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The dispersion of fast radio bursts (FRBs) is a measure of the large-scale electron distribution. It enables measurements of cosmological parameters, especially of the expansion rate and the cosmic baryon fraction. The number of events is expected to increase dramatically over the coming years, and of particular interest are bursts with identified host galaxy and therefore redshift information. In this paper, we explore the covariance matrix of the dispersion measure (DM) of FRBs induced by the large-scale structure, as bursts from a similar direction on the sky are correlated by long-wavelength modes of the electron distribution. We derive analytical expressions for the covariance matrix and examine the impact on parameter estimation from the FRB DM–redshift relation. The covariance also contains additional information that is missed by analysing the events individually. For future samples containing over ∼300 FRBs with host identification over the full sky, the covariance needs to be taken into account for unbiased inference, and the effect increases dramatically for smaller patches of the sky. Also, forecasts must consider these effects as they would yield too optimistic parameter constraints. Our procedure can also be applied to the DM of the afterglow of gamma-ray bursts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cosmological constant and its phenomenology remain among the greatest puzzles in theoretical physics. We review how modifications of Einstein's general relativity could alleviate the different problems associated with it that result from the interplay of classical gravity and quantum field theory. We introduce a modern and concise language to describe the problems associated with its phenomenology, and inspect no-go theorems and their loopholes to motivate the approaches discussed here. Constrained gravity approaches exploit minimal departures from general relativity; massive gravity introduces mass to the graviton; Horndeski theories lead to the breaking of translational invariance of the vacuum; and models with extra dimensions change the symmetries of the vacuum. We also review screening mechanisms that have to be present in some of these theories if they aim to recover the success of general relativity on small scales as well. Finally, we summarize the statuses of these models in their attempts to solve the different cosmological constant problems while being able to account for current astrophysical and cosmological observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are astrophysical transients of still debated origin. So far several hundred events have been detected, mostly at extragalactic distances, and this number is expected to grow significantly over the next years. The radio signals from the burst experience dispersion as they travel through the free electrons along the line-of-sight characterised by the dispersion measure (DM) of the radio pulse. In addition, each photon also experiences a gravitational Shapiro time delay while travelling through the potentials generated by the large-scale structure. If the weak equivalence principle (WEP) holds, the Shapiro delay is the same for photons of all frequencies. In case the WEP is broken, one would expect an additional dispersion to occur which could be either positive or negative for individual sources. Here, we suggest to use angular statistics of the DM fluctuations to put constraints on the WEP parametrized by the post-Newtonian parameter γ. Previous studies suffer from the problem that the gravitational potential responsible for the delay diverges in a cosmological setting, which our approach avoids. We carry out a forecast for a population of FRBs observable within the next years and show that any significant detection of the DM angular power spectrum will place the tightest constraints on the WEP to date, Δγ < 10−15. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are very short and bright transients visible over extragalactic distances. The radio pulse undergoes dispersion caused by free electrons, along the line of sight, most of which are associated with the large-scale structure (LSS). The total dispersion measure therefore increases with the line of sight and provides a distance estimate to the source. We present the first measurement of the Hubble constant using the dispersion measure – redshift relation of FRBs with identified host counterpart and corresponding redshift information. A sample of nine currently available FRBs yields a constraint of |$H_0 = 62.3 \pm 9.1 \, \rm {km} \, \rm {s}^{-1}\, \rm {Mpc}^{-1}$|⁠ , accounting for uncertainty stemming from the LSS, host halo, and Milky Way contributions to the observed dispersion measure. We discuss possible biases arising from highly dispersed signals, and break the degeneracy between the expansion rate and the mean free electron abundance with a prior on the physical baryon density. The main current limitation is statistical, and we estimate that a few hundred events with corresponding redshifts are sufficient for a per cent measurement of H 0. This is a number well within reach of ongoing FRB searches. We perform a forecast using a realistic mock sample to demonstrate that a high-precision measurement of the expansion rate is possible without relying on other cosmological probes. FRBs can therefore arbitrate the current tension between early and late-time measurements of H 0 in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We laser-dress several doubly-excited states in helium. Tuning the coupling-laser intensity from perturbative to the strong-coupling regime, we are able to measure phases imprinted on the two-electron wavefunctions, and observe a new continuum coupling mechanism.

