No Arabic abstract
Measurements of the clustering of galaxies in Fourier space, and at low wavenumbers, offer a window into the early Universe via the possible presence of scale dependent bias generated by Primordial Non Gaussianites. On such large scales a Newtonian treatment of density perturbations might not be sufficient to describe the measurements, and a fully relativistic calculation should be employed. The interpretation of the data is thus further complicated by the fact that relativistic effects break statistical homogeneity and isotropy and are potentially divergent in the Infra-Red (IR). In this work we compute for the first time the ensemble average of the most used Fourier space estimator in spectroscopic surveys, including all general relativistic (GR) effects, and allowing for an arbitrary choice of angular and radial selection functions. We show that any observable is free of IR sensitivity once all the GR terms, individually divergent, are taken into account, and that this cancellation is a consequence of the presence of the Weinberg adiabatic mode as a solution to Einsteins equations. We then study the importance of GR effects, including lensing magnification, in the interpretation of the galaxy power spectrum multipoles, finding that they are in general a small, less than ten percent level, correction to the leading redshift space distortions term. This work represents the baseline for future investigations of the interplay between Primordial Non Gaussianities and GR effects on large scales and in Fourier space.
We present the galaxy power spectrum in general relativity. Using a novel approach, we derive the galaxy power spectrum taking into account all the relativistic effects in observations. In particular, we show independently of survey geometry that relativistic effects yield no divergent terms (proportional to $k^{-4}P_m(k)$ or $k^{-2}P_m(k)$ on all scales) that would mimic the signal of primordial non-Gaussianity. This cancellation of such divergent terms is indeed expected from the equivalence principle, meaning that any perturbation acting as a uniform gravity on the scale of the experiment cannot be measured. We find that the unphysical infrared divergence obtained in previous calculations occurred only due to not considering all general relativistic contributions consistently. Despite the absence of divergent terms, general relativistic effects represented by non-divergent terms alter the galaxy power spectrum at large scales (smaller than the horizon scale). In our numerical computation of the full galaxy power spectrum, we show the deviations from the standard redshift-space power spectrum due to these non-divergent corrections. We conclude that, as relativistic effects significantly alter the galaxy power spectrum at $klesssim k_{eq}$, they need to be taken into account in the analysis of large-scale data.
This is the third of a series of papers in which we derive simultaneous constraints on cosmological parameters and X-ray scaling relations using observations of the growth of massive, X-ray flux-selected galaxy clusters. Our data set consists of 238 clusters drawn from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey, and incorporates extensive follow-up observations using the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Here we present improved constraints on departures from General Relativity (GR) on cosmological scales, using the growth index, gamma, to parameterize the linear growth rate of cosmic structure. Using the method of Mantz et al. (2009a), we simultaneously and self-consistently model the growth of X-ray luminous clusters and their observable-mass scaling relations, accounting for survey biases, parameter degeneracies and systematic uncertainties. We combine the cluster growth data with gas mass fraction, SNIa, BAO and CMB data. This combination leads to a tight correlation between gamma and sigma_8. Consistency with GR requires gamma~0.55. Under the assumption of self-similar evolution and constant scatter in the scaling relations, and for a flat LCDM model, we measure gamma(sigma_8/0.8)^6.8=0.55+0.13-0.10, with 0.79<sigma_8<0.89. Relaxing the assumptions on the scaling relations by introducing two additional parameters to model possible evolution in the normalization and scatter of the luminosity-mass relation, we obtain consistent constraints on gamma that are only ~20% weaker than those above. Allowing the dark energy equation of state, w, to take any constant value, we simultaneously constrain the growth and expansion histories, and find no evidence for departures from either GR or LCDM. Our results represent the most robust consistency test of GR on cosmological scales to date. (Abridged)
We perform theoretical and numerical studies of the full relativistic two-point galaxy correlation function, considering the linear-order scalar and tensor perturbation contributions and the wide-angle effects. Using the gauge-invariant relativistic description of galaxy clustering and accounting for the contributions at the observer position, we demonstrate that the complete theoretical expression is devoid of any long-mode contributions from scalar or tensor perturbations and it lacks the infrared divergences in agreement with the equivalence principle. By showing that the gravitational potential contribution to the correlation function converges in the infrared, our study justifies an IR cut-off $(k_{text{IR}} leq H_0)$ in computing the gravitational potential contribution. Using the full gauge-invariant expression, we numerically compute the galaxy two-point correlation function and study the individual contributions in the conformal Newtonian gauge. We find that the terms at the observer position such as the coordinate lapses and the observer velocity (missing in the standard formalism) dominate over the other relativistic contributions in the conformal Newtonian gauge such as the source velocity, the gravitational potential, the integrated Sachs-Wolf effect, the Shapiro time-delay and the lensing convergence. Compared to the standard Newtonian theoretical predictions that consider only the density fluctuation and redshift-space distortions, the relativistic effects in galaxy clustering result in a few percent-level systematic errors beyond the scale of the baryonic acoustic oscillation. Our theoretical and numerical study provides a comprehensive understanding of the relativistic effects in the galaxy two-point correlation function, as it proves the validity of the theoretical prediction and accounts for effects that are often neglected in its numerical evaluation.
We investigate the potential of the galaxy power spectrum to constrain compensated isocurvature perturbations (CIPs), primordial fluctuations in the baryon density that are compensated by fluctuations in CDM density to ensure an unperturbed total matter density. We show that CIPs contribute to the galaxy overdensity at linear order, and if they are close to scale-invariant, their effects are nearly perfectly degenerate with the local PNG parameter $f_{rm nl}$ if they correlate with the adiabatic perturbations. This degeneracy can however be broken by analyzing multiple galaxy samples with different bias parameters, or by taking CMB priors on $f_{rm nl}$ into account. Parametrizing the amplitude of the CIP power spectrum as $P_{sigmasigma} = A^2P_{mathcal{R}mathcal{R}}$ (where $P_{mathcal{R}mathcal{R}}$ is the adiabatic power spectrum) we find, for a number of fiducial galaxy samples in a simplified forecast setup, that constraints on $A$, relative to those on $f_{rm nl}$, of order $sigma_{A}/sigma_{f_{rm nl}} approx 1-2$ are achievable for CIPs correlated with adiabatic perturbations, and $sigma_{A}/sigma_{f_{rm nl}} approx 5$ for the uncorrelated case. These values are independent of survey volume, and suggest that current galaxy data are already able to improve significantly on the tightest existing constraints on CIPs from the CMB. Future galaxy surveys that aim to achieve $sigma_{f_{rm nl}} sim 1$ have the potential to place even stronger bounds on CIPs.
We discuss the question of gauge choice when analysing relativistic density perturbations at second order. We compare Newtonian and General Relativistic approaches. Some misconceptions in the recent literature are addressed. We show that the comoving-synchronous gauge is the unique gauge in General Relativity that corresponds to the Lagrangian frame and is entirely appropriate to describe the matter overdensity at second order. The comoving-synchronous gauge is the simplest gauge in which to describe Lagrangian bias at second order.