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This is the Users' Manual for the Fisher Matrix software Fisher4Cast and covers installation, GUI help, command line basics, code flow and data structure, as well as cosmological applications and extensions. Finally we discuss the extensive tests performed on the software., Comment: 37 pages, 27 figures. Software available at http://www.cosmology.org.za. Cosmological applications described in the accompanying release paper

The Fisher Matrix is the backbone of modern cosmological forecasting. We describe the Fisher4Cast software: a general-purpose, easy-to-use, Fisher Matrix framework. It is open source, rigorously designed and tested and includes a Graphical User Interface (GUI) with automated LATEX file creation capability and point-and-click Fisher ellipse generation. Fisher4Cast was designed for ease of extension and, although written in Matlab, is easily portable to open-source alternatives such as Octave and Scilab. Here we use Fisher4Cast to present new 3-D and 4-D visualisations of the forecasting landscape and to investigate the effects of growth and curvature on future cosmological surveys. Early releases have been available at http://www.cosmology.org.za since May 2008 with 750 downloads in the first year. Version 2.2 is made public with this paper and includes a Quick Start guide and the code used to produce the figures in this paper, in the hope that it will be useful to the cosmology and wider scientific communities., Comment: 30 Pages, 15 figures. Minor revisions to match published version, with some additional functionality described to match the current version (2.2) of the code. Software available at http://www.cosmology.org.za. Usage, structure and flow of the software, as well as tests performed are described in the accompanying Users' Manual

This discussion serves as an introduction to the use of Monte Carlo simulations as a useful way to evaluate the observables of a ferromagnet. Key background is given about the relevance and effectiveness of this stochastic approach and in particular the applicability of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Importantly the potentially devastating effects of spontaneous magnetization are highlighted and a means to avert this is examined. An Ising model is introduced and used to investigate the properties of a two dimensional ferromagnet with respect to its magnetization and energy at varying temperatures. The observables are calculated and a phase transition at a critical temperature is also illustrated and evaluated. Lastly a finite size scaling analysis is undertaken to determine the critical exponents and the Curie temperature is calculated using a ratio of cumulants with differing lattice sizes. The results obtained from the simulation are compared to exact calculations to endorse the validity of this numerical process. A copy of the code used, written in C++, is enclosed and is freely available for use and modification under the General Public License., Comment: 26 pages, 21 figures, conference presentation at SASNAM 2003, Honours project 2001

We highlight the unexpected impact of nucleosynthesis and other early universe constraints on the detectability of tracking quintessence dynamics at late times, showing that such dynamics may well be invisible until the unveiling of the Stage-IV dark energy experiments (DUNE, JDEM, LSST, SKA). Nucleosynthesis forces |w'(0)| < 0.2 for the models we consider and strongly limits potential deviations from LCDM. Surprisingly, the standard CPL parametrisation, w(z) = w_0 + w_a z/(1+z), cannot match the nucleosynthesis bound for minimally coupled tracking scalar fields. Given that such models are arguably the best-motivated alternatives to a cosmological constant these results may significantly impact future cosmological survey design and imply that dark energy may well be dynamical even if we do not detect any dynamics in the next decade., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Updated to match published version