No Arabic abstract
We present a novel suite of cosmological N-body simulations called the DUSTGRAIN-pathfinder, implementing simultaneously the effects of an extension to General Relativity in the form of $f(R)$ gravity and of a non-negligible fraction of massive neutrinos. We describe the generation of simulated weak lensing and cluster counts observables within a past light-cone extracted from these simulations. The simulations have been performed by means of a combination of the MG-GADGET code and a particle-based implementation of massive neutrinos, while the light-cones have been generated using the MapSim pipeline allowing us to compute weak lensing maps through a ray-tracing algorithm for different values of the source plane redshift. The mock observables extracted from our simulations will be employed for a series of papers focussed on understanding and possibly breaking the well-known observational degeneracy between $f(R)$ gravity and massive neutrinos, i.e. the fact that some specific combinations of the characteristic parameters for these two phenomena (the $f_{R0}$ scalar amplitude and the total neutrino mass $Sigma m_{ u}$) may result indistinguishable from the standard $mathrm{Lambda CDM}$ cosmology through several standard observational probes. In particular, in the present work we show how a tomographic approach to weak lensing statistics could allow - especially for the next generation of wide-field surveys - to disentangle some of the models that appear statistically indistinguishable through standard single-redshift weak lensing probe.
In this paper we present a large database of weak lensing light cones constructed using different snapshots from the Big MultiDark simulation (BigMDPL). The ray-tracing through different multiple planes has been performed with the GLAMER code accounting both for single source redshifts and for sources distributed along the cosmic time. This first paper presents weak lensing forecasts and results according to the geometry of the VIPERS-W1 and VIPERS-W4 field of view. Additional fields will be available on our database and new ones can be run upon request. Our database also contains some tools for lensing analysis. In this paper we present results for convergence power spectra, one point and high order weak lensing statistics useful for forecasts and for cosmological studies. Covariance matrices have also been computed for the different realisations of the W1 and W4 fields. In addition we compute also galaxy-shear and projected density contrasts for different halo masses at two lens redshifts according to the CFHTLS source redshift distribution both using stacking and cross-correlation techniques, finding very good agreement.
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 $f(R)$ cosmologies in the void density profiles at $z=1$. However, these effects can be almost completely overridden by the presence of massive neutrinos because of their thermal free-streaming. Despite the limited volume of the analysed simulations does not allow us to achieve a statistically relevant abundance of voids larger than $40 mathrm{Mpc}/h$, we find that the void size function at high redshifts and for large voids is potentially an effective probe to disentangle these degenerate cosmological models, which is key in the prospective of the upcoming wide field redshift surveys.
Modified gravity and massive neutrino cosmologies are two of the most interesting scenarios that have been recently explored to account for possible observational deviations from the concordance $Lambda$-cold dark matter ($Lambda$CDM) model. In this context, we investigated the large-scale structure of the Universe by exploiting the dustp simulations that implement, simultaneously, the effects of $f(R)$ gravity and massive neutrinos. To study the possibility of breaking the degeneracy between these two effects, we analysed the redshift-space distortions in the clustering of dark matter haloes at different redshifts. Specifically, we focused on the monopole and quadrupole of the two-point correlation function, both in real and redshift space. The deviations with respect to $Lambda$CDM model have been quantified in terms of the linear growth rate parameter. We found that redshift-space distortions provide a powerful probe to discriminate between $Lambda$CDM and modified gravity models, especially at high redshifts ($z gtrsim 1$), even in the presence of massive neutrinos.
We examine general physical parameterisations for viable gravitational models in the $f(R)$ framework. This is related to the mass of an additional scalar field, called the scalaron, that is introduced by the theories. Using a simple parameterisation for the scalaron mass $M(a)$ we show there is an exact correspondence between the model and popular parameterisations of the modified Poisson equation $mu(a,k)$ and the ratio of the Newtonian potentials $eta(a,k)$. However, by comparing the aforementioned model against other viable scalaron theories we highlight that the common form of $mu(a,k)$ and $eta(a,k)$ in the literature does not accurately represent $f(R)$ behaviour. We subsequently construct an improved description for the scalaron mass (and therefore $mu(a,k)$ and $eta(a,k)$) which captures their essential features and has benefits derived from a more physical origin. We study the scalarons observational signatures and show the modification to the background Friedmann equation and CMB power spectrum to be small. We also investigate its effects in the linear and non linear matter power spectrum--where the signatures are evident--thus giving particular importance to weak lensing as a probe of these models. Using this new form, we demonstrate how the next generation Euclid survey will constrain these theories and its complementarity to current solar system tests. In the most optimistic case Euclid, together with a Planck prior, can constrain a fiducial scalaron mass $M_{0} = 9.4 times 10^{-30}{rm eV}$ at the $sim 20 %$ level. However, the decay rate of the scalaron mass, with fiducial value $ u = 1.5$, can be constrained to $sim 3%$ uncertainty.
The $Lambda$CDM concordance model is very successful at describing our Universe with high accuracy and few parameters. Despite its successes, a few tensions persist; most notably, the best-fit $Lambda$CDM model, as derived from the Planck CMB data, largely overpredicts the abundance of SZ clusters when using their standard mass calibration. Whether this is a sign of an incorrect calibration or the need for new physics remains a matter of debate. Here we examined two simple extensions of the standard model and their ability to release this tension: massive neutrinos and a simple modified gravity model via a non-standard growth index $gamma$. We used both the Planck CMB and SZ cluster counts as datasets, with or without local X-ray clusters. In the case of massive neutrinos, the SZ calibration $(1-b)$ is constrained to $0.59^{+0.03}_{-0.04}$ (68%), more than 5$sigma$ away from its standard value $sim0.8$. We found little correlation between $sum m_ u$ and $(1-b)$, corroborating previous conclusions derived from X-ray clusters; massive neutrinos do not alleviate the cluster-CMB tension. With our simple $gamma$ model, we found a large correlation between calibration and growth index but contrary to local X-ray clusters, SZ clusters are able to break the degeneracy between the two thanks to their extended $z$ range. The calibration $(1-b)$ was then constrained to $0.60^{+0.05}_{-0.07}$, leading to an interesting constraint on $gamma=0.60pm 0.13$. When both massive neutrinos and modified gravity were allowed, preferred values remained centred on standard $Lambda$CDM values, but $(1-b)sim0.8$ was allowed (though only at the $2sigma$ level) provided $sum m_ usim0.34 $ eV and $gammasim0.8$. We conclude that massive neutrinos do not relieve the cluster-CMB tension and that a calibration close to the standard value $0.8$ would call for new physics in the gravitational sector.