Search

We use Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) observations at 98 GHz (2015--2019), 150 GHz (2013--2019) and 229 GHz (2017--2019) to perform a blind shift-and-stack search for Planet 9. The search explores distances from 300 AU to 2000 AU and velocities up to 6.3 arcmin per year, depending on the distance. For a 5 Earth-mass Planet 9 the detection limit varies from 325 AU to 625 AU, depending on the sky location. For a 10 Earth-mass planet the corresponding range is 425 AU to 775 AU. The search covers the whole 18,000 square degrees of the ACT survey, though a slightly deeper search is performed for the parts of the sky consistent with Planet 9's expected orbital inclination. No significant detections are found, which is used to place limits on the mm-wave flux density of Planet 9 over much of its orbit. Overall we eliminate roughly 17% and 9% of the parameter space for a 5 and 10 Earth-mass Planet 9 respectively. We also provide a list of the 10 strongest candidates from the search for possible follow-up. More generally, we exclude (at 95% confidence) the presence of an unknown Solar system object within our survey area brighter than 4--12 mJy (depending on position) at 150 GHz with current distance $300 \text{ AU} < r < 600 \text{ AU}$ and heliocentric angular velocity $1.5'/\text{yr} < v \cdot \frac{500 \text{ AU}}{r} < 2.3'\text{yr}$, corresponding to low-to-moderate eccentricities. These limits worsen gradually beyond 600 AU, reaching 5--15 mJy by 1500 AU., 23 pages, 10 figures, 5 tables, submitted to ApJ

We present arcminute-resolution intensity and polarization maps of the Galactic center made with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). The maps cover a 32 deg$^2$ field at 98, 150, and 224 GHz with $\vert l\vert\le4^\circ$, $\vert b\vert\le2^\circ$. We combine these data with Planck observations at similar frequencies to create coadded maps with increased sensitivity at large angular scales. With the coadded maps, we are able to resolve many known features of the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) in both total intensity and polarization. We map the orientation of the plane-of-sky component of the Galactic magnetic field inferred from the polarization angle in the CMZ, finding significant changes in morphology in the three frequency bands as the underlying dominant emission mechanism changes from synchrotron to dust emission. Selected Galactic center sources, including Sgr A*, the Brick molecular cloud (G0.253+0.016), the Mouse pulsar wind nebula (G359.23-0.82), and the Tornado supernova remnant candidate (G357.7-0.1), are examined in detail. These data illustrate the potential for leveraging ground-based Cosmic Microwave Background polarization experiments for Galactic science., 26 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

We present high signal-to-noise measurements (up to 12$\sigma$) of the average thermal Sunyaev Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect from optically selected galaxy groups and clusters and estimate their baryon content within a 2.1$^\prime$ radius aperture. Sources from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) DR15 catalog overlap with 3,700 sq. deg. of sky observed by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) from 2008 to 2018 at 150 and 98 GHz (ACT DR5), and 2,089 sq. deg. of internal linear combination component-separated maps combining ACT and $\it{Planck}$ data (ACT DR4). The corresponding optical depths, $\bar{\tau}$, which depend on the baryon content of the halos, are estimated using results from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations assuming an AGN feedback radiative cooling model. We estimate the mean mass of the halos in multiple luminosity bins, and compare the tSZ-based $\bar{\tau}$ estimates to theoretical predictions of the baryon content for a Navarro-Frenk-White profile. We do the same for $\bar{\tau}$ estimates extracted from fits to pairwise baryon momentum measurements of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (kSZ) for the same data set obtained in a companion paper. We find that the $\bar{\tau}$ estimates from the tSZ measurements in this work and the kSZ measurements in the companion paper agree within $1\sigma$ for two out of the three disjoint luminosity bins studied, while they differ by 2-3$\sigma$ in the highest luminosity bin. The optical depth estimates account for one third to all of the theoretically predicted baryon content in the halos across luminosity bins. Potential systematic uncertainties are discussed. The tSZ and kSZ measurements provide a step towards empirical Compton-$\bar{y}$-$\bar{\tau}$ relationships to provide new tests of cluster formation and evolution models., Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures

We present LCDM cosmological parameter constraints obtained from delensed microwave background power spectra. Lensing maps from a subset of DR4 data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) are used to undo the lensing effect in ACT spectra observed at 150 and 98 GHz. At 150 GHz, we remove the lensing distortion with an effective efficiency of 30% (TT), 30% (EE), 26% (TE) and 20% (BB); this results in detections of the delensing effect at 8.7 sigma (TT), 5.1 sigma (EE), 2.6 sigma (TE), and 2.4 sigma (BB) significance. The combination of 150 and 98 GHz TT, EE, and TE delensed spectra is well fit by a standard LCDM model. We also measure the shift in best-fit parameters when fitting delensed versus lensed spectra; while this shift does not inform our ability to measure cosmological parameters, it does provide a three-way consistency check among the lensing inferred from the best-fit parameters, the lensing in the CMB power spectrum, and the reconstructed lensing map. This shift is predicted to be zero when fitting with the correct model since both lensed and delensed spectra originate from the same region of sky. Fitting with a LCDM model and marginalizing over foregrounds, we find that the shift in cosmological parameters is consistent with zero. Our results show that gravitational lensing of the microwave background is internally consistent within the framework of the standard cosmological model., 29 pages, 17 figures, version matches that accepted by JCAP

We present a 5.4$\sigma$ detection of the pairwise kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect using Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and $\it{Planck}$ CMB observations in combination with Luminous Red Galaxy samples from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR15 catalog. Results are obtained using three ACT CMB maps: co-added 150 GHz and 98 GHz maps, combining observations from 2008-2018 (ACT DR5), which overlap with SDSS DR15 over 3,700 sq. deg., and a component-separated map using night-time only observations from 2014-2015 (ACT DR4), overlapping with SDSS DR15 over 2,089 sq. deg. Comparisons of the results from these three maps provide consistency checks in relation to potential frequency-dependent foreground contamination. A total of 343,647 galaxies are used as tracers to identify and locate galaxy groups and clusters from which the kSZ signal is extracted using aperture photometry. We consider the impact of various aperture photometry assumptions and covariance estimation methods on the signal extraction. Theoretical predictions of the pairwise velocities are used to obtain best-fit, mass-averaged, optical depth estimates for each of five luminosity-selected tracer samples. A comparison of the kSZ-derived optical depth measurements obtained here to those derived from the thermal SZ effect for the same sample is presented in a companion paper., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Updated to match published version in PRD

