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This report summarizes the present status of neutrino non-standard interactions (NSI). After a brief overview, several aspects of NSIs are discussed, including connection to neutrino mass models, model-building and phenomenology of large NSI with both light and heavy mediators, NSI phenomenology in both short- and long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, neutrino cross-sections, complementarity of NSI with other low- and high-energy experiments, fits with neutrino oscillation and scattering data, DUNE sensitivity to NSI, effective field theory of NSI, as well as the relevance of NSI to dark matter and cosmology. We also discuss the open questions and interesting future directions that can be pursued by the community at large. This report is based on talks and discussions during the Neutrino Theory Network NSI workshop held at Washington University in St. Louis from May 29-31, 2019 (https://indico.cern.ch/event/812851/), 104 pages; minor revision

Lorentz invariance violation in quantum gravity (QG) models or a nonzero photon mass, $m_\gamma$, would lead to an energy-dependent propagation speed for photons, such that photons of different energies from a distant source would arrive at different times, even if they were emitted simultaneously. By developing source-by-source, Monte Carlo-based forward models for such time delays from gamma ray bursts, and marginalising over empirical noise models describing other contributions to the time delay, we derive constraints on $m_\gamma$ and the QG length scale, $\ell_{\rm QG}$, using spectral lag data from the BATSE satellite. We find $m_\gamma < 4.0 \times 10^{-5} \, h \, {\rm eV}/c^2$ and $\ell_{\rm QG} < 5.3 \times 10^{-18} \, h \, {\rm \, GeV^{-1}}$ at 95% confidence, and demonstrate that these constraints are robust to the choice of noise model. The QG constraint is among the tightest from studies which consider multiple gamma ray bursts and the constraint on $m_\gamma$, although weaker than from using radio data, provides an independent constraint which is less sensitive to the effects of dispersion by electrons., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, accepted for publication in Physical Review D

The Lambda-Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) model agrees with most of the cosmological observations, but has some hindrances from observed data at smaller scales such as galaxies. Recently, Berezhiani and Khoury (2015) proposed a new theory involving interacting superfluid dark matter with three model parameters, which explains galactic dynamics with great accuracy. In the present work, we study the cosmological behaviour of this model in the linear regime of cosmological perturbations. In particular, we compute both analytically and numerically the matter linear growth factor and obtain new bounds for the model parameters which are significantly stronger than previously found. These new constraints come from the fact that structures within the superfluid dark matter framework grow quicker than in LCDM, and quite rapidly when the DM-baryon interactions are strong., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures

Covariance matrices are among the most difficult pieces of end-to-end cosmological analyses. In principle, for two-point functions, each component involves a four-point function, and the resulting covariance often has hundreds of thousands of elements. We investigate various compression mechanisms capable of vastly reducing the size of the covariance matrix in the context of cosmic shear statistics. This helps identify which of its parts are most crucial to parameter estimation. We start with simple compression methods, by isolating and "removing" 200 modes associated with the lowest eigenvalues, then those with the lowest signal-to-noise ratio, before moving on to more sophisticated schemes like compression at the tomographic level and, finally, with the Massively Optimized Parameter Estimation and Data compression (MOPED). We find that, while most of these approaches prove useful for a few parameters of interest, like $\Omega_m$, the simplest yield a loss of constraining power on the intrinsic alignment (IA) parameters as well as $S_8$. For the case considered -- cosmic shear from the first year of data from the Dark Energy Survey -- only MOPED was able to replicate the original constraints in the 16-parameter space. Finally, we apply a tolerance test to the elements of the compressed covariance matrix obtained with MOPED and confirm that the IA parameter $A_{\mathrm{IA}}$ is the most susceptible to inaccuracies in the covariance matrix., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, 1 table. V2 reflects version accepted for publication in PRD

A recently-proposed algorithm identifies voids in simulations as the regions associated with halos when the initial overdensity field is negated. We apply this method to the real Universe by running a suite of constrained simulations of the 2M++ volume with initial conditions inferred by the BORG algorithm, along with the corresponding inverted set. Our 101 inverted and uninverted simulations, spanning the BORG posterior, each identify ~150,000 "voids as antihalos" with mass exceeding $4.38\times10^{11} \: \mathrm{M_\odot}$ (100 particles) at $z=0$ in a full-sky sphere of radius 155 Mpc/h around the Milky Way. We calculate the size function, volume filling fraction, ellipticity, central density, specific angular momentum, clustering and stacked density profile of the voids, and cross-correlate them with those produced by VIDE on the same simulations. We make our antihalo and VIDE catalogues publicly available., 5 pages, 5 figures; minor revision, matches MNRASL accepted version

We study the connection of matter density and its tracers from the PDF perspective. One aspect of this connection is the conditional expectation value $\langle \delta_{\mathrm{tracer}}|\delta_m\rangle$ when averaging both tracer and matter density over some scale. We present a new way to incorporate a Lagrangian bias expansion of this expectation value into standard frameworks for modelling the PDF of density fluctuations and counts-in-cells statistics. Using N-body simulations and mock galaxy catalogs we confirm the accuracy of this expansion and compare it to the more commonly used Eulerian parametrization. For halos hosting typical luminous red galaxies, the Lagrangian model provides a significantly better description of $\langle \delta_{\mathrm{tracer}}|\delta_m\rangle$ at second order in perturbations. A second aspect of the matter-tracer connection is shot-noise, \ie the scatter of tracer density around $\langle \delta_{\mathrm{tracer}}|\delta_m\rangle$. It is well known that this noise can be significantly non-Poissonian and we validate the performance of a more general, two-parameter shot-noise model for different tracers and simulations. Both parts of our analysis are meant to pave the way for forthcoming applications to survey data., Comment: 20 pages, submitted to MNRAS, numerical tools available at https://github.com/OliverFHD/CosMomentum

We present our determination of the baryon budget for an X-ray-selected XXL sample of 136 galaxy groups and clusters spanning nearly two orders of magnitude in mass ($M_{500}\sim 10^{13}-10^{15}M_\odot$) and the redshift range $0< z < 1$. Our joint analysis is based on the combination of HSC-SSP weak-lensing mass measurements, XXL X-ray gas mass measurements, and HSC and SDSS multiband photometry. We carry out a Bayesian analysis of multivariate mass-scaling relations of gas mass, galaxy stellar mass, stellar mass of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), and soft-band X-ray luminosity, by taking into account the intrinsic covariance between cluster properties, selection effect, weak-lensing mass calibration, and observational error covariance matrix. The mass-dependent slope of the gas mass--total mass ($M_{500}$) relation is found to be $1.29_{-0.10}^{+0.16}$, which is steeper than the self-similar prediction of unity, whereas the slope of the stellar mass--total mass relation is shallower than unity, $0.85_{-0.09}^{+0.12}$. The BCG stellar mass weakly depends on cluster mass with a slope of $0.49_{-0.10}^{+0.11}$. The baryon, gas mass, and stellar mass fractions as a function of $M_{500}$ agree with the results from numerical simulations and previous observations. We successfully constrain the full intrinsic covariance of the baryonic contents. The BCG stellar mass shows the larger intrinsic scatter at a given halo total mass, followed in order by stellar mass and gas mass. We find a significant positive intrinsic correlation coefficient between total (and satellite) stellar mass and BCG stellar mass and no evidence for intrinsic correlation between gas mass and stellar mass. All the baryonic components show no redshift evolution., 34 pages, 16 figures, 8 tables; accepted for the publication in PASJ

