No Arabic abstract
In a flat universe dominated by dark energy, the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect can be detected as a large-angle cross-correlation between the CMB and a tracer of large scale structure. We investigate whether the inconclusive ISW signal derived from 2MASS galaxy maps can be improved upon by including photometric redshifts for the 2MASS galaxies. These redshifts are derived by matching the 2MASS data with optical catalogues generated from SuperCOSMOS scans of major photographic sky surveys. We find no significant ISW signal in this analysis; an ISW effect of the form expected in a LambdaCDM universe is only weakly preferred over no correlation, with a likelihood ratio of 1.5:1. We consider ISW detection prospects for future large scale structure surveys with fainter magnitude limits and greater survey depth; even with the best possible data, the ISW cross-correlation signal would be expected to evade detection in >~ 10% of cases.
The Planck CMB experiment has delivered the best constraints so far on primordial non-Gaussianity, ruling out early-Universe models of inflation that generate large non-Gaussianity. Although small improvements in the CMB constraints are expected, the next frontier of precision will come from future large-scale surveys of the galaxy distribution. The advantage of such surveys is that they can measure many more modes than the CMB -- in particular, forthcoming radio surveys with the SKA will cover huge volumes. Radio continuum surveys deliver the largest volumes, but with the disadvantage of no redshift information. In order to mitigate this, we use two additional observables. First, the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect -- the cross-correlation of the radio number counts with the CMB temperature anisotropies -- helps to reduce systematics on the large scales that are sensitive to non-Gaussianity. Second, optical data allows for cross-identification in order to gain some redshift information. We show that, while the single redshift bin case can provide a sigma(fNL) ~ 20, and is therefore not competitive with current and future constraints on non-Gaussianity, a tomographic analysis could improve the constraints by an order of magnitude, even with only two redshift bins. A huge improvement is provided by the addition of high-redshift sources, so having cross-ID for high-z galaxies and an even higher-z radio tail is key to enabling very precise measurements of fNL. Our results show that SKA continuum surveys could provide constraints competitive with CMB and forthcoming optical surveys, potentially allowing a measurement of sigma(fNL) ~ 1 to be made. Moreover, these measurements would act as a useful check of results obtained with other probes at other redshift ranges with other methods.
The peculiar motion of galaxies can be a particularly sensitive probe of gravitational collapse. As such, it can be used to measure the dynamics of dark matter and dark energy as well the nature of the gravitational laws at play on cosmological scales. Peculiar motions manifest themselves as an overall anisotropy in the measured clustering signal as a function of the angle to the line-of-sight, known as redshift-space distortion (RSD). Limiting factors in this measurement include our ability to model non-linear galaxy motions on small scales and the complexities of galaxy bias. The anisotropy in the measured clustering pattern in redshift-space is also driven by the unknown distance factors at the redshift in question, the Alcock-Paczynski distortion. This weakens growth rate measurements, but permits an extra geometric probe of the Hubble expansion rate. In this chapter we will briefly describe the scientific background to the RSD technique, and forecast the potential of the SKA phase 1 and the SKA2 to measure the growth rate using both galaxy catalogues and intensity mapping, assessing their competitiveness with current and future optical galaxy surveys.
The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is under construction in the Netherlands and in several surrounding European countries. In this contribution, we describe the layout and design of the telescope, with a particular emphasis on the imaging characteristics of the array when used in its standard imaging mode. After briefly reviewing the calibration and imaging software used for LOFAR image processing, we show some recent results from the ongoing imaging commissioning efforts. We conclude by summarizing future prospects for the use of LOFAR in observing the little-explored low frequency Universe.
The coming decade will be an exciting period for dark energy research, during which astronomers will address the question of what drives the accelerated cosmic expansion as first revealed by type Ia supernova (SN) distances, and confirmed by later observations. The mystery of dark energy poses a challenge of such magnitude that, as stated by the Dark Energy Task Force (DETF), nothing short of a revolution in our understanding of fundamental physics will be required to achieve a full understanding of the cosmic acceleration. The lack of multiple complementary precision observations is a major obstacle in developing lines of attack for dark energy theory. This lack is precisely what next-generation surveys will address via the powerful techniques of weak lensing (WL) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) -- galaxy correlations more generally -- in addition to SNe, cluster counts, and other probes of geometry and growth of structure. Because of their unprecedented statistical power, these surveys demand an accurate understanding of the observables and tight control of systematics. This white paper highlights the opportunities, approaches, prospects, and challenges relevant to dark energy studies with wide-deep multiwavelength photometric redshift surveys. Quantitative predictions are presented for a 20000 sq. deg. ground-based 6-band (ugrizy) survey with 5-sigma depth of r~27.5, i.e., a Stage 4 survey as defined by the DETF.
We outline how redshift-space distortions (RSD) can be measured from the angular correlation function w({theta}), of galaxies selected from photometric surveys. The natural degeneracy between RSD and galaxy bias can be minimized by comparing results from bins with top-hat galaxy selection in redshift, and bins based on the radial position of galaxy pair centres. This comparison can also be used to test the accuracy of the photometric redshifts. The presence of RSD will be clearly detectable with the next generation of photometric redshift surveys. We show that the Dark Energy Survey (DES) will be able to measure f(z){sigma}_8(z) to a 1{sigma} accuracy of (17 {times} b)%, using galaxies drawn from a single narrow redshift slice centered at z = 1. Here b is the linear bias, and f is the logarithmic rate of change of the linear growth rate with respect to the scale factor. Extending to measurements of w({theta}) for a series of bins of width 0.02(1 + z) over 0.5 < z < 1.4 will measure {gamma} to a 1{sigma} accuracy of 25%, given the model f = {Omega}_m(z)^{gamma}, and assuming a linear bias model that evolves such that b = 0.5 + z (and fixing other cosmological parameters). The accuracy of our analytic predictions is confirmed using mock catalogs drawn from simulations conducted by the MICE collaboration.