We report on the serendipitous discovery of three transient millimeter-wave sources using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. The first, detected at R.A. = 273.8138, decl. = −49.4628 at ~50σ total, brightened from less than 5 mJy to at least 1100 mJy at 150 GHz with an unknown rise time shorter than 13 days, during which the increase from 250 mJy to 1100 mJy took only 8 minutes. Maximum flux was observed on 2019 November 8. The source's spectral index in flux between 90–150 GHz was positive, α = 1.5 ± 0.2. The second, detected at R.A. = 105.1584, decl. = −11.2434 at ~20σ total, brightened from less than 20 mJy to at least 300 mJy at 150 GHz with an unknown rise time shorter than 8 days. Maximum flux was observed on 2019 December 15. Its spectral index was also positive, α = 1.8 ± 0.2. The third, detected at R.A. = 301.9952, decl. = 16.1652 at ~40σ total, brightened from less than 8 mJy to at least 300 mJy at 150 GHz over a day or less but decayed over a few days. Maximum flux was observed on 2018 September 11. Its spectrum was approximately flat, with a spectral index of α = −0.2 ± 0.1. None of the sources were polarized to the limits of these measurements. The two rising-spectrum sources are coincident in position with M and K stars, while the third is coincident with a G star.

We present new arcminute-resolution maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature and polarization anisotropy from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, using data taken from 2013-2016 at 98 and 150 GHz. The maps cover more than 17,000 deg$^2$, the deepest 600 deg$^2$ with noise levels below 10 $\mu$K-arcmin. We use the power spectrum derived from almost 6,000 deg$^2$ of these maps to constrain cosmology. The ACT data enable a measurement of the angular scale of features in both the divergence-like polarization and the temperature anisotropy, tracing both the velocity and density at last-scattering. From these one can derive the distance to the last-scattering surface and thus infer the local expansion rate, $H_0$. By combining ACT data with large-scale information from WMAP we measure $H_0 = 67.6 \pm 1.1$ km/s/Mpc, at 68% confidence, in excellent agreement with the independently-measured Planck satellite estimate (from ACT alone we find $H_0 = 67.9 \pm 1.5$ km/s/Mpc). The $\Lambda$CDM model provides a good fit to the ACT data, and we find no evidence for deviations: both the spatial curvature, and the departure from the standard lensing signal in the spectrum, are zero to within 1$\sigma$; the number of relativistic species, the primordial Helium fraction, and the running of the spectral index are consistent with $\Lambda$CDM predictions to within $1.5 - 2.2\sigma$. We compare ACT, WMAP, and Planck at the parameter level and find good consistency; we investigate how the constraints on the correlated spectral index and baryon density parameters readjust when adding CMB large-scale information that ACT does not measure. The DR4 products presented here will be publicly released on the NASA Legacy Archive for Microwave Background Data Analysis., Comment: 33 pages, 24 figures, products available on the NASA LAMBDA website, version accepted for publication in JCAP

Optimal analyses of many signals in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) require map-level extraction of individual components in the microwave sky, rather than measurements at the power spectrum level alone. To date, nearly all map-level component separation in CMB analyses has been performed exclusively using satellite data. In this paper, we implement a component separation method based on the internal linear combination (ILC) approach which we have designed to optimally account for the anisotropic noise (in the 2D Fourier domain) often found in ground-based CMB experiments. Using this method, we combine multi-frequency data from the Planck satellite and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol) to construct the first wide-area, arcminute-resolution component-separated maps (covering approximately 2100 sq. deg.) of the CMB temperature anisotropy and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect sourced by the inverse-Compton scattering of CMB photons off hot, ionized gas. Our ILC pipeline allows for explicit deprojection of various contaminating signals, including a modified blackbody approximation of the cosmic infrared background (CIB) spectral energy distribution. The cleaned CMB maps will be a useful resource for CMB lensing reconstruction, kinematic SZ cross-correlations, and primordial non-Gaussianity studies. The tSZ maps will be used to study the pressure profiles of galaxies, groups, and clusters through cross-correlations with halo catalogs, with dust contamination controlled via CIB deprojection. The data products described in this paper are available on LAMBDA., Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, matches version accepted by PRD. Data products are available on LAMBDA at https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/act_dr4_derived_maps_get.cfm

We present the temperature and polarization angular power spectra of the CMB measured by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) from 5400 deg$^2$ of the 2013-2016 survey, which covers $>$15000 deg$^2$ at 98 and 150 GHz. For this analysis we adopt a blinding strategy to help avoid confirmation bias and, related to this, show numerous checks for systematic error done before unblinding. Using the likelihood for the cosmological analysis we constrain secondary sources of anisotropy and foreground emission, and derive a "CMB-only" spectrum that extends to $\ell=4000$. At large angular scales, foreground emission at 150 GHz is $\sim$1% of TT and EE within our selected regions and consistent with that found by Planck. Using the same likelihood, we obtain the cosmological parameters for $\Lambda$CDM for the ACT data alone with a prior on the optical depth of $\tau=0.065\pm0.015$. $\Lambda$CDM is a good fit. The best-fit model has a reduced $\chi^2$ of 1.07 (PTE=0.07) with $H_0=67.9\pm1.5$ km/s/Mpc. We show that the lensing BB signal is consistent with $\Lambda$CDM and limit the celestial EB polarization angle to $\psi_P =-0.07^{\circ}\pm0.09^{\circ}$. We directly cross correlate ACT with Planck and observe generally good agreement but with some discrepancies in TE. All data on which this analysis is based will be publicly released., Comment: 44 pages, 27 figures, products available on the NASA LAMBDA website, version accepted for publication in JCAP

We present new constraints on anisotropic birefringence of the cosmic microwave background polarization using two seasons of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope covering $456$ square degrees of sky. The birefringence power spectrum, measured using a curved-sky quadratic estimator, is consistent with zero. Our results provide the tightest current constraint on birefringence over a range of angular scales between $5$ arcminutes and $9$ degrees. We improve previous upper limits on the amplitude of a scale-invariant birefringence power spectrum by a factor of between $2$ and $3$. Assuming a nearly-massless axion field during inflation, our result is equivalent to a $2\,\sigma$ upper limit on the Chern-Simons coupling constant between axions and photons of $g_{\alpha\gamma}, Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in PRD

