No Arabic abstract
Scale transformations have played an extremely successful role in studies of cosmological large-scale structure by relating the non-linear spectrum of cosmological density fluctuations to the linear primordial power at longer wavelengths. Here we generalize this approach to investigate the usefulness of scale transformations for nonlinear higher-order statistics, specifically the bispectrum. We find that the bispectrum predicted by perturbation theory at tree-level can be rescaled to match the results of full numerical simulations in the weakly and intermediately nonlinear regimes, especially at high redshifts, with an accuracy that is surprising given the simplicity of the procedure used. This discovery not only offers a simple practical way of calculating the matter bispectrum, but also suggests that scale transformations may yet yield even deeper insights into the physics of hierarchical clustering.
We study the matter bispectrum of large-scale structure by comparing the predictions of different perturbative and phenomenological models with the full three-dimensional bispectrum from $N$-body simulations estimated using modal methods. We show that among the perturbative approaches, effective field theory succeeds in extending the range of validity furthest on intermediate scales, at the cost of free additional parameters. By studying the halo model, we show that although it is satisfactory in the deeply non-linear regime, it predicts a deficit of power on intermediate scales, worsening at redshifts $z>0$. By comparison with the $N$-body bispectrum on those scales, we show that there is a significant squeezed component underestimated in the halo model. On the basis of these results, we propose a new three-shape model, based on the tree-level, squeezed and constant bispectrum shapes we identified in the halo model; after calibration this fits the simulations on all scales and redshifts of interest. We extend this model further to primordial non-Gaussianity of the local and equilateral types by showing that the same shapes can be used to describe the additional non-Gaussian component in the matter bispectrum. This method provides a HALOFIT-like prototype of the bispectrum that could be used to describe and test parameter dependencies and should be relevant for the bispectrum of weak gravitational lensing and wider applications.
Cosmological perturbation theory is crucial for our understanding of the universe. The linear theory has been well understood for some time, however developing and applying the theory beyond linear order is currently at the forefront of research in theoretical cosmology. This thesis studies the applications of perturbation theory to cosmology and, specifically, to the early universe. Starting with some background material introducing the well-tested standard model of cosmology, we move on to develop the formalism for perturbation theory up to second order giving evolution equations for all types of scalar, vector and tensor perturbations, both in gauge dependent and gauge invariant form. We then move on to the main result of the thesis, showing that, at second order in perturbation theory, vorticity is sourced by a coupling term quadratic in energy density and entropy perturbations. This source term implies a qualitative difference to linear order. Thus, while at linear order vorticity decays with the expansion of the universe, the same is not true at higher orders. This will have important implications on future measurements of the polarisation of the Cosmic Microwave Background, and could give rise to the generation of a primordial seed magnetic field. Having derived this qualitative result, we then estimate the scale dependence and magnitude of the vorticity power spectrum, finding, for simple power law inputs a small, blue spectrum. The final part of this thesis concerns higher order perturbation theory, deriving, for the first time, the metric tensor, gauge transformation rules and governing equations for fully general third order perturbations. We close with a discussion of natural extensions to this work and other possible ideas for off-shooting projects in this continually growing field.
We introduce the theory of non-linear cosmological perturbations using the correspondence limit of the Schrodinger equation. The resulting formalism is equivalent to using the collisionless Boltzman (or Vlasov) equations which remain valid during the whole evolution, even after shell crossing. Other formulations of perturbation theory explicitly break down at shell crossing, e.g. Eulerean perturbation theory, which describes gravitational collapse in the fluid limit. This paper lays the groundwork by introducing the new formalism, calculating the perturbation theory kernels which form the basis of all subsequent calculations. We also establish the connection with conventional perturbation theories, by showing that third order tree level results, such as bispectrum, skewness, cumulant correlators, three-point function are exactly reproduced in the appropriate expansion of our results. We explicitly show that cumulants up to N=5 predicted by Eulerian perturbation theory for the dark matter field $delta$ are exactly recovered in the corresponding limit. A logarithmic mapping of the field naturally arises in the Schrodinger context, which means that tree level perturbation theory translates into (possibly incomplete) loop corrections for the conventional perturbation theory. We show that the first loop correction for the variance is $sigma^2 = sigma_L^2+ (-1.14+n)sigma_L^4$ for a field with spectral index $n$. This yields 1.86 and 0.86 for $n=-3,-2$ respectively, and to be compared with the exact loop order corrections 1.82, and 0.88. Thus our tree-level theory recovers the dominant part of first order loop corrections of the conventional theory, while including (partial) loop corrections to infinite order in terms of $delta$.
We study the accuracy with which cosmological parameters can be determined from real space power spectrum of matter density contrast at weakly nonlinear scales using analytical approaches. From power spectra measured in $N$-body simulations and using Markov chain Monte-Carlo technique, the best-fitting cosmological input parameters are determined with several analytical methods as a theoretical template, such as the standard perturbation theory, the regularized perturbation theory, and the effective field theory. We show that at redshift 1, all two-loop level calculations can fit the measured power spectrum down to scales $k sim 0.2 , h , mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ and cosmological parameters are successfully estimated in an unbiased way. Introducing the Figure of bias (FoB) and Figure of merit (FoM) parameter, we determine the validity range of those models and then evaluate their relative performances. With one free parameter, namely the damping scale, the regularized perturbation theory is found to be able to provide the largest FoM parameter while keeping the FoB in the acceptance range.
I describe the theoretical progress in the study of semileptonic tree-level B decays, and its interplay with recent experimental results. In particular, I focus on two anomalies: the ratios $R(D^{(*)})=displaystylefrac{{cal B}(B to D^{(*)} tau bar u_tau)}{{cal B}(B to D^{(*)} ell bar u_ell)}$ and the inclusive versus exclusive determination of $|V_{cb}|$. I review a few explanations proposed for such anomalies, and discuss tests to shed light on their origin.