Search

Unitarity sets upper limits on partial-wave elastic and inelastic cross-sections, which are often violated by perturbative computations. We discuss the dynamics underlying these limits in the non-relativistic regime, namely long-range interactions, and show how the resummation of the elastic 2-particle-irreducible diagrams arising from squaring inelastic processes unitarizes inelastic cross-sections. Our results are model-independent, apply to all partial waves, and affect elastic and inelastic cross-sections, with extensive implications for new physics scenarios, including dark-matter freeze-out and self-interactions., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures

Context. Primordial black holes (PBHs) have been proposed as potential candidates for dark matter (DM) and have garnered significant attention in recent years. Aims. Our objective is to delve into the distinct impact of PBHs on gas properties and their potential role in shaping the cosmic structure. Specifically, we aim to analyze the evolving gas properties while considering the presence of accreting PBHs with varying monochromatic masses and in different quantities. By studying the feedback effects produced by this accretion, our final goal is to assess the plausibility of PBHs as candidates for DM. Methods. We develop a semi-analytical model which works on top of the CIELO hydrodynamical simulation around $z\sim23$. This model enables a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of gas properties influenced by PBHs. Our focus lies on the temperature and hydrogen abundances, placing specific emphasis on the region closest to the halo center. We explore PBH masses of $1$, $33$, and $100~\Msun$, located within mass windows where a substantial fraction of DM could exist in the form of PBHs. We investigate various DM fractions composed of these PBHs ($f_{\rm{PBH}}>10^{-4}$). Results. Our findings suggest that the existence of PBHs with masses of $1~\Msun$ and fractions greater than or equal to approximately $10^{-2}$ would be ruled out due to the significant changes induced in gas properties. The same applies to PBHs with a mass of $33~\Msun$ and $100~\Msun$ and fractions greater than approximately $10^{-3}$. These effects are particularly pronounced in the region nearest to the halo center, potentially leading to delayed galaxy formation within haloes.

We build an effective field theory of multi-field inflationary fluctuations based on the adiabatic perturbation and on any number of matter fluctuations in the non-adiabatic sector, without imposing extra symmetries on the latter. Focusing on terms with at most two derivatives in fields' fluctuations, we argue that taking the decoupling limit -- in which gravitational interactions are neglected -- is justified in a quasi de Sitter spacetime with slow-varying Hubble scale. With these working hypotheses, we find simple forms of multi-field mixings (quadratic order) and interactions (cubic order). We explain how to break degeneracies amongst various terms, and we compare the predictions of the effective field theory to those of non-linear sigma models of inflation and more general multi-field Lagrangian in the traditional model approach. We stress that several multi-field cubic interactions are dictated by non-linearly realised spacetime symmetries and are therefore given in terms of parameters already present in the quadratic action. We propose various directions to systematically explore the phenomenology generic to multi-field inflation and beyond the lamppost of known models., Comment: 6 pages + appendices, no figure

Stationary processes do not accurately describe the diffuse backgrounds of relic gravitons whose correlations are homogeneous in space (i.e. only dependent upon the distance between the two spatial locations) but not in time. The symmetries of the autocorrelations ultimately reflect the quantum mechanical origin of the diffuse backgrounds and lead to non-stationary observables at late time. In particular, large oscillations are believed to arise in the spectral energy density that is customarily (but approximately) related to the tensor power spectrum. When the full expression of the spectral energy density is employed the amplitudes of oscillation are instead suppressed in the large-scale limit and the non-stationary features of the late-time signal practically disappear. For similar reasons the relations between the spectral energy density and the spectral amplitude are ambiguous in the presence of non-stationary features. While it is debatable if the non-stationary features are (or will be) directly detectable, we argue that the spectral amplitude following from the Wiener-Khintchine theorem is generally inappropriate for a consistent description of the relic signal. Nevertheless the strong oscillatory behaviour of the late-time observables is naturally smeared out provided the spectral energy density is selected as pivotal variable., Comment: 28 pages, 3 figures

Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration recently release the first year data (DR1) of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in galaxy, quasar and Lyman-$\alpha$ forest tracers. When combined the CMB and SNIa data with DESI BAO, its cosmological implication shows a hint of thawing dark energy behavior. The official distance measurements for cosmology analysis are given in terms of the comoving distances along ($D_H$), and perpendicular to ($D_M$), the line of sight to the observer. We notice that there are $1\sim2\sigma$ deviations in $D_M$ and $D_H$ from the values of Planck cosmology in the luminous red galaxies (LRG) bin 1 and bin 2, namely LRG1 and LRG2. In this paper, we want to study the role of LRG1 and LRG2 in driving the DESI 2024 BAO osmology away from Planck cosmology. Since the angle-averaged distance $D_V$ and the ratio of transverse and line-of-sight comoving distances $F_{\rm AP}=D_M/D_H$ are more directly related with the measured monopole and quadrupole components of galaxy power spectrum or correlation function, we use $D_V$ and $F_{\rm AP}$ instead of the officially adopted $D_M$ and $D_H$. The purpose of this data vector transformation is to isolate the influence of monopoles in LRG1 and LRG2 in driving the deviation from $w=-1$. We find that by removing the $D_V$ data point in LRG2, the DESI + CMB + SNIa data compilation recovers $w=-1$ within $2\sigma$ contour.Similarly, the exclusion of the $D_V$ data point from LRG1 shifts the contour in the $w_0/w_a$ plane toward $w=-1$, though no intersection is observed. This underscores the preference of both the LRG1 and LRG2 BAO monopole components for the thawing dark energy model, with LRG2 exhibiting a stronger preference compared to LRG1. Alongside this paper, we provide the $D_V$ and $F_{\rm AP}$ data as well as their covariance., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

We present the first fully and inherently relativistic derivation of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. This work uses the formalism historically used to compute radiation spectra emerging from inverse Thomson/Compton sources of x-ray radiation. Comparing our results to the traditional approach based on relativistically-corrected classical Kompaneets equation, we find small, but systematic differences. Most notable are the modest (< 10 %) differences in the crossover frequency where the spectral distortion due to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect vanishes, and the energy increase of the distribution at high electron cloud temperatures., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

In this note, we present spectral fits of the well-documented sloshing cool-core cluster Zwicky 3146 ($z=0.291$), to test the existence of the highly speculated 3.5 keV line. We report excesses at $>3\sigma$ significance at $E=3.575$ keV, yielding a flux $F = 8.73_{-2.22}^{+2.17}$ $\times 10^{-6}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, in \textit{XMM-Newton}, and $E=3.55$ keV, with a flux $F = 10.0_{-2.96}^{+3.05}$ $\times 10^{-6}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ in \textit{Chandra}. We explore the possibility that the 3.5 keV excess is correlated to the presence of cold gas within the cluster, based on optical and sub-mm literature analyses. Following the launch of the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), high resolution spectroscopy ($\leq 7$ eV) will reveal in unprecedented detail, the origin of this unidentified feature, for which Zwicky 3146 should be considered a viable target, due to the strength of the feature in two independent X-ray telescopes, opening a new window into plasma or charge exchange studies in galaxy clusters., Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in the Research Notes of the AAS

