No Arabic abstract
When analyzing the galaxy bispectrum measured from spectroscopic surveys, it is imperative to account for the effects of non-uniform survey geometry. Conventionally, this is done by convolving the theory model with the the window function; however, the computational expense of this prohibits full exploration of the bispectrum likelihood. In this work, we provide a new class of estimators for the unwindowed bispectrum; a quantity that can be straightforwardly compared to theory. This builds upon the work of Philcox (2021) for the power spectrum, and comprises two parts (both obtained from an Edgeworth expansion): a cubic estimator applied to the data, and a Fisher matrix, which deconvolves the bispectrum components. In the limit of weak non-Gaussianity, the estimator is minimum-variance; furthermore, we give an alternate form based on FKP weights that is close-to-optimal and easy to compute. As a demonstration, we measure the binned bispectrum monopole of a suite of simulations both using conventional estimators and our unwindowed equivalents. Computation times are comparable, except that the unwindowed approach requires a Fisher matrix, computable in an additional $mathcal{O}(100)$ CPU-hours. Our estimator may be straightforwardly extended to measure redshift-space distortions and the components of the bispectrum in arbitrary separable bases. The techniques of this work will allow the bispectrum to straightforwardly included in the cosmological analysis of current and upcoming survey data.
Clustering of large-scale structure provides significant cosmological information through the power spectrum of density perturbations. Additional information can be gained from higher-order statistics like the bispectrum, especially to break the degeneracy between the linear halo bias $b_1$ and the amplitude of fluctuations $sigma_8$. We propose new simple, computationally inexpensive bispectrum statistics that are near optimal for the specific applications like bias determination. Corresponding to the Legendre decomposition of nonlinear halo bias and gravitational coupling at second order, these statistics are given by the cross-spectra of the density with three quadratic fields: the squared density, a tidal term, and a shift term. For halos and galaxies the first two have associated nonlinear bias terms $b_2$ and $b_{s^2}$, respectively, while the shift term has none in the absence of velocity bias (valid in the $k rightarrow 0$ limit). Thus the linear bias $b_1$ is best determined by the shift cross-spectrum, while the squared density and tidal cross-spectra mostly tighten constraints on $b_2$ and $b_{s^2}$ once $b_1$ is known. Since the form of the cross-spectra is derived from optimal maximum-likelihood estimation, they contain the full bispectrum information on bias parameters. Perturbative analytical predictions for their expectation values and covariances agree with simulations on large scales, $klesssim 0.09h/mathrm{Mpc}$ at $z=0.55$ with Gaussian $R=20h^{-1}mathrm{Mpc}$ smoothing, for matter-matter-matter, and matter-matter-halo combinations. For halo-halo-halo cross-spectra the model also needs to include corrections to the Poisson stochasticity.
This paper presents the characterization of the in-flight beams, the beam window functions and the associated uncertainties for the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI). Knowledge of the beam profiles is necessary for determining the transfer function to go from the observed to the actual sky anisotropy power spectrum. The main beam distortions affect the beam window function, complicating the reconstruction of the anisotropy power spectrum at high multipoles, whereas the sidelobes affect the low and intermediate multipoles. The in-flight assessment of the LFI main beams relies on the measurements performed during Jupiter observations. By stacking the data from multiple Jupiter transits, the main beam profiles are measured down to -20 dB at 30 and 44 GHz, and down to -25 dB at 70 GHz. The main beam solid angles are determined to better than 0.2% at each LFI frequency band. The Planck pre-launch optical model is conveniently tuned to characterize the main beams independently of any noise effects. This approach provides an optical model whose beams fully reproduce the measurements in the main beam region, but also allows a description of the beams at power levels lower than can be achieved by the Jupiter measurements themselves. The agreement between the simulated beams and the measured beams is better than 1% at each LFI frequency band. The simulated beams are used for the computation of the window functions for the effective beams. The error budget for the window functions is estimated from both main beam and sidelobe contributions, and accounts for the radiometer bandshapes. The total uncertainties in the effective beam window functions are: 2% and 1.2% at 30 and 44 GHz, respectively (at $ell approx 600$), and 0.7% at 70 GHz (at $ell approx 1000$).
This paper presents the characterization of the in-flight beams, the beam window functions, and the associated uncertainties for the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI). The structure of the paper is similar to that presented in the 2013 Planck release; the main differences concern the beam normalization and the delivery of the window functions to be used for polarization analysis. The in-flight assessment of the LFI main beams relies on measurements performed during observations of Jupiter. By stacking data from seven Jupiter transits, the main beam profiles are measured down to -25 dB at 30 and 44 GHz, and down to -30 dB at 70 GHz. It has been confirmed that the agreement between the simulated beams and the measured beams is better than 1% at each LFI frequency band (within the 20 dB contour from the peak, the rms values are 0.1% at 30 and 70 GHz; 0.2% at 44 GHz). Simulated polarized beams are used for the computation of the effective beam window functions. The error budget for the window functions is estimated from both main beam and sidelobe contributions, and accounts for the radiometer band shapes. The total uncertainties in the effective beam window functions are 0.7% and 1% at 30 and 44 GHz, respectively (at $ell approx 600$); and 0.5% at 70 GHz (at $ell approx 1000$).
The apparent anisotropies of the galaxy clustering in observable redshift space provide a unique opportunity to simultaneously probe cosmic expansion and gravity on cosmological scales via the Alcock--Paczynski effect and redshift-space distortions. While the improved theoretical models have been proposed and developed to describe the apparent anisotropic clustering at weakly non-linear scales, the applicability of these models is still limited in the presence of the non--perturbative smearing effect caused by the randomness of the relative velocities. Although the cosmological constraint from the anisotropic clustering will be certainly improved with a more elaborate theoretical model, we here consider an alternative way by using the statistical power of both the power spectrum and bispectrum at large scales. Based on the Fisher matrix analysis, we estimate the benefit of combining the power spectra and bispectra, finding that the constraints on the cosmic expansion and growth of structure will be improved by a factor of two. This compensates for the loss of constraining power using the power spectrum alone due to the randomness of the relative velocities.
High-precision constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) will significantly improve our understanding of the physics of the early universe. Among all the subtleties in using large scale structure observables to constrain PNG, accounting for relativistic corrections to the clustering statistics is particularly important for the upcoming galaxy surveys covering progressively larger fraction of the sky. We focus on relativistic projection effects due to the fact that we observe the galaxies through the light that reaches the telescope on perturbed geodesics. These projection effects can give rise to an effective $f_{rm NL}$ that can be misinterpreted as the primordial non-Gaussianity signal and hence is a systematic to be carefully computed and accounted for in modelling of the bispectrum. We develop the technique to properly account for relativistic effects in terms of purely observable quantities, namely angles and redshifts. We give some examples by applying this approach to a subset of the contributions to the tree-level bispectrum of the observed galaxy number counts calculated within perturbation theory and estimate the corresponding non-Gaussianity parameter, $f_{rm NL}$, for the local, equilateral and orthogonal shapes. For the local shape, we also compute the local non-Gaussianity resulting from terms obtained using the consistency relation for observed number counts. Our goal here is not to give a precise estimate of $f_{rm NL}$ for each shape but rather we aim to provide a scheme to compute the non-Gaussian contamination due to relativistic projection effects. For the terms considered in this work, we obtain contamination of $f_{rm NL}^{rm loc} sim {mathcal O}(1)$.