No Arabic abstract
When measuring the value of the Hubble parameter, $H_0$, it is necessary to know the recession velocity free of the effects of peculiar velocities. In this work, we study different models of peculiar velocity in the local Universe. In particular, we compare models based on density reconstruction from galaxy redshift surveys and kernel smoothing of peculiar velocity data. The velocity field from the density reconstruction is obtained using the 2M++ galaxy redshift compilation, which is compared to two adaptive kernel-smoothed velocity fields: the first obtained from the 6dF Fundamental Plane sample and the other using a Tully-Fisher catalogue obtained by combining SFI++ and 2MTF. We highlight that smoothed velocity fields should be rescaled to obtain unbiased velocity estimates. Comparing the predictions of these models to the observations from a few test sets of peculiar velocity data, obtained from the Second Amendment Supernovae catalogue and the Tully-Fisher catalogues, we find that 2M++ reconstruction provides a better model of the peculiar velocity in the local Universe than the kernel-smoothed peculiar velocity models. We study the impact of peculiar velocities on the measurement of $H_0$ from gravitational waves and megamasers. In doing so, we introduce a probabilistic framework to marginalize over the peculiar velocity corrections along the line-of-sight. For the megamasers, we find $H_0 = 69^{+2.9}_{-2.8}$ km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1} using the 2M++ velocity field. We also study the peculiar velocity of the the galaxy NGC1052-DF2, concluding that a short $sim$ 13 Mpc distance is not a likely explanation of the anomalously low dark matter fraction of that galaxy.
The discrepancy between estimates of the Hubble Constant ($H_0$) measured from local ($z lesssim 0.1$) scales and from scales of the sound horizon is a crucial problem in modern cosmology. Peculiar velocities ($v_{pec}$) of standard candle distance indicators can systematically affect local $H_0$ measurements. We here use 2MRS galaxies to measure the local galaxy density field, finding a notable $z$ < 0.05 under-density in the SGC-6dFGS region of 27 $pm$ 2 %. However, no strong evidence for a Local Void pertaining to the full 2MRS sky coverage is found. Galaxy densities are used to measure a density parameter, $Delta phi_{+-}$, which we introduce as a proxy for $v_{pec}$ which quantifies density gradients along a SN line-of-sight. $Delta phi_{+-}$ is found to correlate with local $H_0$ estimates from 88 Pantheon SNeIa (0.02 < $z$ < 0.05). Density structures on scales of $sim$ 50 Mpc are found to correlate strongest with $H_0$ estimates in both the observational data and in mock data from the MDPL2-Galacticus simulation. Using trends of $H_0$ with $Delta phi_{+-}$, we can correct for the effects of density structure on local $H_0$ estimates, even in the presence of biased $v_{pec}$. However, the difference in the inferred $H_0$ estimate with and without the peculiar velocity correction is limited to < 0.1 %. We conclude that accounting for environmentally-induced peculiar velocities of SNIa host galaxies does not resolve the tension between local and CMB-derived $H_0$ estimates.
Sterile neutrinos comprise an entire class of dark matter models that, depending on their production mechanism, can be hot, warm, or cold dark matter. We simulate the Local Group and representative volumes of the Universe in a variety of sterile neutrino models, all of which are consistent with the possible existence of a radiative decay line at ~3.5 keV. We compare models of production via resonances in the presence of a lepton asymmetry (suggested by Shi & Fuller 1999) to thermal models. We find that properties in the highly nonlinear regime - e.g., counts of satellites and internal properties of halos and subhalos - are insensitive to the precise fall-off in power with wavenumber, indicating that nonlinear evolution essentially washes away differences in the initial (linear) matter power spectrum. In the quasi-linear regime at higher redshifts, however, quantitative differences in the 3D matter power spectra remain, raising the possibility that such models can be tested with future observations of the Lyman-alpha forest. While many of the sterile neutrino models largely eliminate multiple small-scale issues within the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) paradigm, we show that these models may be ruled out in the near future via discoveries of additional dwarf satellites in the Local Group.
We constrain and update the bounds on the life-time of a decaying dark matter model with a warm massive daughter particle using the most recent low-redshift probes. We use Supernovae Type-Ia, Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and the time delay measurements of gravitationally lensed quasars. These data sets are complemented by the early universe priors taken from the Cosmic Microwave background. For the maximum allowed fraction of the relativistic daughter particle, the updated bounds on the life-time are found to be $tau > 9, rm{Gyr}$ and $tau >11,rm{Gyr}$ at $95%$ C.L., for the two-body and many-body decay scenarios, respectively. We also comment on the recent proposal that the current two-body decaying dark matter model can provide resolution for the $H_0$-tension, by contrasting against the standard $Lambda$CDM model. We infer that the current dark matter decaying scenario is unlikely to alleviate the $H_0$-tension. We find that the decaying dark matter is able to reduce the trend of the decreasing $H_0$ values with increasing lens redshifts observed in the strong lensing dataset.
The cosmic electron and positron excesses have been explained as possible dark matter (DM) annihilation products. In this work we investigate the possible effects of such a DM annihilation scenario during the evolution history of the Universe. We first calculate the extragalactic $gamma$-ray background (EGRB), which is produced through the final state radiation of DM annihilation to charged leptons and the inverse Compton scattering between electrons/positrons and the cosmic microwave background. The DM halo profile and the minimal halo mass, which are not yet well determined from the current N-body simulations, are constrained by the EGRB data from EGRET and Fermi telescopes. Then we discuss the impact of such leptonic DM models on cosmic evolution, such as the reionization and heating of intergalactic medium, neutral Hydrogen 21 cm signal and suppression of structure formation. We show that the impact on the Hydrogen 21 cm signal might show interesting signatures of DM annihilation, but the influence on star formation is not remarkable. Future observations of the 21 cm signals could be used to place new constraints on the properties of DM.
We review how dark matter is distributed in our local neighbourhood from an observational and theoretical perspective. We will start by describing first the dark matter halo of our own galaxy and in the Local Group. Then we proceed to describe the dark matter distribution in the more extended area known as the Local Universe. Depending on the nature of dark matter, numerical simulations predict different abundances of substructures in Local Group galaxies, in the number of void regions and in the abundance of low rotational velocity galaxies in the Local Universe. By comparing these predictions with the most recent observations, strong constrains on the physical properties of the dark matter particles can be derived. We devote particular attention to the results from the Constrained Local UniversE Simulations (CLUES) project, a special set of simulations whose initial conditions are constrained by observational data from the Local Universe. The resulting simulations are designed to reproduce the observed structures in the nearby universe. The CLUES provides a numerical laboratory for simulating the Local Group of galaxies and exploring the physics of galaxy formation in an environment designed to follow the observed Local Universe. It has come of age as the numerical analogue of Near-Field Cosmology.