Understanding $\textit{galaxy bias}$ -- that is the statistical relation between matter and galaxies -- is of key importance for extracting cosmological information from galaxy surveys. While the bias function $f$ is usually approximated through a parametric expansion, we show here, that it can also be measured directly from simulations in a non-parameteric way. Our measurements show that the Lagrangian bias function is very close to a Gaussian for halo selections of any mass. Therefore, we newly introduce a Gaussian bias model with several intriguing properties: (1) It predicts only strictly positive probabilities $f > 0$ (unlike expansion models), (2) It has a simple analytic renormalized form and (3) It behaves gracefully in many scenarios where the classical expansion converges poorly. We show that the Gaussian bias model describes the galaxy environment distribution $p(\delta | \mathrm{g})$, the scale dependent bias function $f$ and the renormalized bias function $F$ of haloes and galaxies generally equally well or significantly better than a second order expansion with the same number of parameters. We suggest that a Gaussian bias approach may enhance the range of validity of bias schemes where the canonical expansion converges poorly and further, that it may make new applications possible, since it guarantees the positivity of predicted galaxy densities., Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures

The spatial distribution of galaxies is a highly complex phenomenon currently impossible to predict deterministically. However, by using a statistical $\textit{bias}$ relation, it becomes possible to robustly model the average abundance of galaxies as a function of the underlying matter density field. Understanding the properties and parametric description of the bias relation is key to extract cosmological information from future galaxy surveys. Here, we contribute to this topic primarily in two ways: (1) We develop a new set of probabilistic estimators for bias parameters using the moments of the Lagrangian galaxy environment distribution. These estimators include spatial corrections at different orders to measure bias parameters independently of the damping scale. We report robust measurements of a variety of bias parameters for haloes, including the tidal bias and its dependence with spin at a fixed mass. (2) We propose an alternative formulation of the bias expansion in terms of "cumulant bias parameters" that describe the response of the logarithmic galaxy density to large-scale perturbations. We find that cumulant biases of haloes are consistent with zero at orders $n > 2$. This suggests that: (i) previously reported bias relations at order $n > 2$ are an artefact of the entangled basis of the canonical bias expansion; (ii) the convergence of the bias expansion may be improved by phrasing it in terms of cumulants; (iii) the bias function is very well approximated by a Gaussian -- an avenue which we explore in a companion paper., Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures

The bubble wall velocity in the first order phase transition plays an important role in determining both the amplitude and the pivot frequency of stochastic gravitational wave background. In the framework of the minimal left-right symmetric model, we study the wall velocity when the first order phase transition can occur. The wall velocity can be determined by matching the distribution functions in the free particle approximation and the local thermal equilibrium approximation. It is found that the wall velocity can be determined in the range $ 0.2 < v_w < 0.5 $ for the parameter space with the first order phase transition. It is also found that for the case when the wall velocity is close to the speed of sound, the peak amplitude of gravitational wave spectrum can be larger than that in the runaway case. Moreover, It is also found that there exists an approximate power law between the wall velocity and pressure difference between broken and symmetry phases, and the power index is equal to 0.41 or so., Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures

Joint gravitational-wave and $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRB) observations are among the best prospects for standard siren cosmology. However, the strong selection effect for the coincident GRB detection, which is possible only for sources with small inclination angles, induces a systematic uncertainty that is currently not accounted for. We show that this severe source of bias can be removed by inferring the a-priori unknown electromagnetic detection probability directly from multimessenger data. This leads at the same time to an unbiased measurement of the Hubble constant, to constrain the properties of GRB emission, and to accurately measure the viewing angle of each source. Our inference scheme is applicable to real data already in the small-statistics regime, a scenario that might become reality in the near future. Additionally, we introduce a novel likelihood approximant for GW events which treats the dependence on distance and inclination as exact., Comment: 5+6 pages, 4 figures

The application of Horndeski theory/ Galileons for late time cosmology is heavily constrained by the strict coincidence in the speed of propagation of gravitational and electromagnetic waves. These constraints presuppose that the minimally coupled photon is not modified, not even at the scales where General Relativity (GR) may need modification. We find that the 4D Galileon obtained from a Kaluza-Klein compactification of its higher dimensional version is a natural unified modification of GR and electromagnetism with automatically "luminal" gravitational waves. This property follows without any fine tuning of Galileon potentials for a larger class of theories than previously thought. In particular, the $G_4$ potential is not constrained by the speed test and $G_5$ may also be present. In other words, some Galileon models that have been ruled out since the event GW170817 are, in fact, not necessarily constrained if they arise in 4D from compactifications of their higher dimensional Galileon counterparts. Besides their compelling luminality, the resulting vector Galileons are naturally $U(1)$ gauge invariant., Comment: 4 pages

We present the largest optical photometry compilation of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) with redshifts ($z$). We include 64813 observations of 535 events (including upper limits) from 28 February 1997 up to 18 August 2023. We also present a user-friendly web tool \textit{grbLC} which allows users the visualization of photometry, coordinates, redshift, host galaxy extinction, and spectral indices for each event in our database. Furthermore, we have added a Gamma Ray Coordinate Network (GCN) scraper that can be used to collect data by gathering magnitudes from the GCNs. The web tool also includes a package for uniformly investigating colour evolution. We compute the optical spectral indices for 138 GRBs for which we have at least 4 filters at the same epoch in our sample and craft a procedure to distinguish between GRBs with and without colour evolution. By providing a uniform format and repository for the optical catalogue, this web-based archive is the first step towards unifying several community efforts to gather the photometric information for all GRBs with known redshifts. This catalogue will enable population studies by providing light curves (LCs) with better coverage since we have gathered data from different ground-based locations. Consequently, these LCs can be used to train future LC reconstructions for an extended inference of the redshift. The data gathering also allows us to fill some of the orbital gaps from Swift in crucial points of the LCs, e.g., at the end of the plateau emission or where a jet break is identified., Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to MNRAS, currently replied to the 2nd revision. The Online Materials will be available after the publication

