No Arabic abstract
Current and upcoming cosmological experiments open a new era of precision cosmology, thus demanding accurate theoretical predictions for cosmological observables. Because of the complexity of the codes delivering such predictions, reaching a high level of numerical accuracy is challenging. Among the codes already fulfilling this task, $textsf{PyCosmo}$ is a Python based framework providing solutions to the Einstein-Boltzmann equations and accurate predictions for cosmological observables. In this work, we first describe how the observables are implemented. Then, we check the accuracy of the theoretical predictions for background quantities, power spectra and Limber and beyond-Limber angular power spectra by comparison with other codes: the Core Cosmology Library ($texttt{CCL}$), $texttt{CLASS}$, $texttt{HMCode}$ and $texttt{iCosmo}$. In our analysis we quantify the agreement of $textsf{PyCosmo}$ with the other codes, for a range of cosmological models, monitored through a series of $textit{unit tests}$. $textsf{PyCosmo}$, conceived as a multi purpose cosmology calculation tool in $texttt{Python}$, is designed to be interactive and user friendly. A current version of the code (without the Boltzmann Solver) is publicly available and can be used interactively on the platform $textsf{PyCosmo Hub}$, all accessible from this link: https://cosmology.ethz.ch/research/software-lab/PyCosmo.html . On the hub the users can perform their own computations using $texttt{Jupyter Notebooks}$ without the need of installing any software, access to the results presented in this work and benefit from tutorial notebooks illustrating the usage of the code. The link above also redirects to the code release and documentation.
Cosmological data provide a powerful tool in the search for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). An interesting target are light relics, new degrees of freedom which decoupled from the SM while relativistic. Nearly massless relics contribute to the radiation energy budget, and are commonly parametrized as variations in the effective number $N_{rm eff}$ of neutrino species. Additionally, relics with masses greater than $10^{-4}$ eV become non-relativistic before today, and thus behave as matter instead of radiation. This leaves an imprint in the clustering of the large-scale structure of the universe, as light relics have important streaming motions, mirroring the case of massive neutrinos. Here we forecast how well current and upcoming cosmological surveys can probe light massive relics (LiMRs). We consider minimal extensions to the SM by both fermionic and bosonic relic degrees of freedom. By combining current and upcoming cosmic-microwave-background and large-scale-structure surveys, we forecast the significance at which each LiMR, with different masses and temperatures, can be detected. We find that a very large coverage of parameter space will be attainable by upcoming experiments, opening the possibility of exploring uncharted territory for new physics beyond the SM.
We derive new limits on the elastic scattering cross-section between baryons and dark matter using Cosmic Microwave Background data from the Planck satellite and measurements of the Lyman-alpha forest flux power spectrum from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our analysis addresses generic cross sections of the form $sigmapropto v^n$, where v is the dark matter-baryon relative velocity, allowing for constraints on the cross section independent of specific particle physics models. We include high-$ell$ polarization data from Planck in our analysis, improving over previous constraints. We apply a more careful treatment of dark matter thermal evolution than previously done, allowing us to extend our constraints down to dark matter masses of $sim$MeV. We show in this work that cosmological probes are complementary to current direct detection and astrophysical searches.
We derive all contributions to the dispersion measure (DM) of electromagnetic pulses to linear order in cosmological perturbations, including both density fluctuations and relativistic effects. We then use this result to calculate the power spectrum of DM-based cosmological observables to linear order in perturbations. In particular, we study two cases: maps of the dispersion measure from a set of localized sources (including the effects of source clustering), and fluctuations in the density of DM-selected sources. The impact of most relativistic effects is limited to large angular scales, and is negligible for all practical applications in the context of ongoing and envisaged observational programs targeting fast radio bursts. We compare the leading contributions to DM-space clustering, including the effects of gravitational lensing, and find that the signal is dominated by the fluctuations in the free electron column density, rather than the local source clustering or lensing contributions. To compensate for the disappointing irrelevance of relativistic effects, we re-derive them in terms of the geodesic equation for massive particles in a perturbed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric.
Creating accurate and low-noise covariance matrices represents a formidable challenge in modern-day cosmology. We present a formalism to compress arbitrary observables into a small number of bins by projection into a model-specific subspace that minimizes the prior-averaged log-likelihood error. The lower dimensionality leads to a dramatic reduction in covariance matrix noise, significantly reducing the number of mocks that need to be computed. Given a theory model, a set of priors, and a simple model of the covariance, our method works by using singular value decompositions to construct a basis for the observable that is close to Euclidean; by restricting to the first few basis vectors, we can capture almost all the constraining power in a lower-dimensional subspace. Unlike conventional approaches, the method can be tailored for specific analyses and captures non-linearities that are not present in the Fisher matrix, ensuring that the full likelihood can be reproduced. The procedure is validated with full-shape analyses of power spectra from BOSS DR12 mock catalogs, showing that the 96-bin power spectra can be replaced by 12 subspace coefficients without biasing the output cosmology; this allows for accurate parameter inference using only $sim 100$ mocks. Such decompositions facilitate accurate testing of power spectrum covariances; for the largest BOSS data chunk, we find that: (a) analytic covariances provide accurate models (with or without trispectrum terms); and (b) using the sample covariance from the MultiDark-Patchy mocks incurs a $sim 0.5sigma$ shift in $Omega_m$, unless the subspace projection is applied. The method is easily extended to higher order statistics; the $sim 2000$-bin bispectrum can be compressed into only $sim 10$ coefficients, allowing for accurate analyses using few mocks and without having to increase the bin sizes.
We introduce a $textit{frequency-dependent}$ Doppler and aberration transformation kernel for the harmonic multipoles of a general cosmological observable with spin weight $s$, Doppler weight $d$ and arbitrary frequency spectrum. In the context of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) studies, the frequency-dependent formalism allows to correct for the motion-induced aberration and Doppler effects on individual frequency maps with different masks. It also permits to deboost background radiations with non-blackbody frequency spectra, like extragalactic foregrounds and CMB spectra with primordial spectral distortions. The formalism can also be used to correct individual E and B polarization modes and account for motion-induced E/B mixing of polarized observables with $d eq1$ at different frequencies. We apply the generalized aberration kernel on polarized and unpolarized CMB specific intensity at 100 and 217 GHz and show that the motion-induced effects typically increase with the frequency of observation. In all-sky CMB experiments, the frequency-dependence of the motion-induced effects for a blackbody spectrum are overall negligible. However in a cut-sky analysis, ignoring the frequency dependence can lead to percent level error in the polarized and unpolarized power spectra over all angular scales. In the specific cut-sky used in our analysis ($b > 45^circ, f_text{sky}simeq14%$), and for the dipole-inferred velocity $beta=0.00123$ typically attributed to our peculiar motion, the Doppler and aberration effects can change polarized and unpolarized power spectra of specific intensity in the CMB rest frame by $1-2%$, but we find the polarization cross-leakage between E and B modes to be negligible.