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In this work, we investigate whether the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements from redshift surveys, like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), are consistent with each other. We do so by obtaining the Hubble and deceleration parameter, respectively $H(z)$ and $q(z)$, from both datasets using a non-parametric reconstruction, so that our results do not depend on any {\it a priori} assumptions about the underlying cosmological model. We find that the reconstructed $H(z)$ and $q(z)$ from SDSS are significantly inconsistent with those obtained from DESI, and that both are only marginally consistent with the $\Lambda$CDM model ($\sim 3\sigma$ confidence level). Interestingly, the combined SDSS and DESI dataset reconciles with the standard model. These results are mostly unchanged with respect to different assumptions on the sound horizon scale value, as well as different reconstruction kernels. We also verify the results for the null diagnostic $\mathcal{O}_{\rm m}(z)$, finding that SDSS favours a quintessence-like dark energy model, whereas a phantom-like dark energy is preferred by DESI data, and once again the combined dataset strongly agrees with $\Lambda$CDM. Therefore, our results call the attention for further examination of such inconsistency, as they can lead to biased and divergent results regarding the validity of the standard model, or the suggestion of new physics.

Alignments of spiral galaxies were thought to result from tidal torquing, where tidal field of the cosmic large-scale structure exert torquing moments onto dark matter haloes, determining their angular momentum and ultimately the orientation of galactic discs. In this model, resulting intrinsic ellipticity correlations are typically present on small scales, but neither observations nor simulations have found empirical evidence; instead, simulations point at the possibility that alignments of disc galaxies follow a similar alignment model as elliptical galaxies, but with a weaker alignment amplitude. In our article we make the case for the theory of linear alignments resulting from tidal distortions of the galactic disc, investigate the physical properties of this model and derive the resulting angular ellipticity spectra, as they would appear as a contribution to weak gravitational lensing in surveys such as Euclid's. We discuss in detail on the statistical and physical properties of tidally induced alignments in disc galaxies, as they are relevant for mitigation of alignment contamination in weak lensing data, comment on the consistency between the alignment amplitude in spiral and elliptical galaxies and finally, estimate their observability with an Euclid-like survey., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

The Hubble tension refers to the discrepancy in the value of the Hubble constant $H_0$ inferred from the cosmic microwave background observations, assuming the concordance $\Lambda$CDM model of the Universe, and that from the distance ladder and other direct measurements. In order to alleviate this tension, we construct a plausible dark energy scenario, within the framework of Horndeski gravity which is one of the most general scalar-tensor theories yielding second-order equations. In our set-up, we include the self-interactions and nonminimal coupling of the dynamical dark energy scalar field which enable very interesting dynamics leading to a phantom behaviour at low redshifts along with negative dark energy densities at high redshifts. These two features together make this model a promising scenario to alleviate the Hubble tension for appropriate choices of the model parameters. Towards a consistent model building, we show that this set-up is also free from both the gradient and ghost instabilities. Finally, we confront the predictions of the model with low redshift observations from Pantheon, SH0ES, cosmic chronometers and BAO, to obtain best fit constraints on model parameters., Comment: v1: 16 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; v2: 14 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, data analysis included, discussion updated

The Etherington distance duality relation is well-established for metric theories of gravity, and confirms the duality between the luminosity distance and the angular diameter distance through the conservation of surface brightness. A violation of the Etherington distance duality due to lensing in a non-metric spacetime would lead to fluctuations in surface brightness of galaxies. Likewise, fluctuations of the surface brightness can arise in classical astrophysics as a consequence of intrinsic tidal interaction of galaxies with their environment. Therefore, we study these in two cases in detail: Firstly, for intrinsic size fluctuations and the resulting changes in surface brightness, and secondly, for an area-metric spacetime as an example of a non-metric spacetime where the distance duality relation itself acquires modifications. The aim of this work is to quantify whether a surface brightness fluctuation effect due to area-metric gravity would be resolvable compared to the similar effect caused by intrinsic alignment. We thus compare the auto- and cross-correlations of the angular spectra in these two cases and show that the fluctuations in intrinsic brightness can potentially be measured with a cumulative signal-to-noise ratio $\Sigma(\ell) \geq 3$ in a Euclid-like survey. The measurement in area-metric spacetimes, however, depends on the specific parameter choices, which also determine the shape and amplitude of the spectra. While lensing surveys do have sensitivity to lensing-induced surface brightness fluctuations in area-metric spacetimes, the measurement does not seem to be possible for natural values of the Etherington-breaking parameters., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRAS

We investigate whether true physical observables associated with the measurements of large scale structure in the universe are frame-independent. In particular, we study if cosmological observables such as the galaxy number counts are invariant under the disformal transformations. In a previous work, it was shown that this frame-invariance holds true for the case of conformal transformations. In this work, we find that the invariance also holds true for the case of a simple disformal transformation. We further briefly comment on the disformal invariance of other cosmological observables., Comment: 16 pages, 1 table

With the basic $\alpha$-attractor potentials, we investigate an inflationary regime in the high-$k$ limit, where the cosmological perturbation breaks down due to large enhancement in the scalar power spectrum and generation of large negative values of the Bardeen potential. We analyze that, this deep sub-horizon regime creates a situation, which is congenial to the formation of the primordial black holes (PBHs). We work in the spatially flat gauge with $\delta\phi\neq$ 0 and thus explicitly show the roles of perturbations in the inflaton field as well as in the background gravitational field in the mentioned enhancements and thereby in the PBH formation. We calculate the values of $\sigma(M)$, $\beta(M)$ and $f_\mathrm{PBH}(M)$ around the peaks in the density contrast profile and thus estimate the fraction of PBH in the dark matter of the present universe, corresponding to certain mass scales. We observe the formation of PBHs in the $k$ range $0.43\times 10^{13}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ to $9.8\times 10^{13}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ with masses $1.35\times 10^{-13}M_\odot$ to $2.60\times 10^{-16}M_\odot$, evaporation times $7.74\times 10^{33}$ sec to $5.53\times 10^{25}$ sec, Hawking temperatures $3.72\times 10^{-8}$ GeV to $1.93\times 10^{-5}$ GeV and $f_\mathrm{PBH}(M)$ $\sim 6.12\times 10^{-6}$ to $3.63\times 10^{-1}$. The calculated mass range lies in the regions of forecasts by LISA, WD, NS, DECIGO/AI, FL, SIGWs and the $f_\mathrm{PBH} (M)$ results overlap with those of DECIGO/AI, FL, SIGWs., Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures

The topic of this paper is a generalisation of the linear model for intrinsic alignments of galaxies to intrinsic flexions: In this model, third moments of the brightness distribution reflect distortions of elliptical galaxies caused by third derivatives of the gravitational potential, or, equivalently, gradients of the tidal gravitational fields. With this extension of the linear model mediating between the brightness distribution and the tidal gravitational fields and with a quantification of the shape of the galaxy at third order provided by the HOLICs-formalism, we are able to compute angular spectra of intrinsic flexions and the cross-spectra with weak lensing flexions. Spectra for intrinsic flexions are typically an order of magnitude smaller than lensing flexions, exactly as in the case of intrinsic ellipticity in comparison to weak shear. We find a negative cross correlation between intrinsic and extrinsic gravitational flexions, too, complementing the analogous correlation between intrinsic and extrinsic ellipticity. After discussing the physical details of the alignment model to provide intrinsic flexions and their scaling properties, we quantify the observability of the intrinsic and extrinsic flexions and estimate with the Fisher-formalism how well the alignment parameter can be determined from a Euclid-like weak lensing survey. Intrinsic flexions are very difficult to measure and yield appreciable signals only with highly optimistic parameter choices and noise levels, while being basically undetectable for more realistisc flexion measurement errors., Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, clarification of the numerical value of the alignment parameter, Plots updated

The subject of this paper is to build a physical model describing shape and size correlations of galaxies due to weak gravitational lensing and due to direct tidal interaction of elliptical galaxies with gravitational fields sourced by the cosmic large-scale structure. Setting up a linear intrinsic alignment model for elliptical galaxies which parameterises the reaction of the galaxy to an external tidal shear field is controlled by the velocity dispersion, we predict intrinsic correlations and cross-correlations with weak lensing for both shapes and sizes, juxtaposing both types of spectra with lensing. We quantify the observability of the intrinsic shape and size correlations and estimate with the Fisher-formalism how well the alignment parameter can be determined from the Euclid weak lensing survey. Specifically, we find a contamination of the weak lensing convergence spectra with an intrinsic size correlation amounting to up to 10% over a wide multipole range $\ell=100\ldots300$, with a corresponding cross-correlation exhibiting a sign change, similar to the cross-correlation between weak lensing shear and intrinsic shapes. A determination of the alignment parameter yields a precision of a few percent forecasted for Euclid, and we show that all shape and many size correlations should be measurable with Euclid., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures

Future galaxy clustering surveys will probe small scales where non-linearities become important. Since the number of modes accessible on intermediate to small scales is very high, having a precise model at these scales is important especially in the context of discriminating alternative cosmological models from the standard one. In the mildly non-linear regime, such models typically differ from each other, and galaxy clustering data will become very precise on these scales in the near future. As the observable quantity is the angular power spectrum in redshift space, it is important to study the effects of non-linear density and redshift space distortion (RSD) in the angular power spectrum. We compute non-linear contributions to the angular power spectrum using a flat-sky approximation that we introduce in this work, and compare the results of different perturbative approaches with $N$-body simulations. We find that the TNS perturbative approach is significantly closer to the $N$-body result than Eulerian or Lagrangian 1-loop approximations, effective field theory of large scale structure or a halofit-inspired model. However, none of these prescriptions is accurate enough to model the angular power spectrum well into the non-linear regime. In addition, for narrow redshift bins, $\Delta z \lesssim 0.01$, the angular power spectrum acquires non-linear contributions on all scales, right down to $\ell=2$, and is hence not a reliable tool at this time. To overcome this problem, we need to model non-linear RSD terms, for example as TNS does, but for a matter power spectrum that remains reasonably accurate well into the deeply non-linear regime, such as halofit., Comment: 30 pages, 15 figures

Even though we know that physical observations are frame independent, the frame dependence of cosmological perturbations is relatively subtle and has led to confusion in the past. In this paper we show that while the (unobservable) matter power spectrum is frame dependent, the observable number counts are not. We shall also determine how the frame dependence of the power spectrum depends on scale., Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure

Recently Moradinezhad Dizgah & Durrer have shown that the $E_g$ statistics, useful to test theories of modified gravity, is plagued by additional scale and bias dependent lensing contributions. In this work we develop and illustrate a method to remove these lensing terms by using in addition to the galaxy clustering data also shear data and the correlations of shear and galaxy clustering. We introduce a truly observable statistics termed $\tilde E_g$ which conserves the properties of scale and bias independence on linear scales. The method discussed here is best adapted to photometric surveys. It is found that the corrections to the original $E_g$ statistics are small for the present DES data, but for future surveys of the quality of Euclid they are very substantial., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures

We investigate the corrections which relativistic light-cone computations induce on the correlation of the tangential shear with galaxy number counts, also known as galaxy-galaxy lensing. The standard-approach to galaxy-galaxy lensing treats the number density of sources in a foreground bin as observable, whereas it is in reality unobservable due to the presence of relativistic corrections. We find that already in the redshift range covered by the DES first year data, these currently neglected relativistic terms lead to a systematic correction of up to 50% in the density-shear correlation function for the highest redshift bins. This correction is dominated by the the fact that a redshift bin of number counts does not only lens sources in a background bin, but is itself again lensed by all masses between the observer and the counted source population. Relativistic corrections are currently ignored in the standard galaxy-galaxy analyses, and the additional lensing of a counted source populations is only included in the error budget (via the covariance matrix). At increasingly higher redshifts and larger scales, these relativistic and lensing corrections become however increasingly more important, and we here argue that it is then more efficient, and also cleaner, to account for these corrections in the density-shear correlations., Comment: version published in JCAP

We derive an exact expression for the correlation function in redshift shells including all the relativistic contributions. This expression, which does not rely on the distant-observer or flat-sky approximation, is valid at all scales and includes both local relativistic corrections and integrated contributions, like gravitational lensing. We present two methods to calculate this correlation function, one which makes use of the angular power spectrum C_ell(z1,z2) and a second method which evades the costly calculations of the angular power spectra. The correlation function is then used to define the power spectrum as its Fourier transform. In this work theoretical aspects of this procedure are presented, together with quantitative examples. In particular, we show that gravitational lensing modifies the multipoles of the correlation function and of the power spectrum by a few percent at redshift z=1 and by up to 30% and more at z=2. We also point out that large-scale relativistic effects and wide-angle corrections generate contributions of the same order of magnitude and have consequently to be treated in conjunction. These corrections are particularly important at small redshift, z=0.1, where they can reach 10%. This means in particular that a flat-sky treatment of relativistic effects, using for example the power spectrum, is not consistent., Comment: 49 pages, 19 figures. v2: minor corrections, references added, typos corrected in eqs. (2.3)-(2.6). Matches version published in JCAP