The last few years have seen the emergence of a wide array of novel techniques for analyzing high-precision data from upcoming galaxy surveys, which aim to extend the statistical analysis of galaxy clustering data beyond the linear regime and the canonical two-point (2pt) statistics. We test and benchmark some of these new techniques in a community data challenge "Beyond-2pt", initiated during the Aspen 2022 Summer Program "Large-Scale Structure Cosmology beyond 2-Point Statistics," whose first round of results we present here. The challenge dataset consists of high-precision mock galaxy catalogs for clustering in real space, redshift space, and on a light cone. Participants in the challenge have developed end-to-end pipelines to analyze mock catalogs and extract unknown ("masked") cosmological parameters of the underlying $\Lambda$CDM models with their methods. The methods represented are density-split clustering, nearest neighbor statistics, BACCO power spectrum emulator, void statistics, LEFTfield field-level inference using effective field theory (EFT), and joint power spectrum and bispectrum analyses using both EFT and simulation-based inference. In this work, we review the results of the challenge, focusing on problems solved, lessons learned, and future research needed to perfect the emerging beyond-2pt approaches. The unbiased parameter recovery demonstrated in this challenge by multiple statistics and the associated modeling and inference frameworks supports the credibility of cosmology constraints from these methods. The challenge data set is publicly available and we welcome future submissions from methods that are not yet represented., Comment: New submissions welcome! Challenge data available at https://github.com/ANSalcedo/Beyond2ptMock

Nontopological fermionic solitons exist across a diverse range of particle physics models and have rich cosmological implications. This study establishes a general framework for calculating fermionic soliton profiles under arbitrary scalar potentials, utilizing relativistic mean field theory to accurately depict the interaction between the fermion condensate and the background scalar field. Within this framework, the conventional fermion bound states are revealed as a subset of fermionic solitons. In addition, we demonstrate how the analytical formulae in previous studies are derived as special cases of our algorithm, discussing the validity of such approximations. Furthermore, we explore the phenomenology of fermionic solitons, highlighting new formation mechanisms and evolution paths, and reconsidering the possibility of collapse into primordial black holes., Comment: 21 pages + references, 4 figures, 2 tables. Comments are welcome!

Patchy reionization generates kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Large-scale velocity perturbations along the line of sight modulate the small-scale kSZ power spectrum, leading to a trispectrum (or four-point function) in the CMB that depends on the physics of reionization. We investigate the challenges in detecting this trispectrum and use tools developed for CMB lensing, such as realization-dependent bias subtraction and cross-correlation based estimators, to counter uncertainties in the instrumental noise and assumed CMB power spectrum. We also find that both lensing and extragalactic foregrounds can impart larger trispectrum contributions than the reionization kSZ signal. We present a range of mitigation methods for both of these sources of contamination, validated on microwave-sky simulations. We use ACT DR6 and Planck data to calculate an upper limit on the reionization kSZ trispectrum from a measurement dominated by foregrounds. The upper limit is about 50 times the signal predicted from recent simulations., Comment: Measurements and covariances will be made public upon publication

We report a methodology to determine the quality factor ($Q$) in implementations of the so-called dielectric haloscope, a new concept of wavy dark matter detector equipped with a multilayered resonator. An anechoic chamber enables the observation of the resonance frequency and its amplitude for an unlimited series of layers for the first time, which is conveniently filtered. The frequency-normalized power enhancement measured in a Dark-photons \& Axion-Like particles Interferometer (DALI) prototype is a few hundred per layer over a sweep bandwidth of half a hundred MHz. In light of this result, this scaled-down prototype is sensitive to axions saturating the local dark matter density with a coupling to photons between $g_{a\gamma\gamma}\gtrsim10^{-12}$ GeV$^{-1}$ and $g_{a\gamma\gamma}\gtrsim$ few $\times 10^{-14}$ GeV$^{-1}$ at frequencies of several dozens of GHz once cooled down to the different working temperatures of the experiment and immersed in magnetic fields ranging from 1 T to 10 T; while the sensitivity of the full-scale DALI is projected at $g_{a\gamma\gamma}\gtrsim\mathrm{few}\times10^{-15}$ GeV$^{-1}$ over the entire 25--250 {\mu}eV range since $Q\gtrsim10^4$ is expected., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures

Euclid is a recently launched medium-class mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) designed to measure cosmological parameters, test the cosmological standard model, and explore the nature of dark matter and dark energy. To this end, Euclid conducts a survey of up to 14000 square degrees of the extra-galactic sky and obtains optical and near-infrared photometric measurements for more than a billion galaxies as well as near-infrared slitless spectroscopy for more than 35 million galaxies. These observations will be used to estimate galaxy clustering and cosmic shear. It is expected that Euclid will achieve percent-level constraints on the Dark Energy equation of state parameter. The survey will also be exploited with a range of other cosmological probes and prove revolutionary for non-cosmological science., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, contribution to the 2024 Cosmology session of the 58th Rencontres de Moriond

The luminosity and spectral energy distribution (SED) of high-$z$ galaxies are sensitive to the stellar population synthesis (SPS) models. In this paper, we study the effects of different SPS models on the measurements of high-$z$ galaxies and the budget of ionizing photons during the epoch of reionization, by employing each of them in the semi-analytical galaxy formation model {\sc L-Galaxies 2020}. We find that the different SPS models lead to $\lesssim 0.5$ dex differences on the amplitudes of UV luminosity functions, while the two modes of the same SPS model with and without the inclusion of binary stars leads to similar UV luminosity functions at $z \ge 6$. Instead, the binary stars produce $\sim 40\%$ more ionizing photons than the single stars, while such differences are smaller than those caused by different SPS models, e.g. the BPASS model produces $\sim 100\%$ more ionizing photons than other models., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, APJ accepted

In this contribution, we present a short account of gravitational lenses and how to calculate different properties of its images in the case of having a transparent distribution of matter such as the uniform transparent sphere, isothermal gas sphere, non-singular isothermal gas sphere and a transparent King profile. With the help of XFGLenses software, and numerical methods, different images arising from all of these profiles, and the different caustics and critical curves are shown. The images were consistent with several previous results that are expected for transparent profiles, like having an odd number of images, and reducing the number of images by two when the source passes through the caustic. The curves shown in the caustics where the diamond, the ellipse and the lemniscate-like. For the critical curves, the most common curve was the ellipse, and the lemniscate appeared in the transparent NSIS case, which is consistent with the fact that these curves are common in gravitational lenses.