Primordial black holes (PBHs) are dark matter candidates that span broad mass ranges from $10^{-17}$ $M_\odot$ to $\sim 100$ $M_\odot$. We show that the stochastic gravitational wave background can be a powerful window for the detection of sub-solar mass PBHs and shed light on their formation channel via third-generation gravitational wave detectors such as Cosmic Explorer and the Einstein Telescope. By using the mass distribution of the compact objects and the redshift evolution of the merger rates, we can distinguish astrophysical sources from PBHs and will be able to constrain the fraction of sub-solar mass PBHs $\leq 1$ $M_\odot$ in the form of dark matter $f_{PBH}\leq 1\%$ at $68\%$ C.L. even for a pessimistic value of a binary suppression factor. In the absence of any suppression of the merger rate, constraints on $f_{PBH}$ will be less than $0.001\%$. Furthermore, we will be able to measure the redshift evolution of the PBH merger rate with about $1\%$ accuracy, making it possible to uniquely distinguish between the Poisson and clustered PBH scenarios., 8 pages, 4 figures. Matches the version accepted for publication in MNRAS

Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) are predicted by several Beyond the Standard Model theories, in particular, string theory. In the presence of an external magnetic field perpendicular to the direction of propagation, ALPs can couple to photons. Therefore, if an X-ray source is viewed through a magnetised plasma, such as a luminous quasar in a galaxy cluster, we may expect spectral distortions that are well described by photon-ALP oscillations. We present a $571 \ \mathrm{ks}$ combined High and Low Energy Transmission Grating (HETG/LETG) Chandra observation of the powerful radio-quiet quasar H1821+643, hosted by a cool-core cluster at redshift $0.3$. The spectrum is well described by a double power-law continuum and broad$+$narrow iron line emission typical of type-1 Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), with remaining spectral features $< 2.5\%$. Using a cell-based approach to describe the turbulent cluster magnetic field, we compare our spectrum with photon-ALP mixing curves for 500 field realisations assuming that the thermal-to-magnetic pressure ratio remains constant up to the virial radius. At $99.7\%$ credibility and taking $��= 100$, we exclude all couplings $g_\mathrm{a��} > 6.3 \times 10^{-13} \ {\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$ for most ALP masses $< 10^{-12} \ \mathrm{eV}$. Our results are moderately more sensitive to constraining ALPs than the best previous result from Chandra observations of the Perseus cluster, albeit with a less constrained field model. We reflect on the promising future of ALP studies with bright AGN embedded in rich clusters, especially with the upcoming Athena mission., 14 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS on 24th November 2021. Comments welcome

We use the Sherwood-Relics suite of hybrid hydrodynamical and radiative transfer simulations to model the effect of inhomogeneous reionisation on the 1D power spectrum of the \Lya forest transmitted flux at redshifts $4.2\leq z \leq 5$. Relative to models that assume a homogeneous UV background, reionisation suppresses the power spectrum at small scales, $k \sim 0.1\rm\,km^{-1}\,s$ by $\sim 10$ per cent because of spatial variations in the thermal broadening kernel and the divergent peculiar velocity field associated with over-pressurised intergalactic gas. On larger scales, $k4$, $0.006 \rm \,km^{-1}\,s\leq k \leq 0.2 \rm\, km^{-1}\,s$, we find inhomogeneous reionisation does not introduce any significant bias in thermal parameter recovery for the current measurement uncertainties of $\sim 10$ per cent. However, for $5$ per cent uncertainties, $\sim 1\sigma$ shifts between the estimated and true parameters occur., Comment: Accepted by MNRAS (21 November 2021), 20 pages, 11 figures

We present updated cosmological constraints from measurements of the gas mass fractions ($f_{gas}$) of massive, dynamically relaxed galaxy clusters. Our new data set has greater leverage on models of dark energy, thanks to the addition of the Perseus Cluster at low redshifts, two new clusters at redshifts $z>0.97$, and significantly longer observations of four clusters at $0.6, Comment: To be published in MNRAS. See https://github.com/abmantz/fgas-cosmo for code and https://github.com/abmantz/fgas-2021-paper for data presented in figures/tables

The abundance of dark matter haloes is one of the key probes of the growth of structure and expansion history of the Universe. Theoretical predictions for this quantity usually assume that, when expressed in a certain form, it depends only on the mass variance of the linear density field. However, cosmological simulations have revealed that this assumption breaks, leading to 10–20 per cent systematic effects. In this paper, we employ a specially designed suite of simulations to further investigate this problem. Specifically, we carry out cosmological N-body simulations where we systematically vary growth history at a fixed linear density field, or vary the power spectrum shape at a fixed growth history. We show that the halo mass function generically depends on these quantities, thus showing a clear signal of non-universality. Most of this effect can be traced back to the way in which the same linear fluctuation grows differently into the non-linear regime depending on details of its assembly history. With these results, we propose a parameterization with explicit dependence on the linear growth rate and power spectrum shape. Using an independent suite of simulations, we show that this fitting function accurately captures the mass function of haloes over cosmologies spanning a vast parameter space, including massive neutrinos and dynamical dark energy. Finally, we employ this tool to improve the accuracy of so-called cosmology-rescaling methods and show they can deliver 2 per cent accurate predictions for the halo mass function over the whole range of currently viable cosmologies.

Obtaining accurately calibrated redshift distributions of photometric samples is one of the great challenges in photometric surveys like LSST, Euclid, HSC, KiDS, and DES. We present an inference methodology that combines the redshift information from the galaxy photometry with constraints from two-point functions, utilizing cross-correlations with spatially overlapping spectroscopic samples, and illustrate the approach on CosmoDC2 simulations. Our likelihood framework is designed to integrate directly into a typical large-scale structure and weak lensing analysis based on two-point functions. We discuss efficient and accurate inference techniques that allow us to scale the method to the large samples of galaxies to be expected in LSST. We consider statistical challenges like the parametrization of redshift systematics, discuss and evaluate techniques to regularize the sample redshift distributions, and investigate techniques that can help to detect and calibrate sources of systematic error using posterior predictive checks. We evaluate and forecast photometric redshift performance using data from the CosmoDC2 simulations, within which we mimic a DESI-like spectroscopic calibration sample for cross-correlations. Using a combination of spatial cross-correlations and photometry, we show that we can provide calibration of the mean of the sample redshift distribution to an accuracy of at least 0.002(1+z), consistent with the LSST-Y1 science requirements for weak lensing and large-scale structure probes., Comment: Updated to match the version accepted by the MNRAS, 23 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables

With a single training image and using wavelet phase harmonic augmentation, we present polarized Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) foreground marginalization in a high-dimensional likelihood-free (Bayesian) framework. We demonstrate robust foreground removal using only a single frequency of simulated data for a BICEP-like sky patch. Using Moment Networks we estimate the pixel-level posterior probability for the underlying {E,B} signal and validate the statistical model with a quantile-type test using the estimated marginal posterior moments. The Moment Networks use a hierarchy of U-Net convolutional neural networks. This work validates such an approach in the most difficult limiting case: pixel-level, noise-free, highly non-Gaussian dust foregrounds with a single training image at a single frequency. For a real CMB experiment, a small number of representative sky patches would provide the training data required for full cosmological inference. These results enable robust likelihood-free, simulation-based parameter and model inference for primordial B-mode detection using observed CMB polarization data., Accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters. 5 pages with 3 figures (plus 1 page of Supporting Materials with 2 figures)

