No Arabic abstract
Weak gravitational lensing provides a sensitive probe of cosmology by measuring the mass distribution and the geometry of the low redshift universe. We show how an all-sky weak lensing tomographic survey can jointly constrain different sets of cosmological parameters describing dark energy, massive neutrinos (hot dark matter), and the primordial power spectrum. In order to put all sectors on an equal footing, we introduce a new parameter $beta$, the second order running spectral index. Using the Fisher matrix formalism with and without CMB priors, we examine how the constraints vary as the parameter set is enlarged. We find that weak lensing with CMB priors provides robust constraints on dark energy parameters and can simultaneously provide strong constraints on all three sectors. We find that the dark energy sector is largely insensitive to the inclusion of the other cosmological sectors. Implications for the planning of future surveys are discussed.
As weak lensing surveys become deeper, they reveal more non-Gaussian aspects of the convergence field which can only be extracted using statistics beyond the power spectrum. In Cheng et al. (2020) we showed that the scattering transform, a novel statistic borrowing mathematical concepts from convolutional neural networks, is a powerful tool for cosmological parameter estimation in the non-Gaussian regime. Here, we extend that analysis to explore its sensitivity to dark energy and neutrino mass parameters with weak lensing surveys. We first use image synthesis to show visually that, compared to the power spectrum and bispectrum, the scattering transform provides a better statistical vocabulary to characterize the perceptual properties of lensing mass maps. We then show that it is also better suited for parameter inference: (i) it provides higher sensitivity in the noiseless regime, and (ii) at the noise level of Rubin-like surveys, though the constraints are not significantly tighter than those of the bispectrum, the scattering coefficients have a more Gaussian sampling distribution, which is an important property for likelihood parametrization and accurate cosmological inference. We argue that the scattering coefficients are preferred statistics considering both constraining power and likelihood properties.
(Abridged) The effect of baryonic feedback on the dark matter mass distribution is generally considered to be a nuisance to weak gravitational lensing. Measurements of cosmological parameters are affected as feedback alters the cosmic shear signal on angular scales smaller than a few arcminutes. Recent progress on the numerical modelling of baryon physics has shown that this effect could be so large that, rather than being a nuisance, the effect can be constrained with current weak lensing surveys, hence providing an alternative astrophysical insight on one of the most challenging questions of galaxy formation. In order to perform our analysis, we construct an analytic fitting formula that describes the effect of the baryons on the mass power spectrum. This fitting formula is based on three scenarios of the OWL hydrodynamical simulations. It is specifically calibrated for $z<1.5$, where it models the simulations to an accuracy that is better than $2%$ for scales $k<10 hmbox{Mpc}^{-1}$ and better than $5%$ for $10 < k < 100 hmbox{Mpc}^{-1}$. Equipped with this precise tool, this paper presents the first constraint on baryonic feedback models using gravitational lensing data, from the Canada France Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS). In this analysis, we show that the effect of neutrino mass on the mass power spectrum is degenerate with the baryonic feedback at small angular scales and cannot be ignored. Assuming a cosmology precision fixed by WMAP9, we find that a universe with no baryon feedback and massless neutrinos is rejected by the CFHTLenS lensing data with 96% confidence. Our study shows that ongoing weak gravitational lensing surveys (KiDS, HSC and DES) will offer a unique opportunity to probe the physics of baryons at galactic scales, in addition to the expected constraints on the total neutrino mass.
Weak gravitational lensing measurements are traditionally made at optical wavelengths where many highly resolved galaxy images are readily available. However, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) holds great promise for this type of measurement at radio wavelengths owing to its greatly increased sensitivity and resolution over typical radio surveys. The key to successful weak lensing experiments is in measuring the shapes of detected sources to high accuracy. In this document we describe a simulation pipeline designed to simulate radio images of the quality required for weak lensing, and will be typical of SKA observations. We provide as input, images with realistic galaxy shapes which are then simulated to produce images as they would have been observed with a given radio interferometer. We exploit this pipeline to investigate various stages of a weak lensing experiment in order to better understand the effects that may impact shape measurement. We first show how the proposed SKA1-Mid array configurations perform when we compare the (known) input and output ellipticities. We then investigate how making small changes to these array configurations impact on this input-outut ellipticity comparison. We also demonstrate how alternative configurations for SKA1-Mid that are smaller in extent, and with a faster survey speeds produce similar performance to those originally proposed. We then show how a notional SKA configuration performs in the same shape measurement challenge. Finally, we describe ongoing efforts to utilise our simulation pipeline to address questions relating to how applicable current (mostly originating from optical data) shape measurement techniques are to future radio surveys. As an alternative to such image plane techniques, we lastly discuss a shape measurement technique based on the shapelets formalism that reconstructs the source shapes directly from the visibility data.
Convergence maps of the integrated matter distribution are a key science result from weak gravitational lensing surveys. To date, recovering convergence maps has been performed using a planar approximation of the celestial sphere. However, with the increasing area of sky covered by dark energy experiments, such as Euclid, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), this assumption will no longer be valid. We recover convergence fields on the celestial sphere using an extension of the Kaiser-Squires estimator to the spherical setting. Through simulations we study the error introduced by planar approximations. Moreover, we examine how best to recover convergence maps in the planar setting, considering a variety of different projections and defining the local rotations that are required when projecting spin fields such as cosmic shear. For the sky coverages typical of future surveys, errors introduced by projection effects can be of order tens of percent, exceeding 50% in some cases. The stereographic projection, which is conformal and so preserves local angles, is the most effective planar projection. In any case, these errors can be avoided entirely by recovering convergence fields directly on the celestial sphere. We apply the spherical Kaiser-Squires mass-mapping method presented to the public Dark Energy Survey (DES) science verification data to recover convergence maps directly on the celestial sphere.
We consider a cosmological model where dark matter and dark energy feature a coupling that only affects their momentum transfer in the corresponding Euler equations. We perform a fit to cosmological observables and confirm previous findings within these scenarios that favour the presence of a coupling at more than $3sigma$. This improvement is driven by the Sunyaev-Zeldovich data. We subsequently perform a forecast for future J-PAS data and find that clustering measurements will permit to clearly discern the presence of an interaction within a few percent level with the uncoupled case at more than $10sigma$ when the complete survey, covering $8500$ sq. deg., is considered. We found that the inclusion of weak lensing measurements will not help to further constrain the coupling parameter. For completeness, we compare to forecasts for DESI and Euclid, which provide similar discriminating power.