Millisecond pulsars are extremely precise celestial clocks: as they rotate, the beamed radio waves emitted along the axis of their magnetic field can be detected with radio telescopes, which allows for tracking subtle changes in the pulsars' rotation periods. A possible effect on the period of a pulsar is given by a potential coupling to dark matter, in cases where it is modeled with an "ultralight" scalar field. In this paper, we consider a universal conformal coupling of the dark matter scalar to gravity, which in turn mediates an effective coupling between pulsars and dark matter. If the dark matter scalar field is changing in time, as expected in the Milky Way, this effective coupling produces a periodic modulation of the pulsar rotational frequency. By studying the time series of observed radio pulses collected by the European Pulsar Timing Array experiment, we present constraints on the coupling of dark matter, improving on existing bounds. These bounds can also be regarded as constraints on the parameters of scalar-tensor theories of the Fierz-Jordan-Brans-Dicke and Damour-Esposito-Far\`{e}se types in the presence of a (light) mass potential term., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures

The first wave of observations with JWST has revealed a striking overabundance of luminous galaxies at early times ($z>10$) compared to models of galaxies calibrated to pre-JWST data. Early observations have also uncovered a large population of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at $z>6$. Because many of the high-$z$ objects appear extended, the contribution of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) to the total luminosity has been assumed to be negligible. In this work, we use a semi-empirical model for assigning AGNs to galaxies to show that active galaxies can boost the stellar luminosity function (LF) enough to solve the overabundance problem while simultaneously remaining consistent with the observed morphologies of high-$z$ sources. We construct a model for the composite AGN+galaxy LF by connecting dark matter halo masses to galaxy and SMBH masses and luminosities, accounting for dispersion in the mapping between host galaxy and SMBH mass and luminosity. By calibrating the model parameters -- which characterize the $M_\bullet-M_\star$ relation -- to a compilation of $z>10$ JWST UVLF data, we show that AGN emission can account for the excess luminosity under a variety of scenarios, including one where 10\% of galaxies host BHs of comparable luminosities to their stellar components. Using a sample of simulated objects and real observations, we demonstrate that such low-luminosity AGNs can be `hidden' in their host galaxies and be missed in common morphological analyses. We find that for this explanation to be viable, our model requires a population of BHs that are overmassive ($M_\bullet/M_\star\sim10^{-2}$) with respect to their host galaxies compared to the local relation and are more consistent with the observed relation at $z=4-8$. We explore the implications of this model for BH seed properties and comment on observational diagnostics necessary to further investigate this explanation., Comment: 34 pages, 12 figures; submitted to JCAP

We forecast the sensitivity of future correlations between CMB lensing and the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest power spectrum. This squeezed-limit bispectrum probes the connection between the Lyman-$\alpha$ transmission and the underlying large-scale matter density field. We recover the measured signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio obtained with Planck$\times$BOSS, and forecast a SNR of $10.3, 14.8$ and $20.2$ for DESI combined with ACT, SO and CMB-S4 respectively. For DESI and SO/CMB-S4, the correlation should be detectable at SNR$\ge 5$ in 5 redshift bins, useful for distinguishing our signal from several contaminants.Indeed, our forecast is affected by large theoretical uncertainties in the current modeling of the signal and its contaminants, such as continuum misestimation bias or damped-Lyman-$\alpha$ absorbers. Quantifying these more accurately will be crucial to enable a reliable cosmological interpretation of this observable in future measurements. We attempt to enumerate the features required in future Lyman-$\alpha$ forest simulations required to do so., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, Comments welcome

The second "Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter" (MDvDM'24) meeting was held January 8-11, 2024 in Arlington, VA, USA, hosted by Virginia Tech's Center for Neutrino Physics. This document collects contributions from this workshop, providing an overview of activities in the field. MDvDM'24 was the second topical workshop dedicated to the emerging field of mineral detection of neutrinos and dark matter, following a meeting hosted by IFPU in Trieste, Italy in October 2022. Mineral detectors have been proposed for a wide variety of applications, including searching for dark matter, measuring various fluxes of astrophysical neutrinos over gigayear timescales, monitoring nuclear reactors, and nuclear disarmament protocols; both as paleo-detectors using natural minerals that could have recorded the traces of nuclear recoils for timescales as long as a billion years and as detectors recording nuclear recoil events on laboratory timescales using natural or artificial minerals. Contributions to this proceedings discuss the vast physics potential, the progress in experimental studies, and the numerous challenges lying ahead on the path towards mineral detection. These include a better understanding of the formation and annealing of recoil defects in crystals; identifying the best classes of minerals and, for paleo-detectors, understanding their geology; modeling and control of the relevant backgrounds; developing, combining, and scaling up imaging and data analysis techniques; and many others. During the last years, MDvDM has grown rapidly and gained attention. Small-scale experimental efforts focused on establishing various microscopic readout techniques are underway at institutions in North America, Europe and Asia. We are looking ahead to an exciting future full of challenges to overcome, surprises to be encountered, and discoveries lying ahead of us., Comment: Summary and proceedings of the MDvDM'24 conference, Jan 8-11 2024

The Simons Observatory (SO), due to start full science operations in early 2025, aims to set tight constraints on inflationary physics by inferring the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ from measurements of CMB polarization $B$-modes. Its nominal design targets a precision $\sigma(r=0) \leq 0.003$ without delensing. Achieving this goal and further reducing uncertainties requires the mitigation of other sources of large-scale $B$-modes such as Galactic foregrounds and weak gravitational lensing. We present an analysis pipeline aiming to estimate $r$ by including delensing within a cross-spectral likelihood, and demonstrate it on SO-like simulations. Lensing $B$-modes are synthesised using internal CMB lensing reconstructions as well as Planck-like CIB maps and LSST-like galaxy density maps. This $B$-mode template is then introduced into SO's power-spectrum-based foreground-cleaning algorithm by extending the likelihood function to include all auto- and cross-spectra between the lensing template and the SAT $B$-modes. Within this framework, we demonstrate the equivalence of map-based and cross-spectral delensing and use it to motivate an optimized pixel-weighting scheme for power spectrum estimation. We start by validating our pipeline in the simplistic case of uniform foreground spectral energy distributions (SEDs). In the absence of primordial $B$-modes, $\sigma(r)$ decreases by 37% as a result of delensing. Tensor modes at the level of $r=0.01$ are successfully detected by our pipeline. Even with more realistic foreground models including spatial variations in the dust and synchrotron spectral properties, we obtain unbiased estimates of $r$ by employing the moment-expansion method. In this case, delensing-related improvements range between 27% and 31%. These results constitute the first realistic assessment of the delensing performance at SO's nominal sensitivity level. (Abridged), Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to Physical Review D

This is the second in a series of papers in which we use JWST MIRI multiband imaging to measure the warm dust emission in a sample of 31 multiply imaged quasars, to be used as a probe of the particle nature of dark matter. We present measurements of the relative magnifications of the strongly lensed warm dust emission in a sample of 9 systems. The warm dust region is compact and sensitive to perturbations by populations of halos down to masses $\sim 10^6$ M$_{\odot}$. Using these warm dust flux-ratio measurements in combination with 5 previous narrow-line flux-ratio measurements, we constrain the halo mass function. In our model, we allow for complex deflector macromodels with flexible third and fourth-order multipole deviations from ellipticity, and we introduce an improved model of the tidal evolution of subhalos. We constrain a WDM model and find an upper limit on the half-mode mass of $10^{7.6} M_\odot$ at posterior odds of 10:1. This corresponds to a lower limit on a thermally produced dark matter particle mass of 6.1 keV. This is the strongest gravitational lensing constraint to date, and comparable to those from independent probes such as the Ly$\alpha$ forest and Milky Way satellite galaxies.

