Informed by a quantum information perspective, we interpret cosmological expansion of space as growing entanglement between underlying degrees of freedom. In particular, we focus on inflationary cosmology, which, while being a successful empirical pa
radigm for early universe physics, is riddled with ambiguities when one traces its quantum mechanical origins. We show, by deriving a modified cosmological continuity equation, that by properly accounting for new degrees of freedom being added to space by quantum entanglement, inflation can naturally be driven by quantum mechanics without having to resort to novel, unknown physics. While we explicitly focus on inflation in our discussion, we expect this approach to have possible broad implications for cosmology and quantum gravity.
The spherical Fourier-Bessel (SFB) decomposition is a natural choice for the radial/angular separation that allows optimal extraction of cosmological information from large volume galaxy surveys. In this paper we develop a SFB power spectrum estimato
r that allows the measurement of the largest angular and radial modes with the next generation of galaxy surveys. The code measures the pseudo-SFB power spectrum, and takes into account mask, selection function, pixel window, and shot noise. We show that the local average effect is significant only in the largest-scale mode, and we provide an analytical covariance matrix. By imposing boundary conditions at the minimum and maximum radius encompassing the survey volume, the estimator does not suffer from the numerical instabilities that have proven challenging in the past. The estimator is demonstrated on simplified Roman-like, SPHEREx-like, and Euclid-like mask and selection functions. For intuition and validation, we also explore the SFB power spectrum in the Limber approximation. We release the associated public code written in Julia.
The cosmic infrared background (CIB) is a powerful probe of large-scale structure across a very large redshift range, and consists of unresolved redshifted infrared emission from dusty galaxies. It can be used to study the astrophysics of galaxies, t
he star formation history of the universe, and the connection between dark and luminous matter. It can furthermore be used as a tracer of the large-scale structure and thus assist in de-lensing of the cosmic microwave background. The major difficulty in its use lies in obtaining accurate and unbiased large-scale CIB images that are cleaned of the contamination by Galactic dust. We used data on neutral atomic hydrogen from the recently-released HI4PI Survey to create template maps of Galactic dust, allowing us to remove this component from the Planck intensity maps from 353 to 857 GHz for approximately $25%$ of the sky. This allows us to constrain the CIB power spectrum down to $ellgtrsim 70$. We present these CIB maps and the various processing and validation steps that we have performed to ensure their quality, as well as a comparison with previous studies. All our data products are made publicly available at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/8A1SR3, thereby enabling the community to investigate a wide range of questions related to the universes large-scale structure.
The Cosmic Dawn and Reionization epochs remain a fundamental but challenging frontier of astrophysics and cosmology. We advocate a large-scale, multi-tracer approach to develop a comprehensive understanding of the physics that led to the formation an
d evolution of the first stars and galaxies. We highlight the line intensity mapping technique to trace the multi-phase reionization topology on large scales, and measure reionization history in detail. Besides 21cm, we advocate for Lya tomography mapping during the epoch of Wouthuysen-Field coupling as an additional probe of the cosmic dawn era.
New physics in the neutrino sector might be necessary to address anomalies between different neutrino oscillation experiments. Intriguingly, it also offers a possible solution to the discrepant cosmological measurements of $H_0$ and $sigma_8$. We sho
w here that delaying the onset of neutrino free-streaming until close to the epoch of matter-radiation equality can naturally accommodate a larger value for the Hubble constant $H_0=72.3 pm 1.4$ km/s/Mpc and a lower value of the matter fluctuations $sigma_8=0.786pm 0.020$, while not degrading the fit to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) damping tail. We achieve this by introducing neutrino self-interactions in the presence of a non-vanishing sum of neutrino masses. This strongly interacting neutrino cosmology prefers $N_{rm eff} = 4.02 pm 0.29$, which has interesting implications for particle model-building and neutrino oscillation anomalies. We show that the absence of the neutrino free-streaming phase shift on the CMB can be compensated by shifting the value of other cosmological parameters, hence providing an important caveat to the detections made in the literature. Due to their impact on the evolution of the gravitational potential at early times, self-interacting neutrinos and their subsequent decoupling leave a rich structure on the matter power spectrum. In particular, we point out the existence of a novel localized feature appearing on scales entering the horizon at the onset of neutrino free-streaming. While the interacting neutrino cosmology provides a better global fit to current cosmological data, we find that traditional Bayesian analyses penalize the model as compared to the standard cosmological. Our analysis shows that it is possible to find radically different cosmological models that nonetheless provide excellent fits to the data, hence providing an impetus to thoroughly explore alternate cosmological scenarios.
