive for decades. In particular, a reason why mass density profiles like the Navarro-Frenk-White or the Einasto profile are good fits to simulation- and observation-based dark matter halos has not been found. Given the class of three dimensional, spherically symmetric power-law probability density distributions to locate individual particles in the ensemble mentioned above, we derive the constraining equation for the power-law index for the most and least likely joint ense…
Observations of the redshifted 21-cm line of atomic hydrogen have resulted in several upper limits on the 21-cm power spectrum and a tentative detection of the sky-averaged signal at $z\sim17$. Made with the EDGES Low-Band antenna, this claim was recently disputed by the SARAS3 experiment, which reported a non-detection and is the only available upper limit strong enough to constrain cosmic dawn astrophysics. We use these data to constrain a population of radio-luminous galaxies $\sim 200$ million years after the Big Bang ($z\approx 20$). We find, using Bayesian data analysis, that the data di…
Cosmic variance limits the accuracy of cosmological N-body simulations, introducing bias in statistics such as the power spectrum, halo mass function, or the cosmic shear. We provide new methods to measure and reduce the effect of cosmic variance in existing and new simulations. We ran pairs of simulations using phase-shifted initial conditions with matching amplitudes. We set the initial amplitudes of the Fourier modes to ensure that the average power spectrum of the pair is equal to the cosmic mean power spectrum from linear theory. The average power spectrum of a pair of such simulations re…
A new perspective on globular clusters, their initial mass function, and their contribution to the stellar halo and to cosmic reionisation
我们研究了各种影响的动力学和化学模型的球状星团（GC），成功地再现了所观察到的丰度模式和多个人口的恒星在这些系统中假设化学富集快速旋转的大质量恒星。使用Decressin et al.（2007）的模型，我们确定了观测到的球状星团的现今质量与它们的初始恒星质量之间的比值，作为恒星初始质量函数（IMF）的函数。我们还计算了低质量恒星喷出的质量，以及原始球状星团发射的氢电离光子的数量。通常，我们发现GC的初始质量必须比现在的恒星质量大8-10倍（如果第二代恒星也从GC逃逸，则可达25倍）。现在的银河系GC星群对星系晕中低质量恒星的贡献率大约为5-8%（10-20%）。我们还表明，第二代恒星的检测在星系晕，最近宣布由不同的团体，GC初始质量函数（GCIMF）提供了一个新的约束。这些意见似乎排除了幂律GCIMF，而他们是兼容的对数正态分布。最后，高的初始质量也意味着GC在早期宇宙中必须发射大量的电离光子。我们的研究结果重新打开的GC的初始质量函数的问题，并加强了早期的结论，老GC可能代表了一个显着的贡献，在高红移再电离的星系间介质。
Diffuse filaments connect galaxy clusters to form the cosmic web. Detecting these filaments could yield information on the magnetic field strength, cosmic ray population and temperature of intercluster gas, yet, the faint and large-scale nature of these bridges makes direct detections very challenging. Using multiple independent all-sky radio and X-ray maps we stack pairs of luminous red galaxies as tracers for cluster pairs. For the first time, we detect an average surface brightness between the clusters from synchrotron (radio) and thermal (X-ray) emission with $\gtrsim 5σ$ significance, on …
The evolution of the scatter of the cosmic average color-magnitude relation: Demonstrating consistency with the ongoing formation of elliptical galaxies
Stellar Initial Mass Function (IMF) Probed with Supernova Rates and Neutrino Background: Cosmic Average IMF Slope is $\simeq 2-3$ Similar to the Salpeter IMF
本文结合核心坍缩超新星爆发率与宇宙远紫外辐射密度，首次约束宇宙平均 IMF 斜率约为 1.8-3.2，接近 Salpeter IMF，并提出用 DSNB 中微子观测进一步改进约束。