With active time-domain surveys like the Zwicky Transient Facility, the anticipated Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time, and multi-messenger experiments such as LIGO/VIRGO/KANGRA for gravitational wave detection and IceCube for high-energy neutrino events, there is a new era in both time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy. The Astro2020 decadal survey highlights effectively responding to these astronomical alerts in a timely manner as a priority, and thus, there is an urgent need for the development of a seamless follow-up infrastructure at existing facilities that are capable of following up on detections at the survey depths. At the W. M. Keck Observatory (WMKO), we are actively constructing critical infrastructure, aimed at facilitating the Target-of-Opportunity (ToO) trigger, optimizing observational planning, streamlining data acquisition, and enhancing data product accessibility. In this document, we provide an overview of these developing services and place them in context of existing observatory infrastructure like the Keck Observatory Archive (KOA) and Data Services Initiative (DSI)., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, accompanying presentation at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2024

The Hubble constant, $H_0$, tension is the tension among the local probes, Supernovae Ia, and the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. It has been almost a decade, and this tension still puzzles the community. Here, we add intermediate redshift probes, such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) and Quasars (QS0s), to check if and to what extent these higher redshift probes can reduce this tension. We use the three-dimensional fundamental plane relation among the prompt peak luminosity, the luminosity at the end of the plateau emission, and its rest frame duration. We find similar trend in GRB intrinsic parameters as previously seen in Pantheon-Plus intrinsic parameters. We find an apparent $3.14\sigma$ tension for the GRB intrinsic parameter $b$. Indeed, this tension disappears and the parameters are actually compatible within $2.26\sigma$. Another interesting point is that the 3D relation plays an important role in conjunction with Supernovae data with Pantheon Plus and that this apparent discrepancy show how it is important the correction for selection biases and redshift evolution. The incorporation of redshift evolution correction results in a reduction of the GRB tension to $2.26\sigma$ when adjusting correction parameters. We envision that with more data this indication of tension will possibly disappear when the evolutionary parameters of GRBs are computed with increased precision., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, Latex Style

In this work, we systematically investigate the inflationary complexity of the two-mode squeezed state with thermal effect for the single field inflation, modified dispersion relation, and non-trivial sound speed with the method of closed system and open system, respectively, which our analysis is valid for most inflationary models. First, the numeric of Krylov complexity in the method of the closed system indicates that the evolution of Krylov complexity highly depends on the squeezed angle parameter once taking the thermal effect into account, which will decay into some very tiny values, but the Krylov complexity will always enhance without thermal effect. For comparison, the numeric of circuit complexity shows that the evolution is always increasing no matter whether there are thermal effects or not which is independent of the evolution of squeezed angle parameter. By utilizing the method of open system, we first construct the wave function. As for the Krylov complexity with the method of open system, our investigations show the evolution of Krylov complexity will enhance upon some peaks factoring in the thermal effects. For completeness, we also calculate the Krylov entropy in the method of closed system and open system, which indicates that the hotter universe, the more chaotic the universe. Furthermore, our derivation for the Krylov complexity and Krylov entropy could nicely recover into the case of closed system under weak dissipative approximation, which confirms the validity of construction for the wave function. Finally, our numeric of Lanczos coefficient shows that the non-trivial sound speed has minimal chaos compared to the other two cases., Comment: 47 pages, 18 figures

Cosmological emulators of observables such as the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectra and matter power spectra commonly use training data sampled from a Latin hypercube. This method often incurs high computational costs by covering less relevant parts of the parameter space, especially in high dimensions where only a small fraction of the parameter space yields a significant likelihood. In this paper, we introduce hypersphere sampling, which instead concentrates sample points in regions with higher likelihoods, significantly enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of emulators. A novel algorithm for sampling within a high-dimensional hyperellipsoid aligned with axes of correlation in the cosmological parameters is presented. This method focuses the distribution of training data points on areas of the parameter space that are most relevant to the models being tested, thereby avoiding the computational redundancies common in Latin hypercube approaches. Comparative analysis using the \textsc{connect} emulation tool demonstrates that hypersphere sampling can achieve similar or improved emulation precision with more than an order of magnitude fewer data points and thus less computational effort than traditional methods. This was tested for both the $\Lambda$CDM model and a 5-parameter extension including Early Dark Energy, massive neutrinos, and additional ultra-relativistic degrees of freedom. Our results suggest that hypersphere sampling holds potential as a more efficient approach for cosmological emulation, particularly suitable for complex, high-dimensional models., Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures

We review the kinematic effects on a gravitational wave due to either a peculiar motion of the astrophysical source emitting it or a local motion of the observer. We show, at fully non-linear order in velocity, that the amplitude of the wave is amplified by the Doppler factor in the case in which the source moves with respect to a reference frame, while it is invariant if the observer moves (with respect to a reference observer). However, the observed specific intensity transforms in the same way under a boost of the source or of the observer. We also show at fully non-linear order that under a boost (of either source or observer), the polarization tensor is rotated in the same way the wave direction is rotated by aberration, such that the only net effect of a boost on polarization is to change the phase of the helicity components. We apply these results to a wave emitted by a binary system of compact objects in the cosmological context., Comment: 38 pages, 5 figures

In this paper, we investigate the gravitational collapse to form the black hole in the acceleratingly expanding universe in the frame of Einstein--Gauss-Bonnet theory having two scalar fields and we study the propagation of the gravitational wave (GW). The collapsing spacetime can be obtained by using the formulation of the ``reconstruction'', that is, we find a model that realises the desired or given geometry. In the reconstructed models, ghosts often appear, which could be eliminated by imposing constraints. We show that the standard cosmological solutions or self-gravitating objects such as a planet, the Sun, various types of stars, etc., in Einstein's gravity, are also solutions in this model. Using the dynamical value of Gauss-Bonnet coupling, the propagation of the high-frequency GW is investigated. The propagating speed changes due to the coupling during the period of the black hole formation. The speed at which the GW propagates The speed at which the GW propagates going into the black hole is different from that of the wave going out., Comment: 21 pages, no figure. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2312.02889