The primordial gravitational wave background (GWB) offers an exciting future avenue of discovery for new physics. Its information content encodes multiple eras in the early Universe's history, corresponding to many orders of magnitude in frequency and physical scale to be measured today. By numerically solving for the GW transfer functions we provide simple yet accurate formulas describing the average power of the large-scale energy spectrum of the GWB for arbitrary primordial tensor power spectra. In doing so we can pedagogically explain and clarify previous GWB literature, highlight the important cosmological parameters of various GWB features, and reveal multiple ways in which cancelling conceptual errors can give deceptively accurate results. The scales considered here are particularly important for CMB probes of the GWB, via $B$-modes and spectral distortions. In particular, we carefully study the effects of both neutrino damping, and the precise nature of the transition between the radiation-dominated (RD) and matter-dominated (MD) eras. A byproduct of numerically solving the problem is the ability to study the robustness of common approximations in the literature. Specifically, we show that a numerical treatment is especially important around the RD--MD transition, and for a brief moment of history where neutrino damping occurs during MD. In passing we also discuss the effects of late acceleration caused by dark energy -- showing that this can be neglected in most practical GWB applications -- and the effects of changing relativistic degrees of freedom on the GWB at very small-scales., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, to be submitted to MNRAS, comments welcome

Constant-rate inflation, including ultra-slow-roll as a special case, has been widely applied to the formation of primordial black holes with significant deviation from the standard slow-roll conditions at both the growing and decaying phases of the power spectrum. We derive analytic solutions for the curvature perturbations with respect to the late-time scaling dimensions (conformal weights) constrained by the dilatation symmetry of the de Sitter background and show that the continuity of conformal weights across different rolling phases is protected by the adiabatic condition of the inflaton perturbation. The temporal excitation of subleading states (with the next-to-lowest conformal weights), recorded as the "steepest growth" of the power spectrum, is triggered by the entropy production in the transition from slow-roll to constant-rate phases., Comment: 18 + 4 pages, 6 figures; v2: references added, provided entropy production as a criterion for the steepest growth; v3: minor corrections, version matched with publication

Within the ongoing debate about de Sitter (dS) vacua in string theory, different aspects of explicit dS proposals have come under intense scrutiny. One key ingredient is D7-brane gaugino condensation, which is usually treated using effective 4d supergravity. However, it is clearly more desirable to derive the relevant scalar potential directly from a local 10d Lagrangian. Such a local 10d description captures the interactions among the various localized sources and the background fields which are smeared in the 4d Lagrangian. While progress in this endeavour has recently been made, some form of non-locality related to the 4-gaugino term has remained hidden in the available proposals. We spell out the local counterterm removing the divergence that arises when integrating out the 3-form flux and which, upon dimensional reduction, serves to reproduce the relevant part of the 4d supergravity action. This is both a step towards a more complete understanding of 10d type-IIB supergravity as well as specifically towards better control of dS constructions in string theory involving gaugino condensation., 27 pages. v2: Minor changes; v3: Published in JHEP

The characteristic mass that sets the peak of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is closely linked to the thermodynamic behaviour of interstellar gas, which controls how gas fragments as it collapses under gravity. As the Universe has grown in metal abundance over cosmic time, this thermodynamic behaviour has evolved from a primordial regime dominated by the competition between compressional heating and molecular hydrogen cooling to a modern regime where the dominant process in dense gas is protostellar radiation feedback, transmitted to the gas by dust-gas collisions. In this paper we map out the primordial-to-modern transition by constructing a model for the thermodynamics of collapsing, dusty gas clouds at a wide range of metallicities. We show the transition from the primordial regime to the modern regime begins at metallicity $Z\sim 10^{-4} \rm{Z_\odot}$, passes through an intermediate stage where metal line cooling is dominant at $Z \sim 10^{-3}\,\rm{Z_{\odot}}$, and then transitions to the modern dust- and feedback-dominated regime at $Z\sim 10^{-2} \rm{Z_\odot}$. In low pressure environments like the Milky Way, this transition is accompanied by a dramatic change in the characteristic stellar mass, from $\sim 50\,\rm{M_\odot}$ at $Z \sim 10^{-6}\,\rm{Z_{\odot}}$ to $\sim 0.3\,\rm{M_\odot}$ once radiation feedback begins to dominate, which marks the appearance of the modern bottom-heavy Milky Way IMF. In the high pressure environments typical of massive elliptical galaxies, the characteristic mass for the modern, dust-dominated regime falls to $\sim 0.1\,\rm{M_{\odot}}$, thus providing an explanation for the more bottom-heavy IMF observed in these galaxies. We conclude that metallicity is a key driver of variations in the characteristic stellar mass, and by extension, the IMF., 26 pages (main result in figures 7 and 8). MNRAS in press

Scalar Field Dark Matter (SFDM) comprised of ultralight ($\gtrsim 10^{-22}$ eV) bosons is an alternative to standard, collisionless Cold Dark Matter (CDM) that is CDM-like on large scales but inhibits small-scale structure formation. As a Bose-Einstein condensate, its free-field ("fuzzy") limit (FDM) suppresses structure below the de Broglie wavelength, $\lambda_\text{deB}$, creating virialized haloes with central cores of radius $\sim\lambda_\text{deB}$, surrounded by CDM-like envelopes, and a halo mass function (HMF) with a sharp cut-off on small scales. With a strong enough repulsive self-interaction (SI), structure is inhibited, instead, below the Thomas-Fermi (TF) radius, $R_\text{TF}$ (the size of an SI-pressure-supported ($n=1$)-polytrope), when $R_\text{TF} > \lambda_\text{deB}$. Previously, we developed tools to describe SFDM dynamics on scales above $\lambda_\text{deB}$ and showed that SFDM-TF haloes formed by Jeans-unstable collapse from non-cosmological initial conditions have $R_\text{TF}$-sized cores, surrounded by CDM-like envelopes. Revisiting SFDM-TF in the cosmological context, we simulate halo formation by cosmological infall and collapse, and derive its transfer function from linear perturbation theory to produce cosmological initial conditions and predict statistical measures of structure formation, such as the HMF. Since FDM and SFDM-TF transfer functions both have small-scale cut-offs, we can align them to let observational constraints on FDM proxy for SFDM-TF, finding FDM with particle masses $1 \lesssim m/(10^{-22} \text{ eV}/c^2) \lesssim 30$ corresponds to SFDM-TF with $10 \gtrsim R_\text{TF}/(1 \text{ pc}) \gtrsim 1$, favoring sub-galactic (sub-kpc) core-size. The SFDM-TF HMF cuts off gradually, however, leaving more small-mass haloes: its Jeans mass shrinks so fast, scales filtered early can still recover and grow!, Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRAS 09/22/21, comments welcome

We introduce zeus, a well-tested Python implementation of the Ensemble Slice Sampling (ESS) method for Bayesian parameter inference. ESS is a novel Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm specifically designed to tackle the computational challenges posed by modern astronomical and cosmological analyses. In particular, the method requires only minimal hand--tuning of 1-2 hyper-parameters that are often trivial to set; its performance is insensitive to linear correlations and it can scale up to 1000s of CPUs without any extra effort. Furthermore, its locally adaptive nature allows to sample efficiently even when strong non-linear correlations are present. Lastly, the method achieves a high performance even in strongly multimodal distributions in high dimensions. Compared to emcee, a popular MCMC sampler, zeus performs 9 and 29 times better in a cosmological and an exoplanet application respectively., Comment: 15 pages, 17 figures, 2 tables, published in MNRAS; Code available at https://github.com/minaskar/zeus

