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Register a new userThe Coyote Universe II: Cosmological Models and Precision Emulation of the Nonlinear Matter Power Spectrum
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The power spectrum of density fluctuations is a foundational source of cosmological information. Precision cosmological probes targeted primarily at investigations of dark energy require accurate theoretical determinations of the power spectrum in the nonlinear regime. To exploit the observational power of future cosmological surveys, accuracy demands on the theory are at the one percent level or better. Numerical simulations are currently the only way to produce sufficiently error-controlled predictions for the power spectrum. The very high computational cost of (precision) N-body simulations is a major obstacle to obtaining predictions in the nonlinear regime, while scanning over cosmological parameters. Near-future observations, however, are likely to provide a meaningful constraint only on constant dark energy equation of state wCDM cosmologies. In this paper we demonstrate that a limited set of only 37 cosmological models -- the Coyote Universe suite -- can be used to predict the nonlinear matter power spectrum at the required accuracy over a prior parameter range set by cosmic microwave background observations. This paper is the second in a series of three, with the final aim to provide a high-accuracy prediction scheme for the nonlinear matter power spectrum for wCDM cosmologies.
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Inflation drives quantum fluctuations beyond the Hubble horizon, freezing them out before the small-scale modes re-enter during the radiation dominated epoch, and subsequently decay, while large-scale modes re-enter later during the matter dominated epoch and grow. This distinction shapes the matter power spectrum and provides observational evidence in support of the standard model. In this paper, we demonstrate that another mechanism, based on the fluctuation growth in the R_h=ct universe, itself an FLRW cosmology with the added constraint of zero active mass (i.e., rho+3p=0), also accounts very well for the observed matter power spectrum, so this feature is not unique to LambdaCDM. In R_h=ct, the shape of the matter power spectrum is set by the interplay between the more rapid decay of the gravitational potential for the smaller mode wavelengths and the longer dynamical timescale for the larger wavelengths. This combination produces a characteristic peak that grows in both amplitude and mode number as a function of time. Today, that peak lies at k approx 0.02 Mpc^-1, in agreement with the Ly-alpha and Planck data. But there is no need of an inflationary expansion, and a complicated epoch dependence as one finds in LambdaCDM.
We propose an alternative approach to the construction of fitting functions to the nonlinear matter power spectrum extracted from $N$-body simulations based on the relative matter power spectrum $delta(k,a)$, defined as the fractional deviation in the absolute matter power spectrum produced by a target cosmology away from a reference $Lambda$CDM prediction. From the computational perspective, $delta(k,a)$ is fairly insensitive to the specifics of the simulation settings, and numerical convergence at the 1%-level can be readily achieved without the need for huge computing capacity. Furthermore, $delta(k,a)$ exhibits several interesting properties that enable a piece-wise construction of the full fitting function, whereby component fitting functions are sought for single-parameter variations and then multiplied together to form the final product. Then, to obtain 1%-accurate absolute power spectrum predictions for any target cosmology only requires that the community as a whole invests in producing one single ultra-precise reference $Lambda$CDM absolute power spectrum, to be combined with the fitting function to produce the desired result. To illustrate the power of this approach, we have constructed the fitting function RelFit using only five relatively inexpensive $w$CDM simulations (box length $L=256 h^{-1}$Mpc, $N=1024^3$ particles, initialised at $z_i=49$). In a 6-parameter space spanning ${omega_m,A_s,n_s,w,omega_b,h}$, the output relative power spectra of RelFit are consistent with the predictions of the CosmicEmu emulator to 1% or better for a wide range of cosmologies up to $ksimeq 10$/Mpc. Thus, our approach could provide an inexpensive and democratically accessible route to fulfilling the 1%-level accuracy demands of the upcoming generation of large-scale structure probes, especially in the exploration of non-standard or exotic cosmologies on nonlinear scales.
The thermal and expansion history of the Universe before big bang nucleosynthesis is unknown. We investigate the evolution of cosmological perturbations through the transition from an early matter era to radiation domination. We treat reheating as the perturbative decay of an oscillating scalar field into relativistic plasma and cold dark matter. After reheating, we find that subhorizon perturbations in the decay-produced dark matter density are significantly enhanced, while subhorizon radiation perturbations are instead suppressed. If dark matter originates in the radiation bath after reheating, this suppression may be the primary cutoff in the matter power spectrum. Conversely, for dark matter produced nonthermally from scalar decay, enhanced perturbations can drive structure formation during the cosmic dark ages and dramatically increase the abundance of compact substructures. For low reheat temperatures, we find that as much as 50% of all dark matter is in microhalos with M > 0.1 Earth masses at z=100, compared to a fraction of 1e-10 in the standard case. In this scenario, ultradense substructures may constitute a large fraction of dark matter in galaxies today.
We model the 21cm power spectrum across the Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) in fuzzy dark matter (FDM) cosmologies. The suppression of small mass halos in FDM models leads to a delay in the onset redshift of these epochs relative to cold dark matter (CDM) scenarios. This strongly impacts the 21cm power spectrum and its redshift evolution. The 21cm power spectrum at a given stage of the EoR/Cosmic Dawn process is also modified: in general, the amplitude of 21cm fluctuations is boosted by the enhanced bias factor of galaxy hosting halos in FDM. We forecast the prospects for discriminating between CDM and FDM with upcoming power spectrum measurements from HERA, accounting for degeneracies between astrophysical parameters and dark matter properties. If FDM constitutes the entirety of the dark matter and the FDM particle mass is 10-21eV, HERA can determine the mass to within 20 percent at 2-sigma confidence.
We study the cosmological power spectra (PS) of the differential and integral galaxy volume number densities $gamma_i$ and $gamma_i^{*}$, constructed with the cosmological distances $d_i$ $(i=A,G,L,Z)$, where $d_A$ is the angular diameter distance, $d_G$ is the galaxy area distance, $d_L$ is the luminosity distance and $d_z$ is the redshift distance. Theoretical and observational quantities were obtained in the FLRW spacetime with a non-vanishing $Lambda$. The radial correlation $Xi_i$, as defined in the context of these densities, is discussed in the wave number domain. All observational quantities were computed using luminosity function (LF) data obtained from the FORS Deep Field galaxy survey. The theoretical and observational PS of $gamma_i$, $gamma_i^{ast}$, $Xi_i$ and $gamma_i / gamma_i^ast$ were calculated by performing Fourier transforms on these densities previously derived by Iribarrem et al. (2012) from the observed values $gamma_{obs}$ and ${gamma^ast}_{obs}$ obtained using the galactic absolute magnitudes and galaxy LF Schechters parameters presented in Gabasch et al. (2004, 2006) in the range $0.5 le z le5.0$. The results show similar behavior of the PS obtained from $gamma$ and $gamma^{ast}$ using $d_L$, $d_z$ and $d_G$ as distance measures. The PS of the densities defined with $d_A$ have a different and inconclusive behavior, as this cosmological distance reaches a maximum at $zapprox 1.6$ in the adopted cosmology. For the other distances, our results suggest that the PS of ${gamma_i}_{obs}$, ${gamma^ast_i}_{obs}$ and ${gamma_i / gamma^{ast}_i}_{obs}$ have a general behavior approximately similar to the PS obtained with the galaxy two-point correlation function and, by being sample size independent, they may be considered as alternative analytical tools to study the galaxy distribution.
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