Continuous wavelet analysis is gaining popularity in science and engineering for its ability to analyze data across spatial and scale domain simultaneously. In this study, we introduce a wavelet-based method to identify halos and assess its feasibility in two-dimensional (2D) scenarios. We begin with the generation of four pseudo-2D datasets from the SIMBA dark matter simulation by compressing thin slices of three-dimensional (3D) data into 2D. We then calculate the continuous wavelet transform (CWT) directly from the particle distributions, identify local maxima that represent actual halos, and segment the CWT to delineate halo boundaries. A comparison with the traditional Friends-of-Friends (FOF) method shows that our CWT-identified halos, while containing slightly fewer particles, have smoother boundaries and are more compact in dense regions. In contrast, the CWT method can link particles over greater distances to form halos in sparse regions due to its spatial segmentation scheme. The spatial distribution and halo power spectrum of both CWT and FOF halos demonstrate substantial consistency, validating the 2D applicability of CWT for halo detection. Our identification scheme operates with a linear time complexity of $\mathcal{O}(N)$, suggesting its suitability for analyzing significantly larger datasets in the future., Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, comments welcome

The baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) analysis from the first year of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), when combined with data from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), has placed an upper-limit on the sum of neutrino masses, $\sum m_\nu < 70$ meV (95%). In addition to excluding the minimum sum associated with the inverted hierarchy, the posterior is peaked at $\sum m_\nu = 0$ and is close to excluding even the minumum sum, 58 meV at 2$\sigma$. In this paper, we explore the implications of this data for cosmology and particle physics. The sum of neutrino mass is determined in cosmology from the suppression of clustering in the late universe. Allowing the clustering to be enhanced, we extended the DESI analysis to $\sum m_\nu < 0$ and find $\sum m_\nu = - 160 \pm 90$ meV (68%), and that the suppression of power from the minimum sum of neutrino masses is excluded at 99% confidence. We show this preference for negative masses makes it challenging to explain the result by a shift of cosmic parameters, such as the optical depth or matter density. We then show how a result of $\sum m_\nu =0$ could arise from new physics in the neutrino sector, including decay, cooling, and/or time-dependent masses. These models are consistent with current observations but imply new physics that is accessible in a wide range of experiments. In addition, we discuss how an apparent signal with $\sum m_\nu < 0$ can arise from new long range forces in the dark sector or from a primordial trispectrum that resembles the signal of CMB lensing., Comment: 42 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

The kinetic Sunyaev Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect is a blackbody cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropy induced by Thomson scattering off free electrons in bulk motion with respect to the CMB rest frame. The statistically anisotropic cross-correlation between the CMB and galaxy surveys encodes the radial bulk velocity (more generally, the remote dipole field), which can be efficiently reconstructed using a quadratic estimator. Here, we develop and implement a quadratic estimator for the remote dipole field to data from the Planck satellite and the unWISE galaxy redshift catalog. With this data combination, we forecast a $\sim 1$-$\sigma$ detection within $\Lambda$CDM assuming a simple model for the distribution of free electrons. Using reconstructions based on individual frequency temperature maps, we characterize the impact of foregrounds, concluding that they can be effectively mitigated by masking and removing the estimator monopole. We demonstrate that reconstructions based on component-separated CMB maps have no detectable biases from foregrounds or systematics at the level of the expected statistical error. We use these reconstructions to constrain the multiplicative optical depth bias to $b_v < 1.40$ at $68 \%$ confidence. Our fiducial signal model with $b_v =1$ is consistent with this measurement. Our results support an optimistic future for kSZ velocity reconstruction with near-term datasets., Comment: 26 pages, 18 figures, comments welcome

Recent low-frequency radio observations at 140 MHz discovered a 3 Mpc-long bridge of diffuse emission connecting the galaxy clusters Abell 0399 and Abell 0401. We present follow-up observations at 60 MHz to constrain the spectral index of the bridge, which so far has only been detected at 140 and 144 MHz. We analysed deep (~18 hours) LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) Low Band Antenna (LBA) data at 60 MHz to detect the bridge at very low frequencies. We then conducted a multi-frequency study with LOFAR HBA data at 144 MHz and uGMRT data at 400 MHz. Assuming second-order Fermi mechanisms for the re-acceleration of relativistic electrons driven by turbulence in the radio bridge regions, we compare the observed radio spectrum with theoretical synchrotron models. The bridge is detected in the 75'' resolution LOFAR image at 60 MHz and its emission fully connects the region between the two galaxy clusters. Between 60 MHz and 144 MHz we found an integrated spectral index value of -1.44 +\- 0.16 for the bridge emission. For the first time, we produced spectral index and related uncertainties maps for a radio bridge. We produce a radio spectrum, which show significant steepening between 144 and 400 MHz. This detection at low frequencies provides important information on the models of particle acceleration and magnetic field structure on very extended scales. The spectral index gives important clues to the origin of inter-cluster diffuse emission. The steepening of the spectrum above 144 MHz can be explained in a turbulent re-acceleration framework, assuming that the acceleration timescales are longer than ~200 Myr., Comment: Letter to the Editor: 7 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)

We introduce the DREAMS project, an innovative approach to understanding the astrophysical implications of alternative dark matter models and their effects on galaxy formation and evolution. The DREAMS project will ultimately comprise thousands of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations that simultaneously vary over dark matter physics, astrophysics, and cosmology in modeling a range of systems -- from galaxy clusters to ultra-faint satellites. Such extensive simulation suites can provide adequate training sets for machine-learning-based analyses. This paper introduces two new cosmological hydrodynamical suites of Warm Dark Matter, each comprised of 1024 simulations generated using the Arepo code. One suite consists of uniform-box simulations covering a $(25~h^{-1}~{\rm M}_\odot)^3$ volume, while the other consists of Milky Way zoom-ins with sufficient resolution to capture the properties of classical satellites. For each simulation, the Warm Dark Matter particle mass is varied along with the initial density field and several parameters controlling the strength of baryonic feedback within the IllustrisTNG model. We provide two examples, separately utilizing emulators and Convolutional Neural Networks, to demonstrate how such simulation suites can be used to disentangle the effects of dark matter and baryonic physics on galactic properties. The DREAMS project can be extended further to include different dark matter models, galaxy formation physics, and astrophysical targets. In this way, it will provide an unparalleled opportunity to characterize uncertainties on predictions for small-scale observables, leading to robust predictions for testing the particle physics nature of dark matter on these scales., Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, DREAMS website: https://www.dreams-project.org