In this paper we probe the hot, post-shock gas component of quasar-driven winds through the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (tSZ) effect. Combining datasets from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the $\textit{Herschel}$ Space Observatory, and the Very Large Array, we measure average spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 109,829 optically-selected, radio quiet quasars from 1.4~GHz to 3000~GHz in six redshift bins between $0.31.91$, we measure the tSZ effect at $3.8\sigma$ significance with an amplitude corresponding to a total thermal energy of $3.1\times10^{60}$ ergs. If this energy is due to virialized gas, then our measurement implies quasar host halo masses are $\sim6\times10^{12}~h^{-1}$M$_\odot$. Alternatively, if the host dark matter halo masses are $\sim2\times10^{12}~h^{-1}$M$_\odot$ as some measurements suggest, then we measure a $>$90 per cent excess in the thermal energy over that expected due to virialization. If the measured SZ effect is primarily due to hot bubbles from quasar-driven winds, we find that $(5^{+1.2}_{-1.3}$) per cent of the quasar bolometric luminosity couples to the intergalactic medium over a fiducial quasar lifetime of 100 Myr. An additional source of tSZ may be correlated structure, and further work is required to separate the contributions. At $z\leq1.91$, we detect emission at 95 and 148~GHz that is in excess of thermal dust and optically thin synchrotron emission. We investigate potential sources of this excess emission, finding that CO line emission and an additional optically thick synchrotron component are the most viable candidates., Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, accepted to MNRAS

We report on measurements of the polarization of extragalactic sources at 148 GHz made during the first two seasons of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarization (ACTPol) survey. The survey covered 680 deg2 of the sky on the celestial equator. Polarization measurements of 169 intensity-selected sources brighter than 30 mJy, that are predominantly active galactic nuclei, are presented. Above a total flux of 215 mJy where the noise bias removal in the polarization measurement is reliable, we detect 26 sources, 14 of which have a detection of linear polarization at greater than 3σ significance. The distribution of the fractional polarization as a function of total source intensity is analysed. Our result is consistent with the scenario that the fractional polarization of our measured radio source population is independent of total intensity down to the limits of our measurements and well described by a Gaussian distribution with a mean fractional polarization pm = 0.028 ± 0.005 and standard deviation $\sigma _{\mathrm{p_{m}}}$ = 0.054, truncated at p = 0. Extrapolating this model for the distribution of source polarization below the ACTPol detection threshold, we predict that one could get a clean measure of the E-mode polarization power spectrum of the microwave background out to $\ell \approx 6000$ with 1 $\mu$K-arcminute maps over ${10\!{\ \rm \%}}$ of the sky from a future survey. We also study the spectral energy distribution of the total and polarized source flux densities by cross-matching with low radio frequency catalogues. We do not find any correlation between the spectral indices for total flux and polarized flux.

We present a catalog of 182 galaxy clusters detected through the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in a contiguous 987.5 deg$^{2}$ field. The clusters were detected as SZ decrements by applying a matched filter to 148 GHz maps that combine the original ACT equatorial survey with data from the first two observing seasons using the ACTPol receiver. Optical/IR confirmation and redshift measurements come from a combination of large public surveys and our own follow-up observations. Where necessary, we measured photometric redshifts for clusters using a pipeline that achieves accuracy $��z/(1 + z)=0.015$ when tested on SDSS data. Under the assumption that clusters can be described by the so-called Universal Pressure Profile and its associated mass-scaling law, the full signal-to-noise > 4 sample spans the mass range $1.6 < M^{\rm UPP}_{\rm 500c}/10^{14}{\rm M}_{\odot} 4 \times 10^{14}$ M$_{\odot}$ is consistent with the number of such clusters found in the South Pole Telescope SZ survey., Accepted for publication in ApJS; 38 pages, 31 figures; a .fits table that combines tables A1-A3 is available from https://acru.ukzn.ac.za/~mjh/ACTPol_E-D56Catalog (and will be posted on LAMBDA soon)

We correlate the positions of radio galaxies in the FIRST survey with the CMB lensing convergence estimated from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope over 470 square degrees to determine the bias of these galaxies. We remove optically cross-matched sources below redshift $z=0.2$ to preferentially select Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). We measure the angular cross-power spectrum $C_l^{\kappa g}$ at $4.4\sigma$ significance in the multipole range $100, Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. Submitted to MNRAS

We provide an overview of the science case, instrument configuration and project plan for the next-generation ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment CMB-S4, for consideration by the 2020 Decadal Survey.

Future arcminute resolution polarization data from ground-based Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations can be used to estimate the contribution to the temperature power spectrum from the primary anisotropies and to uncover the signature of reionization near $\ell=1500$ in the small angular-scale temperature measurements. Our projections are based on combining expected small-scale E-mode polarization measurements from Advanced ACTPol in the range $3001500$, leading to a measurement of the amplitude of matter density fluctuations, $\sigma_8$, at $1\%$ precision. Alternatively, by exploring the reionization signal encoded in the patchy kSZ measurements, we bound the time and duration of the reionization with $\sigma(z_{\rm re})=1.1$ and $\sigma(\Delta z_{\rm re})=0.2$. We find that these constraints degrade rapidly with large beam sizes, which highlights the importance of arcminute-scale resolution for future CMB surveys., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

We present a catalog of 510 radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGN, primarily blazars) and 287 dusty star-forming galaxies (DSFGs) detected by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope at $>5��$ significance in bands centered on 148 GHz (2 mm), 218 GHz (1.4 mm) and 277 GHz (1.1 mm), from a 480 square degrees strip on the celestial equator with additional (360 square degrees) shallower fields. Combining the deepest available 218 GHz wide-field imaging, 277 GHz data, and multi-band filtering yields the most sensitive wide-field millimeter-wave DSFG selection to date with rms noise referenced to 218 GHz reaching $, 42 pages. Accepted version. Catalogs and maps available at https://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/act/act_prod_table.cfm

We perform direct numerical simulations of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in the early universe and numerically compute the resulting stochastic background of gravitational waves and relic magnetic fields. These simulations do not make the simplifying assumptions of earlier analytic work. If the turbulence is assumed to have an energy-carrying scale that is about a hundredth of the Hubble radius at the time of generation, as expected in a first-order phase transition, the peak of gravitational wave power will be in the mHz frequency range for a signal produced at the electroweak scale. The efficiency of gravitational wave (GW) production varies significantly with how the turbulence is driven. Detectability of turbulence at the electroweak scale by the planned Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) requires anywhere from 0.1% to 10% of the thermal plasma energy density to be in plasma motions or magnetic fields, depending on the model of the driving process. Our results predict a new universal form below the spectral peak frequency that is shallower than previously thought. This implies larger values of the GW energy spectra in the low-frequency range. This extends the range where turbulence is detectable with LISA to lower frequencies, corresponding to higher energy scales than the assumed energy-carrying scale., Comment: 11 pages, 1 appendix, 7 + 1 (appendix) figures, 2 tables, published in PRD, updated figures and corrected normalization error