We characterize the selection cuts and clustering properties of a magnitude-limited sample of bright galaxies that is part of the Bright Galaxy Survey (BGS) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) using the ninth data release of the Legacy Imaging Surveys (DR9). We describe changes in the DR9 selection compared to the DR8 one and we also compare the DR9 selection in three distinct regions: BASS/MzLS in the north Galactic Cap (NGC), DECaLS in the NGC, and DECaLS in the south Galactic Cap (SGC). We investigate the systematics associated with the selection and assess its completeness by matching the BGS targets with the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. We measure the angular clustering for the overall bright sample (rmag ≤ 19.5) and as function of apparent magnitude and colour. This enables to determine the clustering strength r0 and slope γ by fitting a power-law model that can be used to generate accurate mock catalogues for this tracer. We use a counts-in-cells technique to explore higher order statistics and cross-correlations with external spectroscopic data sets in order to check the evolution of the clustering with redshift and the redshift distribution of the BGS targets using clustering redshifts. While this work validates the properties of the BGS bright targets, the final target selection pipeline and clustering properties of the entire DESI BGS will be fully characterized and validated with the spectroscopic data of Survey Validation. © 2021 The Author(s)., PZ, OR-M, SC, PN, and CB acknowledge support from the Science Technology Facilities Council through ST/P000541/1 andST/T000244/1. OR-M is supported by the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT) through grant No. 297228/440775 and funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 734374. JM gratefully acknowledges support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics under Award Number DESC0020086 and from the National Science Foundation under grant AST-1616414. Authors want to thank the GAMA collaboration for early access to GAMA DR4 data for this work. Some of the results in this paper have been derived using the healpy and HEALPIX package. We acknowledge the usage of the HyperLeda database (http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr).This work also made extensive use of the NASA Astrophysics Data System and of the astro-ph preprint archive at arXiv.org. This work used the DiRAC@Durham facility managed by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility (www.dirac.ac.uk). The equipment was funded by BEIS capital funding via STFC capital grants ST/K00042X/1, ST/P002293/1, and ST/R002371/1, Durham University and STFC operations grant ST/R000832/1. DiRAC is part of the National e-Infrastructure. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). NERSC is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. This research is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH1123, and by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility under the same contract; additional support for DESI is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Division of Astronomical Sciences under Contract No. AST-0950945 to the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory; the Science and Technologies Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA); the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico; the Ministry of Economy of Spain, and by the DESI Member Institutions. The authors are honored to be permitted to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O’odham Nation., With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709.

We use 78 reverberation-measured Mg II time-lag quasars (QSOs) in the redshift range $0.0033 \leq z \leq 1.89$ to constrain cosmological parameters in six different cosmological models. The basis of our method is the use of the radius-luminosity or $R-L$ relation to standardize these 78 Mg II QSOs. In each cosmological model we simultaneously determine $R-L$ relation and cosmological model parameters, thus avoiding the circularity problem. We find that the $R-L$ relation parameter values are independent of the cosmological model used in the analysis thus establishing that current Mg II QSOs are standardizable candles. Cosmological constraints obtained using these QSOs are significantly weaker than, but consistent with, those obtained from a joint analysis of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) observations and Hubble parameter [$H(z)$] measurements. So, we also analyse these QSOs in conjunction with the BAO + $H(z)$ data and find cosmological constraints consistent with the standard spatially-flat $\Lambda$CDM model as well as with mild dark energy dynamics and a little spatial curvature. A larger sample of higher-quality reverberation-measured QSOs should have a smaller intrinsic dispersion and so should provide tighter constraints on cosmological parameters., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure, Mg II QSO data are given, MNRAS accepted version. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2105.12692

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will open the mHz frequency window of the gravitational wave (GW) landscape. Among all the new GW sources expected to emit in this frequency band, extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) constitute a unique laboratory for astrophysics and fundamental physics. Here we show that EMRIs can also be used to extract relevant cosmological information, complementary to both electromagnetic (EM) and other GW observations. By using the loudest EMRIs (SNR$>$100) detected by LISA as dark standard sirens, statistically matching their sky localisation region with mock galaxy catalogs, we find that constraints on $H_0$ can reach $\sim$1.1% ($\sim$3.6%) accuracy, at the 90% credible level, in our best (worst) case scenario. By considering a dynamical dark energy (DE) cosmological model, with $\Lambda$CDM parameters fixed by other observations, we further show that in our best (worst) case scenario $\sim$5.9% ($\sim$12.3%) relative uncertainties at the 90% credible level can be obtained on $w_0$, the DE equation of state parameter. Besides being relevant in their own right, EMRI measurements will be affected by different systematics compared to both EM and ground-based GW observations. Cross validation with complementary cosmological measurements will therefore be of paramount importance, especially if convincing evidence of physics beyond $\Lambda$CDM emerges from future observations., Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures. v2: new author in author list, new sub-Appendix with additional results, new Fig. A1; some explicative paragraphs added, Fig. 3 updated. Matches the journal version

We present the v1.0 release of CLMM, an open source Python library for the estimation of the weak lensing masses of clusters of galaxies. CLMM is designed as a standalone toolkit of building blocks to enable end-to-end analysis pipeline validation for upcoming cluster cosmology analyses such as the ones that will be performed by the LSST-DESC. Its purpose is to serve as a flexible, easy-to-install and easy-to-use interface for both weak lensing simulators and observers and can be applied to real and mock data to study the systematics affecting weak lensing mass reconstruction. At the core of CLMM are routines to model the weak lensing shear signal given the underlying mass distribution of galaxy clusters and a set of data operations to prepare the corresponding data vectors. The theoretical predictions rely on existing software, used as backends in the code, that have been thoroughly tested and cross-checked. Combined, theoretical predictions and data can be used to constrain the mass distribution of galaxy clusters as demonstrated in a suite of example Jupyter Notebooks shipped with the software and also available in the extensive online documentation., 21 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS

The locations of Ly-$\alpha$ emitting galaxies (LAEs) at the end of the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) are expected to correlate with regions of ionised hydrogen, traced by the redshifted 21~cm hyperfine line. Mapping the neutral hydrogen around regions with detected and localised LAEs offers an avenue to constrain the brightness temperature of the Universe within the EoR by providing an expectation for the spatial distribution of the gas, thereby providing prior information unavailable to power spectrum measurements. We use a test set of 12 hours of observations from the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in extended array configuration, to constrain the neutral hydrogen signature of 58 LAEs, detected with the Subaru Hypersuprime Cam in the \textit{Silverrush} survey, centred on $z$=6.58. We assume that detectable emitters reside in the centre of ionised HII bubbles during the end of reionization, and predict the redshifted neutral hydrogen signal corresponding to the remaining neutral regions using a set of different ionised bubble radii. A prewhitening matched filter detector is introduced to assess detectability. We demonstrate the ability to detect, or place limits upon, the amplitude of brightness temperature fluctuations, and the characteristic HII bubble size. With our limited data, we constrain the brightness temperature of neutral hydrogen to $\Delta{\rm T}_B, Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Dark Matter (DM) halos with masses below $\sim10^{8}$ $M_{\odot}$, which would help to discriminate between DM models, may be detected through their gravitational effect on distant sources. The same applies to primordial black holes, considered as an alternative scenario to DM particle models. However, there is still no evidence for the existence of such objects. With the aim of finding compact objects in the mass range $\sim$ 10$^{6}$ -- 10$^{9}$$M_{\odot}$, we search for strong gravitational lenses on milli (mas)-arcseconds scales (< 150 mas). For our search, we used the Astrogeo VLBI FITS image database -- the largest publicly available database, containing multi-frequency VLBI data of 13828 individual sources. We used the citizen science approach to visually inspect all sources in all available frequencies in search for images with multiple compact components on mas-scales. At the final stage, sources were excluded based on the surface brightness preservation criterion. We obtained a sample of 40 sources that passed all steps and therefore are judged to be milli-arcsecond lens candidates. These sources are currently followed-up with on-going European VLBI Network (EVN) observations at 5 and 22 GHz. Based on spectral index measurements, we suggest that two of our candidates have a higher probability to be associated with gravitational lenses., 6 pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication

Using a set of $\Lambda$CDM simulations of cosmic structure formation, we study the evolving connectivity and changing topological structure of the cosmic web using state-of-the-art tools of multiscale topological data analysis (TDA). We follow the development of the cosmic web topology in terms of the evolution of Betti number curves and feature persistence diagrams of the three (topological) classes of structural features: matter concentrations, filaments and tunnels, and voids. The Betti curves specify the prominence of features as a function of density level, and their evolution with cosmic epoch reflects the changing network connections between these structural features. The persistence diagrams quantify the longevity and stability of topological features. In this study we establish, for the first time, the link between persistence diagrams, the features they show, and the gravitationally driven cosmic structure formation process. By following the diagrams' development over cosmic time, the link between the multiscale topology of the cosmic web and the hierarchical buildup of cosmic structure is established. The sharp apexes in the diagrams are intimately related to key transitions in the structure formation process. The apex in the matter concentration diagrams coincides with the density level at which, typically, they detach from the Hubble expansion and begin to collapse. At that level many individual islands merge to form the network of the cosmic web and a large number of filaments and tunnels emerge to establish its connecting bridges. The location trends of the apex possess a self-similar character that can be related to the cosmic web's hierarchical buildup. We find that persistence diagrams provide a significantly higher and more profound level of information on the structure formation process than more global summary statistics like Euler characteristic or Betti numbers., Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures, 1 table. Revised and shortened version, submitted to MNRAS

With the advent of large spectroscopic surveys the amount of high quality chemo-dynamical data in the Milky Way (MW) increased tremendously. Accurately and correctly capturing and explaining the detailed features in the high-quality observational data is notoriously difficult for state-of-the-art numerical models. In order to keep up with the quantity and quality of observational datasets, improved prescriptions for galactic chemical evolution need to be incorporated into the simulations. Here we present a new, flexible, time resolved chemical enrichment model for cosmological simulations. Our model allows to easily change a number of stellar physics parameters such as the shape of the initial mass function (IMF), stellar lifetimes, chemical yields or SN Ia delay times. We implement our model into the Gasoline2 code and perform a series of cosmological simulations varying a number of key parameters, foremost evaluating different stellar yield sets for massive stars from the literature. We find that total metallicity, total iron abundance and gas phase oxygen abundance are robust predictions from different yield sets and in agreement with observational relations. On the other hand, individual element abundances, especially $\alpha$-elements show significant differences across different yield sets and none of our models can simultaneously match constraints on the dwarf and MW mass scale. This offers a unique way of observationally constraining model parameters. For MW mass galaxies we find for most yield tables tested in this work a bimodality in the $[\alpha$/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] plane of rather low intrinsic scatter potentially in tension with the observed abundance scatter., Comment: main text 19 pages and 11 figures, 4 pages of appendix, 23 pages total, python code and data at https://github.com/TobiBu/chemical_enrichment.git. submitted to MNRAS, comments very welcome

The circumgalactic medium (CGM) encodes signatures of the galaxy-formation process, including the interaction of galactic outflows driven by stellar and supermassive black hole (SMBH) feedback with the gaseous halo. Moving beyond spherically symmetric radial profiles, we study the \textit{angular} dependence of CGM properties around $z=0$ massive galaxies in the IllustrisTNG simulations. We characterize the angular signal of density, temperature, and metallicity of the CGM as a function of galaxy stellar mass, halo mass, distance, and SMBH mass, via stacking. TNG predicts that the CGM is anisotropic in its thermodynamical properties and chemical content over a large mass range, $M_*\sim10^{10-11.5}M_\odot$. Along the minor axis directions, gas density is diluted, whereas temperature and metallicity are enhanced. These feedback-induced anisotropies in the CGM have a magnitude of $0.1-0.3$ dex, extend out to the halo virial radius, and peak at Milky Way-like masses, $M_*\sim10^{10.8}M_\odot$. In TNG, this mass scale corresponds to the onset of efficient SMBH feedback and the production of strong outflows. By comparing the anisotropic signals predicted by TNG versus other simulations -- Illustris and EAGLE -- we find that each simulation produces distinct signatures and mass dependencies, implying that this phenomenon is sensitive to the underlying physical models. Finally, we explore X-ray emission as an observable of this CGM anistropy, finding that future X-ray observations, including the eROSITA all-sky survey, will be able to detect and characterize this signal, particularly in terms of an angular modulation of the X-ray hardness., Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures + Appendix. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present a detailed study of the shapes and alignments of different galaxy cluster components using hydrodynamical simulations. We compute shape parameters from the Dark Matter (DM) distribution, the galaxy members and the intra-cluster light (ICL). We assess how well the DM cluster shape can be constrained by means of the identified galaxy member positions and the ICL. Further, we address the dilution factor introduced when estimating the cluster elongation using weak-lensing stacking techniques, which arises due to the misalignment between the total surface mass distribution and the distribution of luminous tracers. The dilution is computed considering the alignment between the DM and the Brightest Cluster Galaxy, the galaxy members and the ICL. Our study shows that distributions of galaxy members and ICL are less spherical than the DM component, although both are well aligned with the semi-major axis of the later. We find that the distribution of galaxy members hosted in more concentrated subhalos is more elongated than the distribution of the DM. Moreover, these galaxies are better aligned with the dark matter component compared to the distribution of galaxies hosted in less concentrated subhalos. We conclude that the positions of galaxy members can be used as suitable tracers to estimate the cluster surface density orientation, even when a low number of members is considered. Our results provide useful information for interpreting the constraints on the shapes of galaxy clusters in observational studies., Comment: Submitted MNRAS. 12 pages, 7 figures (+ appendix)

We use galaxies from the IllustrisTNG, MassiveBlack-II and Illustris hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the behaviour of large scale galaxy intrinsic alignments. Our analysis spans four redshift slices over the approximate range of contemporary lensing surveys $z=0-1$. We construct comparable weighted samples from the three simulations, which we then analyse using an alignment model that includes both linear and quadratic alignment contributions. Our data vector includes galaxy-galaxy, galaxy-shape and shape-shape projected correlations, with the joint covariance matrix estimated analytically. In all of the simulations, we report non-zero IAs at the level of several $\sigma$. For a fixed lower mass threshold, we find a relatively strong redshift dependence in all three simulations, with the linear IA amplitude increasing by a factor of $\sim 2$ between redshifts $z=0$ and $z=1$. We report no significant evidence for non-zero values of the tidal torquing amplitude, $A_2$, in TNG, above statistical uncertainties, although MassiveBlack-II favours a moderately negative $A_2\sim-2$. Examining the properties of the TATT model as a function of colour, luminosity and galaxy type (satellite or central), our findings are consistent with the most recent measurements on real data. We also outline a novel method for constraining the TATT model parameters directly from the pixelised tidal field, alongside a proof of concept exercise using TNG. This technique is shown to be promising, although the comparison with previous results obtained via other methods is non-trivial., Comment: 28 pages, 18 Figures; submitted to MNRAS