LensMC is a weak lensing shear measurement method developed for Euclid and Stage-IV surveys. It is based on forward modelling to deal with convolution by a point spread function with comparable size to many galaxies; sampling the posterior distribution of galaxy parameters via Markov Chain Monte Carlo; and marginalisation over nuisance parameters for each of the 1.5 billion galaxies observed by Euclid. The scientific performance is quantified through high-fidelity images based on the Euclid Flagship simulations and emulation of the Euclid VIS images; realistic clustering with a mean surface number density of 250 arcmin$^{-2}$ ($I_{\rm E}<29.5$) for galaxies, and 6 arcmin$^{-2}$ ($I_{\rm E}<26$) for stars; and a diffraction-limited chromatic point spread function with a full width at half maximum of $0.^{\!\prime\prime}2$ and spatial variation across the field of view. Objects are measured with a density of 90 arcmin$^{-2}$ ($I_{\rm E}<26.5$) in 4500 deg$^2$. The total shear bias is broken down into measurement (our main focus here) and selection effects (which will be addressed elsewhere). We find: measurement multiplicative and additive biases of $m_1=(-3.6\pm0.2)\times10^{-3}$, $m_2=(-4.3\pm0.2)\times10^{-3}$, $c_1=(-1.78\pm0.03)\times10^{-4}$, $c_2=(0.09\pm0.03)\times10^{-4}$; a large detection bias with a multiplicative component of $1.2\times10^{-2}$ and an additive component of $-3\times10^{-4}$; and a measurement PSF leakage of $\alpha_1=(-9\pm3)\times10^{-4}$ and $\alpha_2=(2\pm3)\times10^{-4}$. When model bias is suppressed, the obtained measurement biases are close to Euclid requirement and largely dominated by undetected faint galaxies ($-5\times10^{-3}$). Although significant, model bias will be straightforward to calibrate given the weak sensitivity., Comment: 28 pages, 18 figures, 2 tables

A new degravitation mechanism within the framework of scalar tensor gravity is proposed. The mechanism eliminates all constant contributions from the potential to the Friedmann equation, leaving only the kinematic and the dynamic terms of the potential to drive cosmic acceleration. We explore a scenario involving a density-triggered phase transition in the late-time universe, and argue that the resulting effective energy density and equation of state parameter can explain late-time cosmology when extrapolated to a region of the parameter space., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

We explore a scenario where an early epoch of matter domination is driven by the mass scale $M_N$ of the right-handed neutrinos, which also characterizes the different flavour regimes of leptogenesis. Such a matter-domination epoch gives rise to peculiar spectral imprints on primordial Gravitational Waves (GWs) produced during inflation. We point out that the characteristic spectral features are detectable in multiple frequency bands with current and future GW experiments in case of Blue GWs (BGWs) described by a power-law with a positive spectral index $(n_T >0)$ and an amplitude compatible with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements. We find that the three-flavour leptogenesis regime with $M_N \lesssim 10^9~{\rm GeV}$ imprints BGWs more prominently than the two-flavour and one-flavour regimes characterized by a higher right-neutrino mass scale. In particular, a two-flavour (three-flavour) leptogenesis regime is expected to leave distinct imprints in the mHz ($\mu$Hz) band. Moreover, we translate the current Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and LIGO limits on the GW energy density into constraints on the flavour leptogenesis parameter space for different GW spectral index $n_T$. Interestingly, a three-flavour leptogenesis regime can offer a unique signal testable in the next LIGO run with a correlated signature in the PTA frequency band with an amplitude comparable to the one expected from supermassive black holes., Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, comments are welcome

Bias models relating the dark matter field to the spatial distribution of halos are widely used in cosmological analyses. Many such models predict halos purely from the local matter density, an assumption which has not been verified in a model-agnostic setting. Bias models in perturbation theory require the inclusion of other local properties, but it is not clear whether this extends to non-perturbative approaches. We assess the validity of the assumption that only the local dark matter density can be used to predict the number density of halos in a model-independent way and in the non-perturbative regime. Utilising $N$-body simulations, we introduce a test wherein we study the properties of the halo counts field after spatial voxels with near-equal dark matter density have been permuted. If local-in-matter-density (LIMD) biasing were valid, the statistical properties of the permuted and un-permuted fields would be indistinguishable since both are equally fair draws of the stochastic biasing model. For voxels of side length $\sim4-60\,h^{-1}{\rm\,Mpc}$ and for halos less massive than $\sim10^{15}\,h^{-1}{\rm\,M_\odot}$, the permuted halo field has significantly too much power on large scales compared to the truth. We interpret this as due to LIMD models removing small-scale power by not modelling correlations between neighbouring voxels. Since the permutation conserves the total variance of the halo counts field, large-scale power is substantially boosted to compensate. This conclusion is robust to the choice of initial conditions and cosmology. LIMD halo biasing cannot, therefore, reproduce the distribution of halos across a large range of scales and halo masses, no matter how complex the model. To reproduce this distribution accurately, one must allow the biasing to be a function of other quantities and/or remove the assumption that neighbouring voxels are statistically independent., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to A&A

In this letter we investigate new constraints on $f(T)$ gravity using the recent Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) data released by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and the Type Ia supernovae (SNIa) catalog from the full 5-years of the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program (DES-SN5YR). The $f(T)$ cosmological models considered are characterised by power law late-time accelerated expansion. Our results show that the combination DESI BAO +$r_d$ CMB Planck suggests a Bayesian preference for late-time $f(T)$ cosmological models over $\Lambda$CDM, obtaining a value of $H_0=72.4\pm 2.9$[km/s/Mpc] in agreement with SH0ES collaboration., Comment: 5 pages, 3 tables and 1 figure

We investigate the X-ray properties of a large sample of 71 broad line and narrow line AGN at 2

We use a combination of Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data and non-CMB data that include Pantheon+ type Ia supernovae, Hubble parameter [$H(z)$], growth factor ($f\sigma_8$) measurements, and a collection of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data, but not recent DESI 2024 BAO measurements, to confirm the DESI 2024 (DESI+CMB+PantheonPlus) data compilation support for dynamical dark energy with an evolving equation of state parameter $w(z) = w_0 + w_a z/(1+z)$. From our joint compilation of CMB and non-CMB data, in a spatially-flat cosmological model, we obtain $w_0 = -0.850 \pm 0.059$ and $w_a = -0.59^{+0.26}_{-0.22}$ and find that this dynamical dark energy is favored over a cosmological constant by $\sim 2\sigma$. Our data constraints on the flat $w_0w_a$CDM model are slightly more restrictive than the DESI 2024 constraints, with the DESI 2024 and our values of $w_0$ and $w_a$ differing by $-0.27\sigma$ and $0.44\sigma$, respectively. Our data compilation slightly more strongly favors the flat $w_0w_a$CDM model over the flat $\Lambda$CDM model than does the DESI 2024 data compilation., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