We present a new measurement of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Using 600 square degrees of overlapping sky area, we evaluate the mean pairwise baryon momentum associated with the positions of 50,000 bright galaxies in the BOSS DR11 Large Scale Structure catalog. A non-zero signal arises from the large-scale motions of halos containing the sample galaxies. The data fits an analytical signal model well, with the optical depth to microwave photon scattering as a free parameter determining the overall signal amplitude. We estimate the covariance matrix of the mean pairwise momentum as a function of galaxy separation, using microwave sky simulations, jackknife evaluation, and bootstrap estimates. The most conservative simulation-based errors give signal-to-noise estimates between 3.6 and 4.1 for varying galaxy luminosity cuts. We discuss how the other error determinations can lead to higher signal-to-noise values, and consider the impact of several possible systematic errors. Estimates of the optical depth from the average thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal at the sample galaxy positions are broadly consistent with those obtained from the mean pairwise momentum signal., 15 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables

Most secondary sources of cosmic microwave background anisotropy (radio sources, dusty galaxies -DSFGs-, thermal Sunyaev Zel'dovich -tSZ- distortions from hot gas, and gravitational lensing) are highly non-Gaussian. Statistics beyond the power spectrum are therefore potentially important sources of information about the physics of these processes. We combine data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and with data from the Planck satellite (only using Planck data in the overlapping region) to constrain the amplitudes of a set of theoretical bispectrum templates from the tSZ effect, DSFGs, gravitational lensing, and radio galaxies. We make a strong detection of radio galaxies (>5$\sigma$) and have hints of non-Gaussianity arising from the tSZ effect, DSFGs, from cross-correlations between the tSZ effect and DSFGs and from cross-correlations among the tSZ effect, DSFGs and radio galaxies. These results suggest that the same halos host radio sources, DSFGs, and have tSZ signal. We present a new method to calculate the non-Gaussian contributions to the template covariances. Using this method we find significant non-Gaussian contributions to the variance and covariance of our templates, with templates involving the tSZ effect most effected. Strong degeneracies exist between the various sources at the current noise levels. In light of these degeneracies, combined with theoretical uncertainty in the templates, these results are a demonstration of this technique. With these caveats, we demonstrate the utility of future bispectrum measurements by using the tSZ bispectrum measurement to constrain a combination of the amplitude of matter fluctuations and the matter density to be $\sigma_8 \Omega_m^{0.17}=0.65^{+0.05}_{-0.06}$. Improvements in signal to noise from upcoming observations will enable the separation of bispectrum components and robust constraints on cosmological parameters., Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures, Accepted in JCAP. Abstract is abridged

We present the temperature and polarization angular power spectra measured by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Polarimeter (ACTPol). We analyze night-time data collected during 2013-14 using two detector arrays at 149 GHz, from 548 deg$^2$ of sky on the celestial equator. We use these spectra, and the spectra measured with the MBAC camera on ACT from 2008-10, in combination with Planck and WMAP data to estimate cosmological parameters from the temperature, polarization, and temperature-polarization cross-correlations. We find the new ACTPol data to be consistent with the LCDM model. The ACTPol temperature-polarization cross-spectrum now provides stronger constraints on multiple parameters than the ACTPol temperature spectrum, including the baryon density, the acoustic peak angular scale, and the derived Hubble constant. Adding the new data to planck temperature data tightens the limits on damping tail parameters, for example reducing the joint uncertainty on the number of neutrino species and the primordial helium fraction by 20%., 23 pages, 25 figures

The absence of large-angle correlations in the map of cosmic microwave background temperature fluctuations is among the well-established anomalies identified in full-sky and cut-sky maps over the past three decades. Suppressed large-angle correlations are rare statistical flukes in standard inflationary cosmological models. One natural explanation could be that the underlying primordial density perturbations lack correlations on large distance scales. To test this idea, we replace Fourier modes by a wavelet basis with compact spatial support. While the angular correlation function of perturbations can readily be suppressed, the observed monopole and dipole-subtracted correlation function is not generally suppressed. This suggests that suppression of large-angle temperature correlations requires a mechanism that has both real-space and harmonic-space effects., 7 pages, 5 figures

Topological superconductors can support localized Majorana states at their boundaries. These quasi-particle excitations have non-Abelian statistics that can be used to encode and manipulate quantum information in a topologically protected manner. While signatures of Majorana bound states have been observed in one-dimensional systems, there is an ongoing effort to find alternative platforms that do not require fine-tuning of parameters and can be easily scalable to large numbers of states. Here we present a novel experimental approach towards a two-dimensional architecture. Using a Josephson junction made of HgTe quantum well coupled to thin-film aluminum, we are able to tune between a trivial and a topological superconducting state by controlling the phase difference $\phi$ across the junction and applying an in-plane magnetic field. We determine the topological state of the induced superconductor by measuring the tunneling conductance at the edge of the junction. At low magnetic fields, we observe a minimum in the tunneling spectra near zero bias, consistent with a trivial superconductor. However, as the magnetic field increases, the tunneling conductance develops a zero-bias peak which persists over a range of $\phi$ that expands systematically with increasing magnetic fields. Our observations are consistent with theoretical predictions for this system and with full quantum mechanical numerical simulations performed on model systems with similar dimensions and parameters. Our work establishes this system as a promising platform for realizing topological superconductivity and for creating and manipulating Majorana modes and will therefore open new avenues for probing topological superconducting phases in two-dimensional systems., Comment: Supplementary contains resized figures. Original files are available upon request

Hydromagnetic turbulence produced during phase transitions in the early universe can be a powerful source of stochastic gravitational waves (GWs). GWs can be modelled by the linearised spatial part of the Einstein equations sourced by the Reynolds and Maxwell stresses. We have implemented two different GW solvers into the {\sc Pencil Code} -- a code which uses a third order timestep and sixth order finite differences. Using direct numerical integration of the GW equations, we study the appearance of a numerical degradation of the GW amplitude at the highest wavenumbers, which depends on the length of the timestep -- even when the Courant--Friedrichs--Lewy condition is ten times below the stability limit. This degradation leads to a numerical error, which is found to scale with the third power of the timestep. A similar degradation is not seen in the magnetic and velocity fields. To mitigate numerical degradation effects, we alternatively use the exact solution of the GW equations under the assumption that the source is constant between subsequent timesteps. This allows us to use a much longer timestep, which cuts the computational cost by a factor of about ten., 30 pages, 9 figures, 2 appendices. Published at GAFD, special edition on "Physics and Algorithms of the Pencil Code", minor typos corrected

Quantum fields in cosmological spacetimes can experience particle production due to their interaction with the expanding background. This effect is particularly relevant for models of the very early Universe, when the energy density generated through this process may back-react on the cosmological expansion. Yet, these scenarios have not been fully explored due to the several technical hurdles imposed by the back-reaction calculations. In this work we review the basics of cosmological quantum particle production and demonstrate a numerical algorithm to solve the back-reaction problem in regimes dominated by particle production. As an illustration, we compute the effects of a massive quantized scalar field on a cosmological bounce scenario, explicitly showing that quantum particle production can cause the contracting phase to end in a radiation crunch, or can delay the bounce. Finally, we discuss the relevance of quantum particle production/annihilation to bounce and inflationary models of the early Universe.