A two-electron wave packet among the lowest-lying doubly-excited states in helium is experimentally observed. It creates a 1-femtosecond modulation in the transient-absorption signal modified by a time-delayed coupling laser.

Searches for modified gravity in the large-scale structure try to detect the enhanced amplitude of density fluctuations caused by the fifth force present in many of these theories. Neutrinos, on the other hand, suppress structure growth below their free-streaming length. Both effects take place on comparable scales, and uncertainty in the neutrino mass leads to a degeneracy with modified gravity parameters for probes that are measuring the amplitude of the matter power spectrum. We explore the possibility to break the degeneracy between modified gravity and neutrino effects in the growth of structures by considering kinematic information related to either the growth rate on large scales or the virial velocities inside of collapsed structures. In order to study the degeneracy up to fully non-linear scales, we employ a suite of N-body simulations including both f(R) modified gravity and massive neutrinos. Our results indicate that velocity information provides an excellent tool to distinguish massive neutrinos from modified gravity. Models with different values of neutrino masses and modified gravity parameters possessing a comparable matter power spectrum at a given time have different growth rates. This leaves imprints in the velocity divergence, which is therefore better suited than the amplitude of density fluctuations to tell the models apart. In such models with a power spectrum comparable to ΛCDM today, the growth rate is strictly enhanced. We also find the velocity dispersion of virialised clusters to be well suited to constrain deviations from general relativity without being affected by the uncertainty in the sum of neutrino masses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a halo-mass function accurate over the full relevant Hu–Sawicki f (R) parameter space based on spherical collapse calculations and calibrated to a suite of modified gravity N -body simulations that include massive neutrinos. We investigate the ability of current and forthcoming galaxy cluster observations to detect deviations from general relativity while constraining the total neutrino mass and including systematic uncertainties. Our results indicate that the degeneracy between massive neutrino and modify gravity effects is a limiting factor for the current searches for new gravitational physics with clusters of galaxies, but future surveys will be able to break the degeneracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present measurements of angular cross power spectra between galaxies and opticallyselected galaxy clusters in the final photometric sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We measure the autocorrelations and cross correlations between galaxy and cluster samples, from which we extract the effective biases and study the shot noise properties. We model the non-Poissonian shot noise by introducing an effective number density of tracers and fit for this quantity. We find that we can only describe the cross-correlation of galaxies and galaxy clusters, as well as the autocorrelation of galaxy clusters, on the relevant scales using a non-Poissonian shot noise contribution. The values of effective bias we finally measure for a volume-limited sample are bcc = 4.09 ± 0.47 for the cluster autocorrelation and bgc = 2.15 ± 0.09 for the galaxy-cluster cross-correlation. We find that these results are consistent with expectations from the autocorrelations of galaxies and clusters and are in good agreement with previous studies. The main result is two-fold: first we provide a measurement of the cross-correlation of galaxies and clusters, which can be used for further cosmological analysis; and secondly we describe an effective treatment of the shot noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many weak-lensing calculations make use of the Born approximation where the light ray is approximated by a straight path. We examine the effect of Born-corrections for lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in an analytical approach by taking perturbative corrections to the geodesic into account. The resulting extra power in the lensing potential spectrum is comparable to the power generated by non-linear structure formation and affects especially the polarization spectra, leading to relative changes of the order of 10-3 for the E-mode spectrum and several percent on all scales to the B-mode spectrum. In contrast, there is only little change of spectra involving the CMB temperature. Additionally, the corrections excite one more degree of freedom resulting in a deflection component which cannot be described as a gradient of the lensing potential as it is related to image rotation in lens-lens coupling. We estimate the magnitude of this effect on the CMB spectra and find it to be negligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]