SPHEREx is a proposed NASA MIDEX mission selected for Phase A study. SPHEREx would carry out the first all-sky spectral survey in the near infrared. At the end of its two-year mission, SPHEREx would obtain 0.75-to-5$mu$m spectra of every 6.2 arcsec p
ixel on the sky, with spectral resolution R>35 and a 5-$sigma$ sensitivity AB$>$19 per spectral/spatial resolution element. More details concerning SPHEREx are available at http://spherex.caltech.edu. The SPHEREx team has proposed three specific science investigations to be carried out with this unique data set: cosmic inflation, interstellar and circumstellar ices, and the extra-galactic background light. Though these three themes are undoubtedly compelling, they are far from exhausting the scientific output of SPHEREx. Indeed, SPHEREx would create a unique all-sky spectral database including spectra of very large numbers of astronomical and solar system targets, including both extended and diffuse sources. These spectra would enable a wide variety of investigations, and the SPHEREx team is dedicated to making the data available to the community to enable these investigations, which we refer to as Legacy Science. To that end, we have sponsored two workshops for the general scientific community to identify the most interesting Legacy Science themes and to ensure that the SPHEREx data products are responsive to their needs. In February of 2016, some 50 scientists from all fields met in Pasadena to develop these themes and to understand their implications for the SPHEREx mission. The 2016 workshop highlighted many synergies between SPHEREx and other contemporaneous astronomical missions, facilities, and databases. Consequently, in January 2018 we convened a second workshop at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge to focus specifically on these synergies. This white paper reports on the results of the 2018 SPHEREx workshop.
Cosmic acceleration is the most surprising cosmological discovery in many decades. Testing and distinguishing among possible explanations requires cosmological measurements of extremely high precision probing the full history of cosmic expansion and
structure growth and, ideally, compare and contrast matter and relativistic tracers of the gravity potential. This program is one of the defining objectives of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), as set forth in the New Worlds, New Horizons report (NWNH) in 2010. The WFIRST mission has the ability to improve these measurements by 1-2 orders of magnitude compared to the current state of the art, while simultaneously extending their redshift grasp, greatly improving control of systematic effects, and taking a unified approach to multiple probes that provide complementary physical information and cross-checks of cosmological results. We describe in this annual report the activities of the Science Investigation Team (SIT) Cosmology with the High Latitude Survey (HLS) during the year 2017. This team was selected by NASA in December 2015 in order to address the stringent challenges of the WFIRST dark energy (DE) program through the Projects formulation phase. This SIT has elected to jointly address Galaxy Redshift Survey, Weak Lensing and Cluster Growth and thus fully embrace the fact that the imaging and spectroscopic elements of the HLS will be realized as an integrated observing program, and they jointly impose requirements on performance and operations. WFIRST is designed to be able to deliver a definitive result on the origin of cosmic acceleration. It is not optimized for Figure of Merit sensitivity but for control of systematic uncertainties and for having multiple techniques each with multiple cross-checks. Our SIT work focuses on understanding the potential systematics in the WFIRST DE measurements.