Upcoming galaxy surveys and 21-cm experiments targeting high redshifts $z\gtrsim 6$ are highly complementary probes of galaxy formation and reionization. However, in order to expedite the large volume simulations relevant for 21-cm observations, many models of galaxies within reionization codes are entirely subgrid and/or rely on halo abundances only. In this work, we explore the extent to which resolving and modeling individual galaxy formation histories affects predictions both for the galaxy populations detectable by upcoming surveys and the signatures of reionization accessible to upcoming 21-cm experiments. We find that a common approach, in which galaxy luminosity is assumed to be a function of halo mass only, is biased with respect to models in which galaxy properties are evolved through time via semi-analytic modeling and thus reflective of the diversity of assembly histories that naturally arise in $N$-body simulations. The diversity of galaxy formation histories also results in scenarios in which the brightest galaxies do \textit{not} always reside in the centers of large ionized regions, as there are often relatively low-mass halos undergoing dramatic, but short-term, growth. This has clear implications for attempts to detect or validate the 21-cm background via cross correlation. Finally, we show that a hybrid approach -- in which only halos hosting galaxies bright enough to be detected in surveys are modeled in detail, with the rest modeled as an unresolved field of halos with abundance related to large-scale overdensity -- is a viable way to generate large-volume `simulations` well-suited to wide-area surveys and current-generation 21-cm experiments targeting relatively large $k \lesssim 1 \ h \ \text{Mpc}^{-1}$ scales., Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The high redshift Lyman-alpha forest, in particular the Gunn-Peterson trough, is the most unambiguous signature of the neutral to ionized transition of the intergalactic medium (IGM) taking place during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Recent studies, e.g. Kulkarni et al. (2019a) and Keating et al. (2019), showed that reproducing the observed Lyman-alpha opacities after overlap required a non-monotonous evolution of cosmic emissivity: rising, peaking at z=6, and then decreasing onwards to z=4. Such an evolution is puzzling considering galaxy build-up and the cosmic star formation rate are still continously on the rise at these epochs. Here, we use new RAMSES-CUDATON simulations to show that such a peaked evolution may occur naturally in a fully coupled radiation-hydrodynamical framework. In our fiducial run, cosmic emissivity at z>6 is dominated by a low mass (M$_{\rm DM}, 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The freeze-in production of Feebly Interacting Massive Particle (FIMP) dark matter in the early universe is an appealing alternative to the well-known - and constrained - Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) paradigm. Although challenging, the phenomenology of FIMP dark matter has been receiving growing attention and is possible in a few scenarios. In this work, we contribute to this endeavor by considering a $Z^\prime$ portal to fermionic dark matter, with the $Z^\prime$ having both vector and axial couplings and a mass ranging from MeV up to PeV. We evaluate the bounds on both freeze-in and freeze-out from direct detection, atomic parity violation, leptonic anomalous magnetic moments, neutrino-electron scattering, collider, and beam dump experiments. We show that FIMPs can already be tested by most of these experiments in a complementary way, whereas WIMPs are especially viable in the $Z^\prime$ low mass regime, in addition to the $Z^\prime$ resonance region. We also discuss the role of the axial couplings of $Z^\prime$ in our results. We therefore hope to motivate specific realizations of this model in the context of FIMPs, as well as searches for these elusive dark matter candidates., v2: Minor corrections, discussion expanded, updated figures, references added. Matches journal version

We derive non-equilibrium quantum transport equations for flavour-mixing fermions. We develop the formalism mostly in the context of resonant leptogenesis with two mixing Majorana fermions and one lepton flavour, but our master equations are valid more generally in homogeneous and isotropic systems. We give a hierarchy of quantum kinetic equations, valid at different approximations, that can accommodate helicity and arbitrary mass differences. In the mass-degenerate limit the equations take the familiar form of density matrix equations. We also derive the semiclassical Boltzmann limit of our equations, including the CP-violating source, whose regulator corresponds to the flavour coherence damping rate. Boltzmann equations are accurate and insensitive to the particular form of the regulator in the weakly resonant case $\Delta m \gg \Gamma$, but for $\Delta m \lesssim \Gamma$ they are qualitatively correct at best, and their accuracy crucially depends on the form of the CP-violating source., Comment: 68 pages, 12 figures; (v2) updated to match published version. Code package available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5025929

In this work, we use the {\sc astraeus} (seminumerical rAdiative tranSfer coupling of galaxy formaTion and Reionization in N-body dArk mattEr simUlationS) framework which couples galaxy formation and reionization in the first billion years. Exploring a number of models for reionization feedback and the escape fraction of ionizing radiation from the galactic environment ($f_\mathrm{esc}$), we quantify how the contribution of star-forming galaxies {(with halo masses $M_h>10^{8.2}$M$_\odot$)} to reionization depends on the radiative feedback model, $f_\mathrm{esc}$, and the environmental over-density. Our key findings are: (i) for constant $f_\mathrm{esc}$ models, intermediate-mass galaxies (with halo masses of $M_h\simeq10^{9-11}$M$_\odot$ and absolute UV magnitudes of $M_{UV} \sim -15$ to $-20$) in intermediate-density regions drive reionization; (ii) scenarios where $f_\mathrm{esc}$ increases with decreasing halo mass shift the galaxy population driving reionization to lower-mass galaxies ($M_h\lesssim10^{9.5}$M$_\odot$) with lower luminosities ($M_{UV} \gtrsim-16$) and over-densities; (iii) reionization imprints its topology on the ionizing emissivity of low-mass galaxies ($M_h\lesssim10^{9}$M$_\odot$) through radiative feedback. Low-mass galaxies experience a stronger suppression of star formation by radiative feedback and show lower ionizing emissivities in over-dense regions; (iv) a change in $f_\mathrm{esc}$ with galaxy properties has the largest impact on the sources of reionization and their detectability, with the radiative feedback strength and environmental over-density playing a sub-dominant role; (v) JWST-surveys (with a limiting magnitude of $M_{UV} = -16$) will be able to detect the galaxies providing $\sim 60-70\%$ ($\sim 10\%$) of reionization photons at $z=7$ for constant $f_\mathrm{esc}$ models (scenarios where $f_\mathrm{esc}$ increases with decreasing halo mass)., 14 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We present results from a resolved stellar population search for dwarf satellite galaxies of six nearby (D $, Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. Accepted to MNRAS. Comments welcomed

Cosmological shock waves are ubiquitous to cosmic structure formation and evolution. As a consequence, they play a major role in the energy distribution and thermalization of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We analyze the Mach number distribution in the Dianoga simulations of galaxy clusters performed with the SPH code GADGET-3. The simulations include the effects of radiative cooling, star formation, metal enrichment, supernova and active galactic nuclei feedback. A grid-based shock-finding algorithm is applied in post-processing to the outputs of the simulations. This procedure allows us to explore in detail the distribution of shocked cells and their strengths as a function of cluster mass, redshift and baryonic physics. We also pay special attention to the connection between shock waves and the cool-core/non-cool core (CC/NCC) state and the global dynamical status of the simulated clusters. In terms of general shock statistics, we obtain a broad agreement with previous works, with weak (low-Mach number) shocks filling most of the volume and processing most of the total thermal energy flux. As a function of cluster mass, we find that massive clusters seem more efficient in thermalising the IGM and tend to show larger external accretion shocks than less massive systems. We do not find any relevant difference between CC and NCC clusters. However, we find a mild dependence of the radial distribution of the shock Mach number on the cluster dynamical state, with disturbed systems showing stronger shocks than regular ones throughout the cluster volume., Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

One of the main predictions of excursion set theory is that the clustering of dark matter haloes only depends on halo mass. However, it has been long established that the clustering of haloes also depends on other properties, including formation time, concentration, and spin; this effect is commonly known as halo assembly bias. We use a suite of gravity-only simulations to study the dependence of halo assembly bias on cosmology; these simulations cover cosmological parameters spanning 10$\sigma$ around state-of-the-art best-fitting values, including standard extensions of the $\Lambda$CDM paradigm such as neutrino mass and dynamical dark energy. We find that the strength of halo assembly bias presents variations smaller than 0.05 dex across all cosmologies studied for concentration and spin selected haloes, letting us conclude that the dependence of halo assembly bias upon cosmology is negligible. We then study the dependence of galaxy assembly bias (i.e. the manifestation of halo assembly bias in galaxy clustering) on cosmology using subhalo abundance matching. We find that galaxy assembly bias also presents very small dependence upon cosmology ($\sim$ 2$\%$-4$\%$ of the total clustering); on the other hand, we find that the dependence of this signal on the galaxy formation parameters of our galaxy model is much stronger. Taken together, these results let us conclude that the dependence of halo and galaxy assembly bias on cosmology is practically negligible., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to MNRAS, comments welcome