We present Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) follow-up observations of seven massive clusters detected by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) on the celestial equator using the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. We conducted multi-object spectroscopic observations with the Robert Stobie Spectrograph in order to measure galaxy redshifts in each cluster field, determine the cluster line-of-sight velocity dispersions, and infer the cluster dynamical masses. We find that the clusters, which span the redshift range 0.3 < z < 0.55, range in mass from (5 -- 20) x 10$^{14}$ solar masses (M200c). Their masses, given their SZ signals, are similar to those of southern hemisphere ACT clusters previously observed using Gemini and the VLT. We note that the brightest cluster galaxy in one of the systems studied, ACT-CL J0320.4+0032 at z = 0.38, hosts a Type II quasar. Only a handful of such systems are currently known, and therefore ACT-CL J0320.4+0032 may be a rare example of a very massive halo in which quasar-mode feedback is actively taking place., Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 18 pages, 9 figures

Author(s): Schaan, E; Ferraro, S; Vargas-Magana, M; Smith, KM; Ho, S; Aiola, S; Battaglia, N; Bond, JR; De Bernardis, F; Calabrese, E; Cho, HM; Devlin, MJ; Dunkley, J; Gallardo, PA; Hasselfield, M; Henderson, S; Hill, JC; Hincks, AD; Hlozek, R; Hubmayr, J; Hughes, JP; Irwin, KD; Koopman, B; Kosowsky, A; Li, D; Louis, T; Lungu, M; Madhavacheril, M; Maurin, L; McMahon, JJ; Moodley, K; Naess, S; Nati, F; Newburgh, L; Niemack, MD; Page, LA; Pappas, CG; Partridge, B; Schmitt, BL; Sehgal, N; Sherwin, BD; Sievers, JL; Spergel, DN; Staggs, ST; Van Engelen, A; Wollack, EJ | Abstract: We use microwave temperature maps from two seasons of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope at 146 GHz, together with the "Constant Mass" CMASS galaxy sample from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey to measure the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect over the redshift range z=0.4-0.7. We use galaxy positions and the continuity equation to obtain a reconstruction of the line-of-sight velocity field. We stack the microwave temperature at the location of each halo, weighted by the corresponding reconstructed velocity. We vary the size of the aperture photometry filter used, thus probing the free electron profile of these halos from within the virial radius out to three virial radii, on the scales relevant for investigating the missing baryons problem. The resulting best fit kSZ model is preferred over the no-kSZ hypothesis at 3.3 and 2.9σ for two independent velocity reconstruction methods, using 25,537 galaxies over 660 square degrees. The data suggest that the baryon profile is shallower than the dark matter in the inner regions of the halos probed here, potentially due to energy injection from active galactic nucleus or supernovae. Thus, by constraining the gas profile on a wide range of scales, this technique will be useful for understanding the role of feedback in galaxy groups and clusters. The effect of foregrounds that are uncorrelated with the galaxy velocities is expected to be well below our signal, and residual thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich contamination is controlled by masking the most massive clusters. Finally, we discuss the systematics involved in converting our measurement of the kSZ amplitude into the mean free electron fraction of the halos in our sample.

Advanced ACTPol is a polarization-sensitive upgrade for the 6 m aperture Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), adding new frequencies and increasing sensitivity over the previous ACTPol receiver. In 2016, Advanced ACTPol will begin to map approximately half the sky in five frequency bands (28-230 GHz). Its maps of primary and secondary cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies -- imaged in intensity and polarization at few arcminute-scale resolution -- will enable precision cosmological constraints and also a wide array of cross-correlation science that probes the expansion history of the universe and the growth of structure via gravitational collapse. To accomplish these scientific goals, the Advanced ACTPol receiver will be a significant upgrade to the ACTPol receiver, including four new multichroic arrays of cryogenic, feedhorn-coupled AlMn transition edge sensor (TES) polarimeters (fabricated on 150 mm diameter wafers); a system of continuously rotating meta-material silicon half-wave plates; and a new multiplexing readout architecture which uses superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and time division to achieve a 64-row multiplexing factor. Here we present the status and scientific goals of the Advanced ACTPol instrument, emphasizing the design and implementation of the Advanced ACTPol cryogenic detector arrays., 9 pages, 3 figures, conference proceedings submitted to Journal of Low Temperature Physics

In recent years there have been significant improvements in the sensitivity and the angular resolution of the instruments dedicated to the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). ACTPol is the first polarization receiver for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and is observing the CMB sky with arcmin resolution over about 2000 sq. deg. Its upgrade, Advanced ACTPol (AdvACT), will observe the CMB in five frequency bands and over a larger area of the sky. We describe the optimization and implementation of the ACTPol and AdvACT surveys. The selection of the observed fields is driven mainly by the science goals, that is, small angular scale CMB measurements, B-mode measurements and cross-correlation studies. For the ACTPol survey we have observed patches of the southern galactic sky with low galactic foreground emissions which were also chosen to maximize the overlap with several galaxy surveys to allow unique cross-correlation studies. A wider field in the northern galactic cap ensured significant additional overlap with the BOSS spectroscopic survey. The exact shapes and footprints of the fields were optimized to achieve uniform coverage and to obtain cross-linked maps by observing the fields with different scan directions. We have maximized the efficiency of the survey by implementing a close to 24 hour observing strategy, switching between daytime and nighttime observing plans and minimizing the telescope idle time. We describe the challenges represented by the survey optimization for the significantly wider area observed by AdvACT, which will observe roughly half of the low-foreground sky. The survey strategies described here may prove useful for planning future ground-based CMB surveys, such as the Simons Observatory and CMB Stage IV surveys., Comment: 14 Pages, 9 Figures, 4 Tables

The evolution of inflationary fluctuations can be recast as an inverse scattering problem. In this context, we employ the Gel'fand-Levitan method from inverse-scattering theory to reconstruct the evolution of both the inflaton field freeze-out horizon and the Hubble parameter during inflation. We demonstrate this reconstruction procedure numerically for a scenario of slow-roll inflation, as well as for a scenario which temporarily departs from slow-roll. The field freeze-out horizon is reconstructed from the accessible primordial scalar power spectrum alone, while the reconstruction of the Hubble parameter requires additional information from the tensor power spectrum. We briefly discuss the application of this technique to more realistic cases incorporating estimates of the primordial power spectra over limited ranges of scales and with specified uncertainties., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures

A strong correlation has been measured between the observed centripetal accelerations in galaxies and the accelerations implied by the baryonic components of galaxies. This empirical radial acceleration relation must be accounted for in any viable model of galaxy formation. We measure and compare the radial accelerations contributed by baryons and by dark matter in disk galaxies in the MassiveBlack-II hydrodynamic galaxy formation simulation. The sample of 1594 galaxies spans three orders of magnitude in luminosity and four in surface brightness, comparable to the observed sample from the Spitzer Photometry & Accurate Rotation Curves (SPARC) dataset used by McGaugh et al. (2016). We find that radial accelerations contributed by baryonic matter only and by total matter are highly correlated, with only small scatter around their mean or median relation, despite the wide ranges of galaxy luminosity and surface brightness. We further find that the radial acceleration relation in this simulation differs from that of the SPARC sample, and can be described by a simple power law in the acceleration range we are probing., 7 pages, 4 figures

We present a first measurement of the stellar mass component of galaxy clusters selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, using 3.6 um and 4.5 um photometry from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Our sample consists of 14 clusters detected by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), which span the redshift range 0.27 < z < 1.07 (median z = 0.50), and have dynamical mass measurements, accurate to about 30 per cent, with median M500 = 6.9 x 10^{14} MSun. We measure the 3.6 um and 4.5 um galaxy luminosity functions, finding the characteristic magnitude (m*) and faint-end slope (alpha) to be similar to those for IR-selected cluster samples. We perform the first measurements of the scaling of SZ-observables (Y500 and y0) with both brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) stellar mass and total cluster stellar mass (M500star). We find a significant correlation between BCG stellar mass and Y500 (E(z)^{-2/3} DA^2 Y500 ~ M*^{1.2 +/- 0.6}), although we are not able to obtain a strong constraint on the slope of the relation due to the small sample size. Additionally, we obtain E(z)^{-2/3} DA^2 Y500 ~ M500star^{1.0 +/- 0.6} for the scaling with total stellar mass. The mass fraction in stars spans the range 0.006-0.034, with the second ranked cluster in terms of dynamical mass (ACT-CL J0237-4939) having an unusually low total stellar mass and the lowest stellar mass fraction. For the five clusters with gas mass measurements available in the literature, we see no evidence for a shortfall of baryons relative to the cosmic mean value., Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 12 pages, 10 figures

We present a measurement of the angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation observed at 148 GHz. The measurement uses maps with 1.4' angular resolution made with data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). The observations cover 228 square degrees of the southern sky, in a 4.2-degree-wide strip centered on declination 53 degrees South. The CMB at arcminute angular scales is particularly sensitive to the Silk damping scale, to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect from galaxy clusters, and to emission by radio sources and dusty galaxies. After masking the 108 brightest point sources in our maps, we estimate the power spectrum between 600 < \ell < 8000 using the adaptive multi-taper method to minimize spectral leakage and maximize use of the full data set. Our absolute calibration is based on observations of Uranus. To verify the calibration and test the fidelity of our map at large angular scales, we cross-correlate the ACT map to the WMAP map and recover the WMAP power spectrum from 250 < ell < 1150. The power beyond the Silk damping tail of the CMB is consistent with models of the emission from point sources. We quantify the contribution of SZ clusters to the power spectrum by fitting to a model normalized at sigma8 = 0.8. We constrain the model's amplitude ASZ < 1.63 (95% CL). If interpreted as a measurement of sigma8, this implies sigma8^SZ < 0.86 (95% CL) given our SZ model. A fit of ACT and WMAP five-year data jointly to a 6-parameter LCDM model plus terms for point sources and the SZ effect is consistent with these results., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

The observed relationship between X-ray luminosity and temperature of the diffuse intercluster medium clearly shows the effect of nongravitational heating on the formation of galaxy clusters. Quasar feedback into the intergalactic medium can potentially be an important source of heating, and can have significant impact on structure formation. This feedback process is a source of thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich distortions of the cosmic microwave background. Using a simple one-dimensional Sedov-Taylor model of energy outflow, we calculate the angular power spectrum of the temperature distortion, which has an amplitude on the order of one micro-Kelvin. This signal will be at the noise limit of upcoming arcminute-scale microwave background experiments, including the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope, but will be directly detectable with deep exposures by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array or by stacking many microwave images., The discussion of detectability is expanded. Matches the ApJ Letters accepted version

Using two-dimensional velocity maps and I-band photometry, we have created mass models of 40 spiral galaxies using the Milgrom relation (the basis of modified Newtonian dynamics, or MOND) to complement previous work. A Bayesian technique is employed to compare several different dark matter halo models to Milgrom and Newtonian models. Pseudo-isothermal dark matter halos provide the best statistical fits to the data in a majority of cases, while the Milgrom relation generally provides good fits as well. We also find that Milgrom models give mass-to-light ratios that roughly correlate with galaxy color, as predicted by stellar population models. A subsample of galaxies in the Hydra cluster follow a tight relation between mass-to-light and color, but one that is significantly different from relations found in previous studies. Ruling out the Milgrom relation with rotational kinematics is difficult due to systematic uncertainties in the observations as well as underlying model assumptions. We discuss in detail two galaxies for which the Milgrom relation appears to fail and find that relaxing the assumption of constant stellar mass-to-light ratio can maintain Milgrom models' viability., accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal; 17 pages

Mass calibration uncertainty is the largest systematic effect for using clusters of galaxies to constrain cosmological parameters. We present weak lensing mass measurements from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Stripe 82 Survey for galaxy clusters selected through their high signal-to-noise thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) signal measured with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT). For a sample of 9 ACT clusters with a tSZ signal-to-noise greater than five the average weak lensing mass is $\left(4.8\pm0.8\right)\,\times10^{14}\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$, consistent with the tSZ mass estimate of $\left(4.70\pm1.0\right)\,\times10^{14}\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$ which assumes a universal pressure profile for the cluster gas. Our results are consistent with previous weak-lensing measurements of tSZ-detected clusters from the Planck satellite. When comparing our results, we estimate the Eddington bias correction for the sample intersection of Planck and weak-lensing clusters which was previously excluded., 13 pages, 7 figures, accepted to JCAP