We clarify the conditions of the cosmic quantum chromodynamics (QCD) first-order phase transition in the early universe by carefully distinguishing the chiral and deconfinement phase transitions. While the chiral one with light quarks at zero chemical potential is unlikely to be first order based on the recent lattice QCD calculations, the latter one can be naturally extended with one extra rolling scalar to be first order. The argument is also valid for the dark QCD theory with arbitrary $N_c$ with a wide range of phase transition temperatures, which can be from hundreds of MeV up to beyond TeV. Notably, here we derive the general formula for the deconfinement phase transition potential of SU($N_c$) gauge theory characterized by the Polyakov loop. With the effective potential in hand, the gravitational wave spectrum is then determined via the sound shell model, which then enables us to give for the first time the quantitative analysis of the gravitational wave signals coming from the QCD deconfinement phase transition and awaits the check from future space interferometers., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures

Photon propagator for power-law inflation is considered in the general covariant gauges within the canonical quantization formalism. Photon mode functions in covariant gauges are considerably more complicated than their scalar counterparts, except for the special choice of the gauge-fixing parameter we call the simple covariant gauge. We explicitly construct the position space photon propagator in the simple covariant gauge, and find the result considerably more complicated than its scalar counterpart. This is because of the need for explicitly inverting the Laplace operator acting on the scalar propagator, which results in Appell's fourth function. Our propagator correctly reproduces the de Sitter and flat space limits. We use this propagator to compute two simple observables: the off-coincident field strength-field strength correlator and the energy-momentum tensor, both of which yield consistent results. As a spinoff of our computation we also give the exact expression for the Coulomb gauge propagator in power-law inflation in arbitrary dimensions., Comment: 77 pages (including 25 pages of appendices)

Linear scalar cosmological perturbations have increasing spectra in the contracting phase of bouncing models. We study the conditions for which these perturbations may collapse into primordial black holes and the hypothesis that these objects constitute a fraction of dark matter. We compute the critical density contrast that describes the collapse of matter perturbations in the flat-dust bounce model with a parametric solution, obtained from the Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi metric that represents the spherical collapse. We discuss the inability of the Newtonian gauge to describe perturbations in contracting models as the perturbative hypothesis does not hold in such cases. We carry the calculations for a different Gauge choice and compute the perturbations power spectra numerically. Finally, assuming a Gaussian distribution, we compute the primordial black hole abundance with the Press-Schechter formalism and compare it with observational constraints. From our analysis, we conclude that the primordial black hole formation in a dust-dominated contracting phase does not lead to a significant mass fraction of primordial black holes in dark matter today., Comment: 39 pages, 8 figures

Gravitational lensing is a crucial tool for exploring cosmic phenomena, providing insights into galaxy clustering, dark matter, and dark energy. Given the substantial computational demands of $N$-body simulations, approximate methods like $\texttt{PINOCCHIO}$ and $\texttt{turboGL}$ offer viable alternatives for simulating lensing probability density functions (PDFs). This paper evaluates these methods in contexts where baryonic effects are negligible, focusing on dark matter-dominated models and assessing their effectiveness across both weak and strong lensing regimes. Our comparative analysis reveals that these methods are particularly effective for applications involving electromagnetic and gravitational wave point sources, where strong lensing events are infrequent. Both $\texttt{PINOCCHIO}$ and $\texttt{turboGL}$ perform well in modeling the weak-lensing region influenced by mildly nonlinear structures. However, they lose accuracy in capturing small-scale nonlinear matter fields, owing to oversimplified assumptions about internal halo structures and reliance on perturbation theory. The analysis shows that $\texttt{PINOCCHIO}$ achieves an 8-15% agreement with $N$-body simulations for the second-to-fourth moments of lensing PDFs. These findings aim to inform future studies on gravitational lensing of point sources, which are increasingly relevant with upcoming supernova and gravitational wave datasets., Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures and 3 tables

Terrestrial particle accelerators collide charged particles, then watch the trajectory of outgoing debris - but they cannot manipulate dark matter. Fortunately, dark matter is the main component of galaxy clusters, which are continuously pulled together by gravity. We show that galaxy cluster mergers can be exploited as enormous, natural dark matter colliders. We analyse hydrodynamical simulations of a universe containing self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) in which all particles interact via gravity, and dark matter particles can also scatter off each other via a massive mediator. During cluster collisions, SIDM spreads out and lags behind cluster member galaxies. Individual systems can have quirky dynamics that makes them difficult to interpret. Statistically, however, we find that the mean or median of dark matter's spatial offset in many collisions can be robustly modelled, and is independent of our viewing angle and halo mass even in collisions between unequal-mass systems. If the SIDM cross-section were sigma/m = 0.1cm^2/g = 0.18 barn/GeV, the 'bulleticity' lag would be ~5 percent that of gas due to ram pressure, and could be detected at 95 percent confidence in weak lensing observations of ~100 well-chosen clusters., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures plus appendices. MNRAS in press

We train neural networks to quickly generate redshift-space galaxy power spectrum covariances from a given parameter set (cosmology and galaxy bias). This covariance emulator utilizes a combination of traditional fully-connected network layers and transformer architecture to accurately predict covariance matrices for the high redshift, north galactic cap sample of the BOSS DR12 galaxy catalog. We run simulated likelihood analyses with emulated and brute-force computed covariances, and we quantify the network's performance via two different metrics: 1) difference in $\chi^2$ and 2) likelihood contours for simulated BOSS DR 12 analyses. We find that the emulator returns excellent results over a large parameter range. We then use our emulator to perform a re-analysis of the BOSS HighZ NGC galaxy power spectrum, and find that varying covariance with cosmology along with the model vector produces $\Omega_m = 0.276^{+0.013}_{-0.015}$, $H_0 = 70.2\pm 1.9$ km/s/Mpc, and $\sigma_8 = 0.674^{+0.058}_{-0.077}$. These constraints represent an average $0.46\sigma$ shift in best-fit values and a $5\%$ increase in constraining power compared to fixing the covariance matrix ($\Omega_m = 0.293\pm 0.017$, $H_0 = 70.3\pm 2.0$ km/s/Mpc, $\sigma_8 = 0.702^{+0.063}_{-0.075}$). This work demonstrates that emulators for more complex cosmological quantities than second-order statistics can be trained over a wide parameter range at sufficiently high accuracy to be implemented in realistic likelihood analyses., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, to be submitted to Physical Review D