We present strong-lensing analyses of three galaxy clusters, RXJ2129.4+0009 (z=0.235), MS0451.6-0305 (z=0.55), and MACSJ2129.4-0741 (z=0.589), using the powerful combination of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) multi-band observations, and Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) spectroscopy. In RXJ2129, we newly spectroscopically confirm 15 cluster members. Our resulting mass model uses 8 multiple image systems as we include a galaxy-galaxy lensing system North-East of the cluster, and is composed of 71 halos including one dark matter cluster-scale halo and 2 galaxy-scale halos optimized individually. For MS0451, we report the spectroscopic identification of 2 new systems of multiple images in the Northern region, and 112 cluster members. Our mass model uses 16 multiple image systems, and 146 halos, including 2 large-scale halos, and 7 galaxy-scale halos independently optimized. For MACSJ2129, we report the spectroscopic identification of one new multiple image system at z=4.41, and newly measure spectroscopic redshifts for 4 cluster members. Our mass model uses 14 multiple image systems, and is composed of 151 halos, including 2 large-scale halos and 4 galaxy-scale halos independently optimized. Our best models have rms of 0.29'', 0.6'', 0.74'' in the image plane for RXJ2129, MS0451, and MACSJ2129 respectively. This analysis presents a detailed comparison with the existing literature showing excellent agreements, and discuss specific studies of lensed galaxies, e.g. a group of submilimeter galaxies at z=2.9 in MS0451, and a bright z=2.1472 red singly imaged galaxy in MACSJ2129., 25 pages, 10 figures, 13 tables, accepted in MNRAS

Galaxy clusters provide an excellent probe in various research fields in astrophysics and cosmology. However, the number of galaxy clusters detected so far in the $AKARI$ North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) field is limited. In this work, we provide galaxy cluster candidates in the $AKARI$ NEP field with the minimum requisites based only on coordinates and photometric redshift (photo-$z$) of galaxies. We used galaxies detected in 5 optical bands ($g$, $r$, $i$, $z$, and $Y$) by the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), assisted with $u$-band from Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) MegaPrime/MegaCam, and IRAC1 and IRAC2 bands from the $Spitzer$ space telescope for photo-$z$ estimation. We calculated the local density around every galaxy using the 10$^{th}$-nearest neighbourhood. Cluster candidates were determined by applying the friends-of-friends algorithm to over-densities. 88 cluster candidates containing 4390 member galaxies below redshift 1.1 in 5.4 deg$^2$ have been detected. The reliability of our method was examined through false detection tests, redshift uncertainty tests, and applications on the COSMOS data, giving false detection rates of 0.01 to 0.05 and recovery rate of 0.9 at high richness. 3 X-ray clusters previously observed by $ROSAT$ and $Chandra$ were recovered. The cluster galaxies show higher stellar mass and lower star formation rate (SFR) compared to the field galaxies in two-sample Z-tests. These cluster candidates are useful for environmental studies of galaxy evolution and future astronomical surveys in the NEP, where $AKARI$ has performed unique 9-band mid-infrared photometry for tens of thousands of galaxies., Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, has been accepted for publication in MNRAS

Core formation and runaway core collapse in models with self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) significantly alter the central density profiles of collapsed halos. Using a forward modeling inference framework with simulated datasets, we demonstrate that flux ratios in quadruple image strong gravitational lenses can detect the unique structural properties of SIDM halos, and statistically constrain the amplitude and velocity dependence of the interaction cross section in halos with masses between $10^6 - 10^{10} M_{\odot}$. Measurements on these scales probe self-interactions at velocities below $30 \ \rm{km} \ \rm{s^{-1}}$, a relatively unexplored regime of parameter space, complimenting constraints at higher velocities from galaxies and clusters. We cast constraints on the amplitude and velocity dependence of the interaction cross section in terms of $\sigma_{20}$, the cross section amplitude at $20 \ \rm{km} \ \rm{s^{-1}}$. With 50 lenses, a sample size available in the near future, and flux ratios measured from spatially compact mid-IR emission around the background quasar, we forecast $\sigma_{20} < 11-23 \ \rm{cm^2} \rm{g^{-1}}$ at $95 \%$ CI, depending on the amplitude of the subhalo mass function, and assuming cold dark matter (CDM). Alternatively, if $\sigma_{20} = 19.2 \ \rm{cm^2}\rm{g^{-1}}$ we can rule out CDM with a likelihood ratio of 20:1, assuming an amplitude of the subhalo mass function that results from doubly-efficient tidal disruption in the Milky Way relative to massive elliptical galaxies. These results demonstrate that strong lensing of compact, unresolved sources can constrain SIDM structure on sub-galactic scales across cosmological distances, and the evolution of SIDM density profiles over several Gyr of cosmic time., Comment: matches version accepted to MNRAS

It has long been argued that the radial distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the Fornax dwarf galaxy requires its dark matter halo to have a core of size $\sim 1$ kpc. We revisit this argument by investigating analogues of Fornax formed in E-MOSAICS, a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation that self-consistently follows the formation and evolution of GCs in the EAGLE galaxy formation model. In EAGLE, Fornax-mass haloes are cuspy and well described by the Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We post-process the E-MOSAICS to account for GC orbital decay by dynamical friction, which is not included in the original model. Dynamical friction causes 33 per cent of GCs with masses $M_{\rm GC}\geq4\times10^4 {~\rm M_\odot}$ to sink to the centre of their host where they are tidally disrupted. Fornax has a total of five GCs, an exceptionally large number compared to other galaxies of similar stellar mass. In the simulations, we find that only 3 per cent of the Fornax analogues have five or more GCs, while 30 per cent have only one and 35 per cent have none. We find that GC systems in satellites are more centrally concentrated than in field dwarfs, and that those formed in situ (45 per cent) are more concentrated than those that were accreted. The survival probability of a GC increases rapidly with the radial distance at which it formed ($r_{\rm init}$): it is 37 per cent for GCs with $r_{\rm init} \leq 1$ kpc and 92 per cent for GCs with $r_{\rm init} \geq 1$ kpc. The present-day radial distribution of GCs in E-MOSAICS turns out to be indistinguishable from that in Fornax, demonstrating that, contrary to claims in the literature, the presence of five GCs in the central kiloparsec of Fornax does not exclude a cuspy DM halo., 15 pages, 13 figures. submitted to MNRAS, comments welcome!

