No Arabic abstract
The adiabatic perturbation of dark matter is damped during the kinetic decoupling due to the collision with relativistic component on sub-horizon scales. However the isocurvature part is free from damping and could be large enough to make a substantial contribution to the formation of small scale structure. We explicitly study the weakly interacting massive particles as dark matter with an early mater dominated period before radiation domination and show that the isocurvature perturbation is generated during the phase transition and leaves imprint in the observable signatures for small scale structure.
We explore the correlations between primordial non-Gaussianity and isocurvature perturbation. We sketch the generic relation between the bispectrum of the curvature perturbation and the cross-correlation power spectrum in the presence of explicit couplings between the inflaton and another light field which gives rise to isocurvature perturbation. Using a concrete model of a Peccei-Quinn type field with generic gravitational couplings, we illustrate explicitly how the primordial bispectrum correlates with the cross-correlation power spectrum. Assuming the resulting fnl ~ O(1), we find that the form of the correlation depends mostly upon the inflation model but only weakly on the axion parameters, even though fnl itself does depend heavily on the axion parameters.
We discuss some hitherto puzzling features of the small-scale structure of cosmic strings. We argue that kinks play a key role, and that an important quantity to study is their sharpness distribution. In particular we suggest that for very small scales the two-point correlation function of the string tangent vector varies linearly with the separation and not as a fractional power, as proposed by Polchinski and Rocha [Phys. Rev. D 74, 083504 (2006)]. However, our results are consistent with theirs, because the range of scales to which this linearity applies shrinks as evolution proceeds.
Gravitational lensing has emerged as a powerful probe of the matter distribution on subgalactic scales, which itself may contain important clues about the fundamental origins and properties of dark matter. Broadly speaking, two different approaches have been taken in the literature to map the small-scale structure of the Universe using strong lensing, with one focused on measuring the position and mass of a small number of discrete massive subhalos appearing close in projection to lensed images, and the other focused on detecting the collective effect of all the small-scale structure between the lensed source and the observer. In this paper, we follow the latter approach and perform a detailed study of the sensitivity of galaxy-scale gravitational lenses to the ensemble properties of small-scale structure. As in some previous studies, we adopt the language of the substructure power spectrum to characterize the statistical properties of the small-scale density field. We present a comprehensive theory that treats lenses with extended sources as well as those with time-dependent compact sources (such as quasars) in a unified framework for the first time. Our approach uses mode functions to provide both computational advantages and insights about couplings between the lens and source. The goal of this paper is to develop the theory and gain the intuition necessary to understand how the sensitivity to the substructure power spectrum depends on the source and lens properties, with the eventual aim of identifying the most promising targets for such studies.
Despite the success of the standard $Lambda$CDM model of cosmology, recent data improvements have made tensions emerge between low- and high-redshift observables, most importantly in determinations of the Hubble constant $H_0$ and the (rescaled) clustering amplitude $S_8$. The high-redshift data, from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), crucially relies on recombination physics for its interpretation. Here we study how small-scale baryon inhomogeneities (i.e., clumping) can affect recombination and consider whether they can relieve both the $H_0$ and $S_8$ tensions. Such small-scale clumping, which may be caused by primordial magnetic fields or baryon isocurvature below kpc scales, enhances the recombination rate even when averaged over larger scales, shifting recombination to earlier times. We introduce a flexible clumping model, parametrized via three spatial zones with free densities and volume fractions, and use it to study the impact of clumping on CMB observables. We find that increasing $H_0$ decreases both $Omega_m$ and $S_8$, which alleviates the $S_8$ tension. On the other hand, the shift in $Omega_m$ is disfavored by the low-$z$ baryon-acoustic-oscillations measurements. We find that the clumping parameters that can change the CMB sound horizon enough to explain the $H_0$ tension also alter the damping tail, so they are disfavored by current {it Planck} 2018 data. We test how the CMB damping-tail information rules out changes to recombination by first removing $ell>1000$ multipoles in {it Planck} data, where we find that clumping could resolve the $H_0$ tension. Furthermore, we make predictions for future CMB experiments, as their improved damping-tail precision can better constrain departures from standard recombination. Both the {it Simons Observatory} and CMB-S4 will provide decisive evidence for or against clumping as a resolution to the $H_0$ tension.
The usual fluid equations describing the large-scale evolution of mass density in the universe can be written as local in the density, velocity divergence, and velocity potential fields. As a result, the perturbative expansion in small density fluctuations, usually written in terms of convolutions in Fourier space, can be written as a series of products of these fields evaluated at the same location in configuration space. Based on this, we establish a new method to numerically evaluate the 1-loop power spectrum (i.e., Fourier transform of the 2-point correlation function) with one-dimensional Fast Fourier Transforms. This is exact and a few orders of magnitude faster than previously used numerical approaches. Numerical results of the new method are in excellent agreement with the standard quadrature integration method. This fast model evaluation can in principle be extended to higher loop order where existing codes become painfully slow. Our approach follows by writing higher order corrections to the 2-point correlation function as, e.g., the correlation between two second-order fields or the correlation between a linear and a third-order field. These are then decomposed into products of correlations of linear fields and derivatives of linear fields. The method can also be viewed as evaluating three-dimensional Fourier space convolutions using products in configuration space, which may also be useful in other contexts where similar integrals appear.