Conventional $s$-wave superconductivity is understood to arise from singlet pairing of electrons with opposite Fermi momenta, forming Cooper pairs whose net momentum is zero [1]. Several recent studies have focused on structures where such conventional $s$-wave superconductors are coupled to systems with an unusual configuration of electronic spin and momentum at the Fermi surface. Under these conditions, the nature of the paired state can be modified and the system may even undergo a topological phase transition [2, 3]. Here we present measurements and theoretical calculations of several HgTe quantum wells coupled to either aluminum or niobium superconductors and subject to a magnetic field in the plane of the quantum well. By studying the oscillatory response of Josephson interference to the magnitude of the in-plane magnetic field, we find that the induced pairing within the quantum well is spatially varying. Cooper pairs acquire a tunable momentum that grows with magnetic field strength, directly reflecting the response of the spin-dependent Fermi surfaces to the in-plane magnetic field. In addition, in the regime of high electron density, nodes in the induced superconductivity evolve with the electron density in agreement with our model based on the Hamiltonian of Bernevig, Hughes, and Zhang [4]. This agreement allows us to quantitatively extract the value of $\tilde{g}/v_{F}$, where $\tilde{g}$ is the effective g-factor and $v_{F}$ is the Fermi velocity. However, at low density our measurements do not agree with our model in detail. Our new understanding of the interplay between spin physics and superconductivity introduces a way to spatially engineer the order parameter, as well as a general framework within which to investigate electronic spin texture at the Fermi surface of materials.

Full-sky maps of the cosmic microwave background temperature reveal a 7% asymmetry of fluctuation power between two halves of the sky. A common phenomenological model for this asymmetry is an overall dipole modulation of statistically isotropic fluctuations, which produces particular off-diagonal correlations between multipole coefficients. We compute these correlations and construct corresponding estimators for the amplitude and direction of the dipole modulation. Applying these estimators to various cut-sky temperature maps from Planck and WMAP data shows consistency with a dipole modulation, differing from a null signal at 2.5$\sigma$, with an amplitude and direction consistent with previous fits based on the temperature fluctuation power. The signal is scale dependent, with a statistically significant amplitude at angular scales larger than 2 degrees. Future measurements of microwave background polarization and gravitational lensing can increase the significance of the signal. If the signal is not a statistical fluke in an isotropic Universe, it requires new physics beyond the standard model of cosmology., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

We analyze the existence and stability of dynamical attractor solutions for cosmological inflation driven by the coupling between fermions and a gauge field. Assuming a spatially homogeneous and isotropic gauge field and fermion current, the interacting fermion equation of motion reduces to that of a free fermion up to a phase shift. Consistency of the model is ensured via the Stuckelberg mechanism. We prove the existence of exactly one stable solution, and demonstrate the stability numerically. Inflation arises without fine tuning, and does not require postulating any effective potential or non-standard coupling., 17 pages, 2 figures; version 2; minor revisions; submitted to JCAP 10-29-14

Two-point correlation functions of cosmic microwave background polarization provide a physically independent probe of the surprising suppression of correlations in the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies at large angular scales. We investigate correlation functions constructed from both the Q and U Stokes parameters and from the E and B polarization components. The dominant contribution to these correlation functions comes from local physical effects at the last scattering surface or from the epoch of reionization at high redshift, so all should be suppressed if the temperature suppression is due to an underlying lack of correlations in the cosmological metric perturbations larger than a given scale. We evaluate the correlation functions for the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology constrained by the observed temperature correlation function, and compute statistics characterizing their suppression on large angular scales. Future full-sky polarization maps with minimal systematic errors on large angular scales will provide strong tests of whether the observed temperature correlation function is a statistical fluke or reflects a fundamental shortcoming of the standard cosmological model., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, replaced to match version accepted to PRD

We measure the cross-correlation of cosmic microwave background lensing convergence maps derived from Atacama Cosmology Telescope data with galaxy lensing convergence maps as measured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Stripe 82 Survey. The CMB-galaxy lensing cross power spectrum is measured for the first time with a significance of 4.2{\sigma}, which corresponds to a 12% constraint on the amplitude of density fluctuations at redshifts ~ 0.9. With upcoming improved lensing data, this novel type of measurement will become a powerful cosmological probe, providing a precise measurement of the mass distribution at intermediate redshifts and serving as a calibrator for systematic biases in weak lensing measurements., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to PRD. Updates to lensing maps and analysis pipeline, with revised results, increased significance

We present galaxy velocity dispersions and dynamical mass estimates for 44 galaxy clusters selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. Dynamical masses for 18 clusters are reported here for the first time. Using \Nbody\ simulations, we model the different observing strategies used to measure the velocity dispersions and account for systematic effects resulting from these strategies. We find that the galaxy velocity distributions may be treated as isotropic, and that an aperture correction of up to 7 per cent in the velocity dispersion is required if the spectroscopic galaxy sample is sufficiently concentrated towards the cluster centre. Accounting for the radial profile of the velocity dispersion in simulations enables consistent dynamical mass estimates regardless of the observing strategy. Cluster masses $M_{200}$ are in the range $(1-15)\times10^{14}M_\odot$. Comparing with masses estimated from the SZ distortion assuming a gas pressure profile derived from X-ray observations gives a mean SZ-to-dynamical mass ratio of $1.10\pm0.13$, but there is an additional 0.14 systematic uncertainty due to the unknown velocity bias; the statistical uncertainty is dominated by the scatter in the mass-velocity dispersion scaling relation. This ratio is consistent with previous determinations at these mass scales., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Updated discussion, conclusions unchanged. 16 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables in main text plus 2 pages, 4 figures and 1 table in appendices

Using a radio-quiet subsample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey spectroscopic quasar catalogue, spanning redshifts 0.5-3.5, we derive the mean millimetre and far-infrared quasar spectral energy distributions (SEDs) via a stacking analysis of Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Herschel-Spectral and Photometric Imaging REceiver data. We constrain the form of the far-infrared emission and find 3$\sigma$-4$\sigma$ evidence for the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, characteristic of a hot ionized gas component with thermal energy $(6.2 \pm 1.7)\times 10^{60}$ erg. This amount of thermal energy is greater than expected assuming only hot gas in virial equilibrium with the dark matter haloes of $(1-5)\times 10^{12}h^{-1}$M$_\odot$ that these systems are expected to occupy, though the highest quasar mass estimates found in the literature could explain a large fraction of this energy. Our measurements are consistent with quasars depositing up to $(14.5 \pm 3.3)~\tau_8^{-1}$ per cent of their radiative energy into their circumgalactic environment if their typical period of quasar activity is $\tau_8\times~10^8$ yr. For high quasar host masses, $\sim10^{13}h^{-1}$M$_\odot$, this percentage will be reduced. Furthermore, the uncertainty on this percentage is only statistical and additional systematic uncertainties enter at the 40 per cent level. The SEDs are dust dominated in all bands and we consider various models for dust emission. While sufficiently complex dust models can obviate the SZ effect, the SZ interpretation remains favoured at the 3$\sigma$-4$\sigma$ level for most models., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Updated to match published version