We report the discovery of an intrinsically faint, quintuply-imaged, dusty galaxy MACS0600-z6 at a redshift $z=$6.07 viewed through the cluster MACSJ0600.1-2008 ($z$=0.46). A $\simeq4\sigma$ dust detection is seen at 1.2mm as part of the ALMA Lensing Cluster Survey (ALCS), an on-going ALMA Large program, and the redshift is secured via [C II] 158 $\mu$m emission described in a companion paper. In addition, spectroscopic follow-up with GMOS/Gemini-North shows a break in the galaxy's spectrum, consistent with the Lyman break at that redshift. We use a detailed mass model of the cluster and infer a magnification $\mu\gtrsim$30 for the most magnified image of this galaxy, which provides an unprecedented opportunity to probe the physical properties of a sub-luminous galaxy at the end of cosmic reionisation. Based on the spectral energy distribution, we infer lensing-corrected stellar and dust masses of $\rm{2.9^{+11.5}_{-2.3}\times10^9}$ and $\rm{4.8^{+4.5}_{-3.4}\times10^6}$ $\rm{M_{\odot}}$ respectively, a star formation rate of $\rm{9.7^{+22.0}_{-6.6} M_{\odot} yr^{-1}}$, an intrinsic size of $\rm{0.54^{+0.26}_{-0.14}}$ kpc, and a luminosity-weighted age of 200$\pm$100 Myr. Strikingly, the dust production rate in this relatively young galaxy appears to be larger than that observed for equivalent, lower redshift sources. We discuss if this implies that early supernovae are more efficient dust producers and the consequences for using dust mass as a probe of earlier star formation., Comment: submitted to MNRAS, revised version after including referee's comments

We present a neural-network emulator for baryonic effects in the non-linear matter power spectrum. We calibrate this emulator using more than 50,000 measurements in a 15-dimensional parameters space, varying cosmology and baryonic physics. Baryonic physics is described through a baryonification algorithm, that has been shown to accurately capture the relevant effects on the power spectrum and bispectrum in state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations. Cosmological parameters are sampled using a cosmology-rescaling approach including massive neutrinos and dynamical dark energy. The specific quantity we emulate is the ratio between matter power spectrum with baryons and gravity-only, and we estimate the overall precision of the emulator to be 1-2%, at all scales 0.01 < k < 5 h/Mpc, and redshifts 0 < z < 1.5. We also obtain an accuracy of 1-2%, when testing the emulator against a collection of 74 different cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and their respective gravity-only counterparts. We show also that only one baryonic parameter, namely Mc, which set the gas fraction retained per halo mass, is enough to have accurate and realistic predictions of the baryonic feedback at a given epoch. Our emulator will become publicly available in http://www.dipc.org/bacco., 13 pages, 11 figures. Comments are welcome

The imprints of large-scale structures on the Cosmic Microwave Background can be studied via the CMB lensing and Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) signals. In particular, the stacked ISW signal around supervoids has been claimed in several works to be anomalously high. In this study, we find cluster and void superstructures using four tomographic redshift bins with $0, Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, revised to match the accepted version on MNRAS

Water megamasers at 22 GHz with a gas disk configuration in galaxies provide the most precise measurements of supermassive black hole masses, as well as independent constraints on the Hubble constant in the nearby universe. The existence of other maser types, such as jet or outflow masers, represents another tracer for AGN science. However, the detection rate of water megamasers in galaxies is extremely low. Over 40 years, only $\sim$ 160 galaxies are found to harbour maser emission, and $\sim$ 30\% of them show features in their maser emission that indicate a disk-like geometry. Therefore, increasing the detection rate of masers is a crucial task to allow expanding on maser studies. We present a comparison of mid-infrared spectroscopic data between a maser galaxy sample and a Seyfert 2 control sample. We find that maser galaxies show significant peculiarities in their mid-infrared spectra: (1) Maser galaxies tend to present stronger silicate absorption at $\tau$ 9.7 $\mu$m than the control sample, (2) PAH 11.3 $\mu$m emission in maser galaxies is much weaker than in the control sample, (3) spectral indices at 20-30 $\mu$m are steeper in maser galaxies than in the control sample and tend to be mid-infrared enhanced population. We conclude that there may be good indicators in mid-infrared and far-infrared which could differentiate maser and non-maser Seyfert 2 galaxies. Upcoming infrared facilities, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, may be able to exploit these and other useful criteria and tracers for water megamaser observations., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 1 appendix; accepted for publication in MNRAS

Precision calibration poses challenges to experiments probing the redshifted 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization (z~30-6). In both interferometric and global signal experiments, systematic calibration is the leading source of error. Though many aspects of calibration have been studied, the overlap between the two types of instruments has received less attention. We investigate the sky based calibration of total power measurements with a HERA dish and an EDGES style antenna to understand the role of auto-correlations in the calibration of an interferometer and the role of sky in calibrating a total power instrument. Using simulations we study various scenarios such as time variable gain, incomplete sky calibration model, and primary beam model. We find that temporal gain drifts, sky model incompleteness, and beam inaccuracies cause biases in the receiver gain amplitude and the receiver temperature estimates. In some cases, these biases mix spectral structure between beam and sky resulting in spectrally variable gain errors. Applying the calibration method to the HERA and EDGES data, we find good agreement with calibration via the more standard methods. Although instrumental gains are consistent with beam and sky errors similar in scale to those simulated, the receiver temperatures show significant deviations from expected values. While we show that it is possible to partially mitigate biases due to model inaccuracies by incorporating a time-dependent gain model in calibration, the resulting errors on calibration products are larger and more correlated. Completely addressing these biases will require more accurate sky and primary beam models., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in MNRAS main journal

We present the first high signal-to-noise broadband X-ray spectrum of the radio-quiet type-2 Seyfert ESO 033-G002, combining data from $XMM$-$Newton$ and $NuSTAR$. The nuclear X-ray spectrum is complex, showing evidence for both neutral and ionised absorption, as well as reflection from both the accretion disc and more distant material, but our broadband coverage allows us to disentangle all of these different components. The total neutral column during this epoch is $N_{\rm{H}} \sim 5-6 \times 10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$, consistent with the optical classification of ESO 033-G002 as a type-2 Seyfert but not so large as to prevent us from robustly determining the properties of the innermost accretion flow. The ionised absorption - dominated by lines from Fe XXV and Fe XXVI - reveals a moderately rapid outflow ($v_{\rm{out}} \sim 5400$ km s$^{-1}$) which has a column comparable to the neutral absorption. We find the disc reflection from the innermost regions to be extreme, with a reflection fraction of $R_{\rm{frac}} \sim 5$. This requires strong gravitational lightbending and, in turn, both an extremely compact corona (within $\sim$2 $R_{\rm{G}}$ of the black hole) and a rapidly rotating black hole ($a^* > 0.96$). Despite this tight size constraint, with a temperature of $kT_{\rm{e}} = 40-70$ keV the X-ray corona in ESO 033-G002 appears similar to other AGN in terms of its placement in the compactness-temperature plane, consistent with sitting close to the limit determined by runaway pair production. Finally, combining X-ray spectroscopy, timing and updated optical spectroscopy, we also estimate the mass of the black hole to be $\log[M_{\rm{BH}} / M_{\odot}] \sim 7.0 - 7.5$., 15 pages, 8 figures; published in MNRAS

Baryon Acoustic Oscillations are considered to be a very robust standard ruler against various systematics. This premise has been tested against observational systematics, but not to the level required for the next generation of galaxy surveys such as the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and Euclid. In this paper, we investigate the effect of observational systematics on the BAO measurement of the final sample of quasars from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 16 in order to prepare and hone a similar analysis for upcoming surveys. We employ catalogues with various treatments of imaging systematic effects using linear and neural network-based nonlinear approaches and consider how the BAO measurement changes. We also test how the variations to the BAO fitting model respond to the observational systematics. As expected, we confirm that the BAO measurements obtained from the DR16 quasar sample are robust against imaging systematics well within the statistical error, while reporting slightly modified constraints that shift the line-of-sight BAO signal by less than 1.1% . We use realistic simulations with similar redshift and angular distributions as the DR16 sample to conduct statistical tests for validating the pipeline, quantifying the significance of differences, and estimating the expected bias on the BAO scale in future high-precision data sets. Although we find a marginal impact for the eBOSS QSO data, the work presented here is of vital importance for constraining the nature of dark energy with the BAO feature in the new era of big data cosmology with DESI and Euclid., 14 pages and 16 figures, comments are welcome