Galaxies covering several orders of magnitude in stellar mass and a variety of Hubble types have been shown to follow the Radial Acceleration Relation (RAR), a relationship between $g_{rm obs}$, the observed circular acceleration of the galaxy, and $
g_{rm bar}$, the acceleration due to the total baryonic mass of the galaxy. For accelerations above $10^{10}~{rm m , s}^{-2}$, $g_{rm obs}$ traces $g_{rm bar}$, asymptoting to the 1:1 line. Below this scale, there is a break in the relation such that $rm g_{rm obs} sim g_{rm bar}^{1/2}$. We show that the RAR slope, scatter and the acceleration scale are all natural consequences of the well-known baryonic Tully-Fisher relation (BTFR). We further demonstrate that galaxies with a variety of baryonic and dark matter (DM) profiles and a wide range of dark halo and galaxy properties (well beyond those expected in CDM) lie on the RAR if we simply require that their rotation curves satisfy the BTFR. We explore conditions needed to break this degeneracy: sub-kpc resolved rotation curves inside of cored DM-dominated profiles and/or outside $gg 100,$kpc could lie on BTFR but deviate in the RAR, providing new constraints on DM.
We explore the detection, with upcoming spectroscopic surveys, of three-dimensional power spectra of emission line fluctuations produced in different phases of the Interstellar Medium (ISM) by ionized carbon, ionized nitrogen and neutral oxygen at re
dshift z>4. The emission line [CII] from ionized carbon at 157.7 micron, and multiple emission lines from carbon monoxide, are the main targets of planned ground-based surveys, and an important foreground for future space-based surveys like the Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE). However, the oxygen [OI] (145.5 micron) line, and the nitrogen [NII] (121.9 micron and 205.2 micron) lines, might be detected in correlation with [CII] with reasonable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). These lines are important coolants of both the neutral and the ionized medium, and probe multiple phases of the ISM. We compute predictions of the three-dimensional power spectra for two surveys designed to target the [CII] line, showing that they have the required sensitivity to detect cross-power spectra with the [OI] line, and the [NII] lines with sufficient SNR. The importance of cross-correlating multiple lines is twofold. On the one hand, we will have multiple probes of the different phases of the ISM, which is key to understand the interplay between energetic sources, the gas and dust at high redshift. This kind of studies will be useful for a next-generation space observatory such as the NASA Far-IR Surveyor. On the other end, emission lines from external galaxies are an important foreground when measuring spectral distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background spectrum with future space-based experiments like PIXIE; measuring fluctuations in the intensity mapping regime will help constraining the mean amplitude of these lines, and will allow us to better handle this important foreground.
SPHEREx is a proposed SMEX mission selected for Phase A. SPHEREx will carry out the first all-sky spectral survey and provide for every 6.2 pixel a spectra between 0.75 and 4.18 $mu$m [with R$sim$41.4] and 4.18 and 5.00 $mu$m [with R$sim$135]. The SP
HEREx team has proposed three specific science investigations to be carried out with this unique data set: cosmic inflation, interstellar and circumstellar ices, and the extra-galactic background light. It is readily apparent, however, that many other questions in astrophysics and planetary sciences could be addressed with the SPHEREx data. The SPHEREx team convened a community workshop in February 2016, with the intent of enlisting the aid of a larger group of scientists in defining these questions. This paper summarizes the rich and varied menu of investigations that was laid out. It includes studies of the composition of main belt and Trojan/Greek asteroids; mapping the zodiacal light with unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution; identifying and studying very low-metallicity stars; improving stellar parameters in order to better characterize transiting exoplanets; studying aliphatic and aromatic carbon-bearing molecules in the interstellar medium; mapping star formation rates in nearby galaxies; determining the redshift of clusters of galaxies; identifying high redshift quasars over the full sky; and providing a NIR spectrum for most eROSITA X-ray sources. All of these investigations, and others not listed here, can be carried out with the nominal all-sky spectra to be produced by SPHEREx. In addition, the workshop defined enhanced data products and user tools which would facilitate some of these scientific studies. Finally, the workshop noted the high degrees of synergy between SPHEREx and a number of other current or forthcoming programs, including JWST, WFIRST, Euclid, GAIA, K2/Kepler, TESS, eROSITA and LSST.