Quasidilaton massive gravity offers a physically well-defined gravitational theory with non-zero graviton mass. We present the full set of dynamical equations governing the expansion history of the universe, valid during radiation domination, matter domination, and a late-time self-accelerating epoch related to the graviton mass. The existence of self-consistent solutions constrains the amplitude of the quasi-dilaton field and the graviton mass, as well as other model parameters. We point out that the effective mass of gravitational waves can be significantly larger than the graviton mass, opening the possibility that a single theory can explain both the late-time acceleration of the cosmic expansion and modifications of structure growth leading to the suppression of large-angle correlations observed in the cosmic microwave background., 5 pages, 1 figure; eq. 7 corrected - conclusions have not changed

If a primordial magnetic field in the universe has non-zero helicity, the violation of parity symmetry results in non-zero correlations between cosmic microwave background temperature and B-mode polarization. In this paper we derive approximations to the relevant microwave background power spectra arising from a helical magnetic field. Using the cross-power spectrum between temperature and B-mode polarization from the WMAP nine-year data, we set a 95\% confidence level upper limit on the helicity amplitude to be 10 nG$^2$ Gpc for helicity spectral index $n_H = -1.9$, for a cosmological magnetic field with effective field strength of 3 nG and a power-law index $n_B = -2.9$ near the scale-invariant value. Future microwave background polarization maps with greater sensitivity will be able to detect the helicity of an inflationary magnetic field well below the maximum value allowed by microwave background constraints on the magnetic field amplitude., 12 pages, 3 figures, minor changes, matches PRD version

The measurement of B-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background at large angular scales by the BICEP experiment suggests a stochastic gravitational wave background from early-Universe inflation with a surprisingly large amplitude. The power spectrum of these tensor perturbations can be probed both with further measurements of the microwave background polarization at smaller scales and also directly via interferometry in space. We show that sufficiently sensitive high-resolution B-mode measurements will ultimately have the ability to test the inflationary consistency relation between the amplitude and spectrum of the tensor perturbations, confirming their inflationary origin. Additionally, a precise B-mode measurement of the tensor spectrum will predict the tensor amplitude on solar system scales to 20% accuracy for an exact power-law tensor spectrum, so a direct detection will then measure the running of the tensor spectral index to high precision.

We present the temperature power spectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) derived from the three seasons of data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) at 148 GHz and 218 GHz, as well as the cross-frequency spectrum between the two channels. We detect and correct for contamination due to the Galactic cirrus in our equatorial maps. We present the results of a number of tests for possible systematic error and conclude that any effects are not significant compared to the statistical errors we quote. Where they overlap, we cross-correlate the ACT and the South Pole Telescope (SPT) maps and show they are consistent. The measurements of higher-order peaks in the CMB power spectrum provide an additional test of the Lambda CDM cosmological model, and help constrain extensions beyond the standard model. The small angular scale power spectrum also provides constraining power on the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects and extragalactic foregrounds. We also present a measurement of the CMB gravitational lensing convergence power spectrum at 4.6-sigma detection significance., 21 pages; 20 figures, Submitted to JCAP, some typos corrected

We present a statistical analysis of the millimeter-wavelength properties of 1.4 GHz-selected sources and a detection of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect associated with the halos that host them. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) has conducted a survey at 148 GHz, 218 GHz and 277 GHz along the celestial equator. Using samples of radio sources selected at 1.4 GHz from FIRST and NVSS, we measure the stacked 148, 218 and 277 GHz flux densities for sources with 1.4 GHz flux densities ranging from 5 to 200 mJy. At these flux densities, the radio source population is dominated by active galactic nuclei (AGN), with both steep and flat spectrum populations, which have combined radio-to-millimeter spectral indices ranging from 0.5 to 0.95, reflecting the prevalence of steep spectrum sources at high flux densities and the presence of flat spectrum sources at lower flux densities. The thermal SZ effect associated with the halos that host the AGN is detected at the 5$\sigma$ level through its spectral signature. When we compare the SZ effect with weak lensing measurements of radio galaxies, we find that the relation between the two is consistent with that measured by Planck for local bright galaxies. We present a detection of the SZ effect in some of the lowest mass halos (average $M_{200}\approx10^{13}$M$_{\odot}h_{70}^{-1}$) studied to date. This detection is particularly important in the context of galaxy evolution models, as it confirms that galaxies with radio AGN also typically support hot gaseous halos. With Herschel observations, we show that the SZ detection is not significantly contaminated by dust. We show that 5 mJy$, Comment: Accepted version. Some reorganization of discussion, added appendices. Other minor edits

A lack of correlations in the microwave background temperature between sky directions separated by angles larger than 60 degrees has recently been confirmed by data from the Planck satellite. This feature arises as a random occurrence within the standard LCDM cosmological model less than 0.3 per cent of the time, but so far no other compelling theory to explain this observation has been proposed. Here we investigate the theoretical cross-correlation function between microwave background temperature and the gravitational lensing potential of the microwave background, which in contrast to the temperature correlation function depends strongly on gravitational potential fluctuations interior to our Hubble volume. For standard LCDM cosmology, we generate random sky realizations of the microwave temperature and gravitational lensing, subject to the constraint that the temperature correlation function matches observations, and compare with random skies lacking this constraint. The distribution of large-angle temperature-lensing correlation functions in these two cases is different, and the two cases can be clearly distinguished in around 40 per cent of model realizations. We present an a priori procedure for using similar large-angle correlations between other types of data, to determine whether the lack of large-angle correlations is a statistical fluke or points to a shortcoming of the standard cosmological model., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to MNRAS

We present the first dynamical mass estimates and scaling relations for a sample of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) selected galaxy clusters. The sample consists of 16 massive clusters detected with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) over a 455 sq. deg. area of the southern sky. Deep multi-object spectroscopic observations were taken to secure intermediate-resolution (R~700-800) spectra and redshifts for ~60 member galaxies on average per cluster. The dynamical masses M_200c of the clusters have been calculated using simulation-based scaling relations between velocity dispersion and mass. The sample has a median redshift z=0.50 and a median mass M_200c~12e14 Msun/h70 with a lower limit M_200c~6e14 Msun/h70, consistent with the expectations for the ACT southern sky survey. These masses are compared to the ACT SZE properties of the sample, specifically, the match-filtered central SZE amplitude y, the central Compton parameter y0, and the integrated Compton signal Y_200c, which we use to derive SZE-Mass scaling relations. All SZE estimators correlate with dynamical mass with low intrinsic scatter (, Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; matches published version. Full Table 8 with complete spectroscopic member sample available in machine-readable form in the journal site and upon request to C. Sif\'on