No Arabic abstract
We present a new approach to describe statistics of the non-linear matter density field that exploits a degeneracy in the impact of different cosmological parameters on the linear matter power spectrum, $P_{rm L}(k)$, when expressed in Mpc units. We classify all cosmological parameters into two groups, shape parameters, which determine the shape of $P_{rm L}(k)$, and evolution parameters, which only affect its amplitude at any given redshift. We show that the time evolution of $P_{rm L}(k)$ in models with identical shape parameters but different evolution parameters can be mapped from one to the other by relabelling the redshifts that correspond to the same values of $sigma_{12}(z)$, defined as the RMS linear variance in spheres of radius $12,{rm Mpc}$. We use N-body simulations to show that the same evolution mapping relation can be applied to the non-linear power spectrum, the halo mass function, or the full density field with high accuracy. The deviations from the exact degeneracy are the result of the different structure formation histories experienced by each model to reach the same value of $sigma_{12}(z)$. This relation can be used to drastically reduce the number of parameters required to describe the cosmology dependence of the power spectrum. We show how this degeneracy can be exploited to speed up the inference of parameter constraints from cosmological observations. We also present a new design of an emulator of the non-linear power spectrum whose predictions can be adapted to an arbitrary choice of evolution parameters and redshift.
We investigate the weakly non-linear evolution of cosmic gravitational clustering in phase space by looking at the Zeldovich solution in the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) representation. We show that if the initial perturbations are Gaussian, the relation between the evolved DWT mode and the initial perturbations in the weakly non-linear regime is quasi-local. That is, the evolved density perturbations are mainly determined by the initial perturbations localized in the same spatial range. Furthermore, we show that the evolved mode is monotonically related to the initial perturbed mode. Thus large (small) perturbed modes statistically correspond to the large (small) initial perturbed modes. We test this prediction by using QSO Ly$alpha$ absorption samples. The results show that the weakly non-linear features for both the transmitted flux and identified forest lines are quasi-localized. The locality and monotonic properties provide a solid basis for a DWT scale-by-scale Gaussianization reconstruction algorithm proposed by Feng & Fang (Feng & Fang, 2000) for data in the weakly non-linear regime. With the Zeldovich solution, we find also that the major non-Gaussianity caused by the weakly non-linear evolution is local scale-scale correlations. Therefore, to have a precise recovery of the initial Gaussian mass field, it is essential to remove the scale-scale correlations.
Recently, we have shown how current cosmological N-body codes already follow the fine grained phase-space information of the dark matter fluid. Using a tetrahedral tesselation of the three-dimensional manifold that describes perfectly cold fluids in six-dimensional phase space, the phase-space distribution function can be followed throughout the simulation. This allows one to project the distribution function into configuration space to obtain highly accurate densities, velocities, and velocity dispersions. Here, we exploit this technique to show first steps on how to devise an improved particle-mesh technique. At its heart, the new method thus relies on a piecewise linear approximation of the phase space distribution function rather than the usual particle discretisation. We use pseudo-particles that approximate the masses of the tetrahedral cells up to quadrupolar order as the locations for cloud-in-cell (CIC) deposit instead of the particle locations themselves as in standard CIC deposit. We demonstrate that this modification already gives much improved stability and more accurate dynamics of the collisionless dark matter fluid at high force and low mass resolution. We demonstrate the validity and advantages of this method with various test problems as well as hot/warm-dark matter simulations which have been known to exhibit artificial fragmentation. This completely unphysical behaviour is much reduced in the new approach. The current limitations of our approach are discussed in detail and future improvements are outlined.
Interest rises to exploit the full shape information of the galaxy power spectrum, as well as pushing analyses to smaller non-linear scales. Here I use the halo model to quantify the information content in the tomographic angular power spectrum of galaxies, for future high resolution surveys : Euclid and SKA2. I study how this information varies as a function of the scale cut applied, either with angular cut $ell_{max}$ or physical cut kmax. For this, I use analytical covariances with the most complete census of non-Gaussian terms, which proves critical. I find that the Fisher information on most cosmological and astrophysical parameters follows a striking behaviour. Beyond the perturbative regime we first get decreasing returns : the information keeps rising but the slope slows down until reaching a saturation. The location of this plateau is a bit beyond the reach of current modeling methods : k $sim$ 2 Mpc$^{-1}$ and slightly depends on the parameter and redshift bin considered. I explain the origin of this plateau, which is due to non-linear effects both on the power spectrum, and more importantly on non-Gaussian covariance terms. Then, pushing further on I find that information rises again in the highly non-linear regime. I find that the cosmological information in this small scale miracle can indeed be disentangled from astrophysical information and yield large improvements. Pushing SKA2 analysis from kmax=1 Mpc$^{-1}$ to kmax=10 Mpc$^{-1}$ can improve the error bar on $sigma_8$ by a factor 9 and the error bar on the Dark Energy equation of state $w_0$ by a factor 5. Finally I show that high order statistics beyond the power spectrum should yield further significant improvements in this regime, with the improvements increasing when pushing kmax. Data and notebooks reproducing all plots and results will be made available at url{https://github.com/fabienlacasa/SmallScaleMiracle}
We present a simple physically motivated picture for the mildly non-linear regime of structure formation, which captures the effects of the bulk flows. We apply this picture to develop a method to significantly reduce the sample variance in cosmological N-body simulations at the scales relevant to the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO). The results presented in this paper will allow for a speed-up of an order of magnitude (or more) in the scanning of the cosmological parameter space using N-body simulations for studies which require a good handle of the mildly non-linear regime, such as those targeting the BAO. Using this physical picture we develop a simple formula, which allows for the rapid calculation of the mildly non-linear matter power spectrum to percent level accuracy, and for robust estimation of the BAO scale.
We propose a method to describe the evolution of two spins coupled by hyperfine interaction in an external time-dependent magnetic field. We apply the approach to the case of hyperfine interaction with axial symmetry, which can be solved exactly in a constant, appropriately oriented magnetic field. In order to treat the nonstationary dynamical problem, we modify the time-dependent Schrodinger equation through a change of representation that, by exploiting an instantaneous (adiabatic) basis makes the time-dependent Hamiltonian diagonal at any time instant. The solution of the transformed time-dependent Schrodinger in the form of chronologically ordered exponents with transparent pre-exponential coefficients is reported. This solution is highly simplified when an adiabatically varying magnetic field perturbs the system. The approach here proposed may be used for the perturbative treatment of other dynamical problems with no exact solution.