No Arabic abstract
Accurately predicting the shape of the HI velocity function of galaxies is regarded widely as a fundamental test of any viable dark matter model. Straightforward analyses of cosmological $N$-body simulations imply that the $Lambda$CDM model predicts an overabundance of low circular velocity galaxies when compared to observed HI velocity functions. More nuanced analyses that account for the relationship between galaxies and their host haloes suggest that how we model the influence of baryonic processes has a significant impact on HI velocity function predictions. We explore this in detail by modelling HI emission lines of galaxies in the SHARK semi-analytic galaxy formation model, built on the SURFS suite of $Lambda$CDM $N$-body simulations. We create a simulated ALFALFA survey, in which we apply the survey selection function and account for effects such as beam confusion, and compare simulated and observed HI velocity width distributions, finding differences of $lesssim 50$%, orders of magnitude smaller than the discrepancies reported in the past. This is a direct consequence of our careful treatment of survey selection effects and, importantly, how we model the relationship between galaxy and halo circular velocity - the HI mass-maximum circular velocity relation of galaxies is characterised by a large scatter. These biases are complex enough that building a velocity function from the observed HI line widths cannot be done reliably.
We make the most precise determination to date of the number density of extragalactic 21-cm radio sources as a function of their spectral line widths - the HI velocity width function (HIWF) - based on 22832 sources from the final 7000 deg$^2$ data release of the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) survey. The number density of sources as a function of their neutral hydrogen masses - the HI mass function (HIMF) - has previously been reported to have a significantly different low-mass slope and knee mass in the two sky regions surveyed during ALFALFA. In contrast with this, we find that the shape of the HIWF in the same two sky regions is remarkably similar, consistent with being identical within the confidence intervals implied by the data (but the overall normalisation differs). The spatial uniformity of the HIWF implies that it is likely a stable tracer of the mass function of dark matter haloes, in spite of the environmental processes to which the measured variation in the HIMF are attributed, at least for galaxies containing enough neutral hydrogen to be detected. This insensitivity of the HIWF to galaxy formation and evolution can be exploited to turn it into a powerful constraint on cosmological models as future surveys yield increasingly precise measurements. We also report on the possible influence of a previously overlooked systematic error affecting the HIWF, which may plausibly see its low-velocity slope steepen by $sim$40 per cent in analyses of future, deeper surveys.
We model the distribution of the observed profiles of 21 cm line emission from neutral hydrogen (HI) in central galaxies selected from a statistically representative mock catalog of the local Universe in the Lambda-cold dark matter framework. The distribution of these HI velocity profiles (specifically, their widths $W_{50}$) has been observationally constrained, but has not been systematically studied theoretically. Our model profiles derive from rotation curves of realistically baryonified haloes in an N-body simulation, including the quasi-adiabatic relaxation of the dark matter profile of each halo in response to its baryons. We study the predicted $W_{50}$ distribution using a realistic pipeline applied to noisy profiles extracted from our luminosity-complete mock catalog with an ALFALFA-like survey geometry and redshift selection. Our default mock is in good agreement with observed ALFALFA results for $W_{50}gtrsim700$ km/s, being incomplete at lower widths due to the intrinsic threshold of $M_rleq-19$. Variations around the default model show that the velocity width function at $W_{50}gtrsim300$ km/s is most sensitive to a possible correlation between galaxy inclination and host concentration, followed by the physics of quasi-adiabatic relaxation. We also study the excess kurtosis of noiseless velocity profiles, obtaining a distribution which tightly correlates with $W_{50}$, with a shape and scatter that depend on the properties of the turbulent HI disk. Our results open the door towards using the shapes of HI velocity profiles as a novel statistical probe of the baryon-dark matter connection.
We apply the Velocity Distribution Function (VDF) to a sample of Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ)-selected clusters, and we report preliminary cosmological constraints in the $sigma_8$-$Omega_m$ cosmological parameter space. The VDF is a forward-modeled test statistic that can be used to constrain cosmological models directly from galaxy cluster dynamical observations. The method was introduced in Ntampaka et al. (2017) and employs line-of-sight velocity measurements to directly constrain cosmological parameters; it is less sensitive to measurement error than a standard halo mass function approach. The method is applied to the Hectospec Survey of Sunyaev-Zeldovich-Selected Clusters (HeCS-SZ) sample, which is a spectroscopic follow up of a Planck-selected sample of 83 galaxy clusters. Credible regions are calculated by comparing the VDF of the observed cluster sample to that of mock observations, yielding $mathcal{S}_8 equiv sigma_8 left(Omega_m/0.3right)^{0.25} = 0.751pm0.037$. These constraints are in tension with the Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) TT fiducial value, which lies outside of our 95% credible region, but are in agreement with some recent analyses of large scale structure that observe fewer massive clusters than are predicted by the Planck fiducial cosmological parameters.
We present high signal-to-noise galaxy-galaxy lensing measurements of the BOSS CMASS sample using 250 square degrees of weak lensing data from CFHTLenS and CS82. We compare this signal with predictions from mock catalogs trained to match observables including the stellar mass function and the projected and two dimensional clustering of CMASS. We show that the clustering of CMASS, together with standard models of the galaxy-halo connection, robustly predicts a lensing signal that is 20-40% larger than observed. Detailed tests show that our results are robust to a variety of systematic effects. Lowering the value of $S_{rm 8}=sigma_{rm 8} sqrt{Omega_{rm m}/0.3}$ compared to Planck2015 reconciles the lensing with clustering. However, given the scale of our measurement ($r<10$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc), other effects may also be at play and need to be taken into consideration. We explore the impact of baryon physics, assembly bias, massive neutrinos, and modifications to general relativity on $DeltaSigma$ and show that several of these effects may be non-negligible given the precision of our measurement. Disentangling cosmological effects from the details of the galaxy-halo connection, the effects of baryons, and massive neutrinos, is the next challenge facing joint lensing and clustering analyses. This is especially true in the context of large galaxy samples from Baryon Acoustic Oscillation surveys with precise measurements but complex selection functions.
We present the results of a deep survey of the nearby Sculptor group and the associated Sculptor filament taken with the Parkes 64-m radio telescope in the 21-cm emission line of neutral hydrogen. We detect 31 HI sources in the Sculptor group/filament, eight of which are new HI detections. We derive a slope of the HI mass function along the Sculptor filament of $alpha = -1.10^{+0.20}_{-0.11}$, which is significantly flatter than the global mass function and consistent with the flat slopes previously found in other low-density group environments. Some physical process, such as star formation, photoionisation or ram-pressure stripping, must therefore be responsible for removing neutral gas predominantly from low-mass galaxies. All of our HI detections have a confirmed or tentative optical counterpart and are likely associated with luminous rather than dark galaxies. Despite a column density sensitivity of about $4 times 10^{17}~mathrm{cm}^{-2}$, we do not find any traces of extragalactic gas or tidal streams, suggesting that the Sculptor filament is, at the current time, a relatively quiescent environment that has not seen any recent major interactions or mergers.