No Arabic abstract
General relativity as one the pillar of modern cosmology has to be thoroughly tested if we want to achieve an accurate cosmology. We present the results from such a test on cosmological scales using cosmic shear and galaxy clustering measurements. We parametrize potential deviation from general relativity as a modification to the cosmological Poisson equation. We consider two models relevant either for some linearized theory of massive gravity or for the physics of extra-dimensions. We use the latest observations from the CFHTLS-Wide survey and the SDSS survey to set our constraints. We do not find any deviation from general relativity on scales between 0.04 and 10 Mpc. We derive constraints on the graviton mass in a restricted class of model.
We use the cosmic shear data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey to place constraints on $f(R)$ and {it Generalized Dilaton} models of modified gravity. This is highly complimentary to other probes since the constraints mainly come from the non-linear scales: maximal deviations with respects to the General-Relativity + $Lambda$CDM scenario occurs at $ksim1 h mbox{Mpc}^{-1}$. At these scales, it becomes necessary to account for known degeneracies with baryon feedback and massive neutrinos, hence we place constraints jointly on these three physical effects. To achieve this, we formulate these modified gravity theories within a common tomographic parameterization, we compute their impact on the clustering properties relative to a GR universe, and propagate the observed modifications into the weak lensing $xi_{pm}$ quantity. Confronted against the cosmic shear data, we reject the $f(R)$ ${ |f_{R_0}|=10^{-4}, n=1}$ model with more than 99.9% confidence interval (CI) when assuming a $Lambda$CDM dark matter only model. In the presence of baryonic feedback processes and massive neutrinos with total mass up to 0.2eV, the model is disfavoured with at least 94% CI in all different combinations studied. Constraints on the ${ |f_{R_0}|=10^{-4}, n=2}$ model are weaker, but nevertheless disfavoured with at least 89% CI. We identify several specific combinations of neutrino mass, baryon feedback and $f(R)$ or Dilaton gravity models that are excluded by the current cosmic shear data. Notably, universes with three massless neutrinos and no baryon feedback are strongly disfavoured in all modified gravity scenarios studied. These results indicate that competitive constraints may be achieved with future cosmic shear data.
We present the first cosmic shear measurements obtained from the T0001 release of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey. The data set covers three uncorrelated patches (D1, D3 and D4) of one square degree each observed in u*, g, r, i and z bands, out to i=25.5. The depth and the multicolored observations done in deep fields enable several data quality controls. The lensing signal is detected in both r and i bands and shows similar amplitude and slope in both filters. B-modes are found to be statistically zero at all scales. Using multi-color information, we derived a photometric redshift for each galaxy and separate the sample into medium and high-z galaxies. A stronger shear signal is detected from the high-z subsample than from the low-z subsample, as expected from weak lensing tomography. While further work is needed to model the effects of errors in the photometric redshifts, this results suggests that it will be possible to obtain constraints on the growth of dark matter fluctuations with lensing wide field surveys. The various quality tests and analysis discussed in this work demonstrate that MegaPrime/Megacam instrument produces excellent quality data. The combined Deep and Wide surveys give sigma_8= 0.89 pm 0.06 assuming the Peacock & Dodds non-linear scheme and sigma_8=0.86 pm 0.05 for the halo fitting model and Omega_m=0.3. We assumed a Cold Dark Matter model with flat geometry. Systematics, Hubble constant and redshift uncertainties have been marginalized over. Using only data from the Deep survey, the 1 sigma upper bound for w_0, the constant equation of state parameter is w_0 < -0.8.
We present an exploration of weak lensing by large-scale structure in the linear regime, using the third-year (T0003) CFHTLS Wide data release. Our results place tight constraints on the scaling of the amplitude of the matter power spectrum sigma_8 with the matter density Omega_m. Spanning 57 square degrees to i_AB = 24.5 over three independent fields, the unprecedented contiguous area of this survey permits high signal-to-noise measurements of two-point shear statistics from 1 arcmin to 4 degrees. Understanding systematic errors in our analysis is vital in interpreting the results. We therefore demonstrate the percent-level accuracy of our method using STEP simulations, an E/B-mode decomposition of the data, and the star-galaxy cross correlation function. We also present a thorough analysis of the galaxy redshift distribution using redshift data from the CFHTLS T0003 Deep fields that probe the same spatial regions as the Wide fields. We find sigma_8(Omega_m/0.25)^0.64 = 0.785+-0.043 using the aperture-mass statistic for the full range of angular scales for an assumed flat cosmology, in excellent agreement with WMAP3 constraints. The largest physical scale probed by our analysis is 85 Mpc, assuming a mean redshift of lenses of 0.5 and a LCDM cosmology. This allows for the first time to constrain cosmology using only cosmic shear measurements in the linear regime. Using only angular scales theta> 85 arcmin, we find sigma_8(Omega_m/0.25)_lin^0.53 = 0.837+-0.084, which agree with the results from our full analysis. Combining our results with data from WMAP3, we find Omega_m=0.248+-0.019 and sigma_8 = 0.771+-0.029.
We use a range of cosmological data to constrain phenomenological modifications to general relativity on cosmological scales, through modifications to the Poisson and lensing equations. We include cosmic microwave background anisotropy measurements from the Planck satellite, cosmic shear from CFHTLenS and DES-SV, and redshift-space distortions from BOSS data release 12 and the 6dF galaxy survey. We find no evidence of departures from general relativity, with the modified gravity parameters constrained to $Sigma_0 = 0.05^{+0.05}_{-0.07}$ and $mu_0 = -0.10^{+0.20}_{-0.16}$, where $Sigma_0$ and $mu_0$ refer to deviations from general relativity today and are defined to be zero in general relativity. We also forecast the sensitivity to those parameters of the full five-year Dark Energy Survey and of an experiment like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, showing a substantial expected improvement in the constraint on $Sigma_0$.
Stripe 82 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey was observed multiple times, allowing deeper images to be constructed by coadding the data. Here we analyze the ellipticities of background galaxies in this 275 square degree region, searching for evidence of distortions due to cosmic shear. The E-mode is detected in both real and Fourier space with $>5$-$sigma$ significance on degree scales, while the B-mode is consistent with zero as expected. The amplitude of the signal constrains the combination of the matter density $Omega_m$ and fluctuation amplitude $sigma_8$ to be $Omega_m^{0.7}sigma_8 = 0.252^{+0.032}_{-0.052}$.