No Arabic abstract
(Abridged) Estimating the uncertainty on the matter power spectrum internally (i.e. directly from the data) is made challenging by the simple fact that galaxy surveys offer at most a few independent samples. In addition, surveys have non-trivial geometries, which make the interpretation of the observations even trickier, but the uncertainty can nevertheless be worked out within the Gaussian approximation. With the recent realization that Gaussian treatments of the power spectrum lead to biased error bars about the dilation of the baryonic acoustic oscillation scale, efforts are being directed towards developing non-Gaussian analyses, mainly from N-body simulations so far. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to tell how the non-Gaussian features observed in the simulations compare to those of the real Universe, and it is generally hard to tell at what level of accuracy the N-body simulations can model complicated non-linear effects such as mode coupling and galaxy bias. We propose in this paper a novel method that aims at measuring non-Gaussian error bars on the matter power spectrum directly from galaxy survey data. We utilize known symmetries of the 4-point function, Wiener filtering and principal component analysis to estimate the full covariance matrix from only four independent fields with minimal prior assumptions. With the noise filtering techniques and only four fields, we are able to recover the Fisher information obtained from a large N=200 sample to within 20 per cent, for k < 1.0 h/Mpc. Finally, we provide a prescription to extract a noise-filtered, non-Gaussian, covariance matrix from a handful of fields in the presence of a survey selection function.
[Abridged] We consider how galaxy clustering data, from Mpc to Gpc scales, from upcoming large scale structure surveys, such as Euclid and DESI, can provide discriminating information about the bispectrum shape arising from a variety of inflationary scenarios. Through exploring in detail the weighting of shape properties in the calculation of the halo bias and halo mass function we show how they probe a broad range of configurations, beyond those in the squeezed limit, that can help distinguish between shapes with similar large scale bias behaviors. We assess the impact, on constraints for a diverse set of non-Gaussian shapes, of galaxy clustering information in the mildly non-linear regime, and surveys that span multiple redshifts and employ different galactic tracers of the dark matter distribution. Fisher forecasts are presented for a Euclid-like spectroscopic survey of H$alpha$-selected emission line galaxies (ELGs) using recent revisions of the expected H$alpha$ luminosity function, and a DESI-like survey, of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and [O-II] doublet-selected ELGs, in combination with Planck-like CMB temperature and polarization data. While ELG samples provide better probes of shapes that are divergent in the squeezed limit, LRG constraints, centered below $z<1$, yield stronger constraints on shapes with scale-independent large-scale halo biases, such as the equilateral template. The ELG and LRG samples provide complementary degeneracy directions for distinguishing between different shapes. If the Gaussian galaxy bias is constrained to better than a percent level, such as can be determined from the galaxy bispectrum or weak lensing, then the LSS and CMB data could provide complementary constraints that will enable differentiation of bispectra with distinct theoretical origins but with similar large scale, squeezed-limit properties.
We study the constraining power on primordial non-Gaussianity of future surveys of the large-scale structure of the Universe for both near-term surveys (such as the Dark Energy Survey - DES) as well as longer term projects such as Euclid and WFIRST. Specifically we perform a Fisher matrix analysis forecast for such surveys, using DES-like and Euclid-like configurations as examples, and take account of any expected photometric and spectroscopic data. We focus on two-point statistics and we consider three observables: the 3D galaxy power spectrum in redshift space, the angular galaxy power spectrum, and the projected weak-lensing shear power spectrum. We study the effects of adding a few extra parameters to the basic LCDM set. We include the two standard parameters to model the current value for the dark energy equation of state and its time derivative, w_0, w_a, and we account for the possibility of primordial non-Gaussianity of the local, equilateral and orthogonal types, of parameter fNL and, optionally, of spectral index n_fNL. We present forecasted constraints on these parameters using the different observational probes. We show that accounting for models that include primordial non-Gaussianity does not degrade the constraint on the standard LCDM set nor on the dark-energy equation of state. By combining the weak lensing data and the information on projected galaxy clustering, consistently including all two-point functions and their covariance, we find forecasted marginalised errors sigma (fNL) ~ 3, sigma (n_fNL) ~ 0.12 from a Euclid-like survey for the local shape of primordial non-Gaussianity, while the orthogonal and equilateral constraints are weakened for the galaxy clustering case, due to the weaker scale-dependence of the bias. In the lensing case, the constraints remain instead similar in all configurations.
The sufficient statistics of the one-point probability density function of the dark matter density field is worked out using cosmological perturbation theory and tested to the Millennium simulation density field. The logarithmic transformation is recovered for spectral index close to $-1$ as a special case of the family of power transformations. We then discuss how these transforms should be modified in the case of noisy tracers of the field and focus on the case of Poisson sampling. This gives us optimal local transformations to apply to galaxy survey data prior the extraction of the spectrum in order to capture most efficiently the information encoded in large scale structures.
We revisit a possible scale-dependence of local-type primordial non-Gaussianities induced by super-horizon evolution of scalar field perturbations. We develop the formulation based on $delta N$ formalism and derive the generalized form of the local-type bispectrum and also trispectrum which allows us to implement the scale-dependence and suitably compare model prediction with observational data. We propose simple but phenomenologically meaningful expressions, which encompass the information of a wide range of physically motivated models. We also formulate large-scale power spectrum and bispectrum of biased objects in the presence of the scale-dependent primordial non-Gaussianities. We perform the Fisher analysis for future galaxy surveys and give the projected constraints on the parameters of the generalized local-form of primordial non-Gaussianities.
Model uncertainty quantification is an essential component of effective data assimilation. Model errors associated with sub-grid scale processes are often represented through stochastic parameterizations of the unresolved process. Many existing Stochastic Parameterization schemes are only applicable when knowledge of the true sub-grid scale process or full observations of the coarse scale process are available, which is typically not the case in real applications. We present a methodology for estimating the statistics of sub-grid scale processes for the more realistic case that only partial observations of the coarse scale process are available. Model error realizations are estimated over a training period by minimizing their conditional sum of squared deviations given some informative covariates (e.g. state of the system), constrained by available observations and assuming that the observation errors are smaller than the model errors. From these realizations a conditional probability distribution of additive model errors given these covariates is obtained, allowing for complex non-Gaussian error structures. Random draws from this density are then used in actual ensemble data assimilation experiments. We demonstrate the efficacy of the approach through numerical experiments with the multi-scale Lorenz 96 system using both small and large time scale separations between slow (coarse scale) and fast (fine scale) variables. The resulting error estimates and forecasts obtained with this new method are superior to those from two existing methods.