David Alonso

CMB-S4 Science Book, First Edition

This book lays out the scientific goals to be addressed by the next-generation ground-based cosmic microwave background experiment, CMB-S4, envisioned to consist of dedicated telescopes at the South Pole, the high Chilean Atacama plateau and possibly a northern hemisphere site, all equipped with new superconducting cameras. CMB-S4 will dramatically advance cosmological studies by crossing critical thresholds in the search for the B-mode polarization signature of primordial gravitational waves, in the determination of the number and masses of the neutrinos, in the search for evidence of new light relics, in constraining the nature of dark energy, and in testing general relativity on large scales.

Blind foreground subtraction for intensity mapping experiments

We make use of a large set of fast simulations of an intensity mapping experiment with characteristics similar to those expected of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in order to study the viability and limits of blind foreground subtraction techniques. In particular, we consider different approaches: polynomial fitting, principal component analysis (PCA) and independent component analysis (ICA). We review the motivations and algorithms for the three methods, and show that they can all be described, using the same mathematical framework, as different approaches to the blind source separation problem. We study the efficiency of foreground subtraction both in the angular and radial (frequency) directions, as well as the dependence of this efficiency on different instrumental and modelling parameters. For well-behaved foregrounds and instrumental effects we find that foreground subtraction can be successful to a reasonable level on most scales of interest. We also quantify the effect that the cleaning has on the recovered signal and power spectra. Interestingly, we find that the three methods yield quantitatively similar results, with PCA and ICA being almost equivalent.

Constraining ultralarge-scale cosmology with multiple tracers in optical and radio surveys

Multiple tracers of the cosmic density field, with different bias, number and luminosity evolution, can be used to measure the large-scale properties of the Universe. We show how an optimal combination of tracers can be used to detect general-relativistic effects in the observed density of sources. We forecast for the detectability of these effects, as well as measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity and large-scale lensing magnification with current and upcoming large-scale structure experiments. In particular we quantify the significance of these detections in the short term with experiments such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES), and in the long term with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). We review the main observational challenges that must be overcome to carry out these measurements.

Cosmology with a SKA HI intensity mapping survey

HI intensity mapping (IM) is a novel technique capable of mapping the large-scale structure of the Universe in three dimensions and delivering exquisite constraints on cosmology, by using HI as a biased tracer of the dark matter density field. This is achieved by measuring the intensity of the redshifted 21cm line over the sky in a range of redshifts without the requirement to resolve individual galaxies. In this chapter, we investigate the potential of SKA1 to deliver HI intensity maps over a broad range of frequencies and a substantial fraction of the sky. By pinning down the baryon acoustic oscillation and redshift space distortion features in the matter power spectrum -- thus determining the expansion and growth history of the Universe -- these surveys can provide powerful tests of dark energy models and modifications to General Relativity. They can also be used to probe physics on extremely large scales, where precise measurements of spatial curvature and primordial non-Gaussianity can be used to test inflation; on small scales, by measuring the sum of neutrino masses; and at high redshifts where non-standard evolution models can be probed. We discuss the impact of foregrounds as well as various instrumental and survey design parameters on the achievable constraints. In particular we analyse the feasibility of using the SKA1 autocorrelations to probe the large-scale signal.

Large scale structure simulations of inhomogeneous Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi void models

We perform numerical simulations of large scale structure evolution in an inhomogeneous Lemaitre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) model of the Universe. We follow the gravitational collapse of a large underdense region (a void) in an otherwise flat matter-dominated Einstein-de Sitter model. We observe how the (background) density contrast at the center of the void grows to be of order one, and show that the density and velocity profiles follow the exact nonlinear LTB solution to the full Einstein equations for all but the most extreme voids. This result seems to contradict previous claims that fully relativistic codes are needed to properly handle the nonlinear evolution of large scale structures, and that local Newtonian dynamics with an explicit expansion term is not adequate. We also find that the (local) matter density contrast grows with the scale factor in a way analogous to that of an open universe with a value of the matter density Ω M (r) corresponding to the appropriate location within the void.

Ultra large-scale cosmology in next-generation experiments with single tracers

Future surveys of large-scale structure will be able to measure perturbations on the scale of the cosmological horizon, and so could potentially probe a number of novel relativistic effects that are negligibly small on sub-horizon scales. These effects leave distinctive signatures in the power spectra of clustering observables and, if measurable, would open a new window on relativistic cosmology. We quantify the size and detectability of the effects for the most relevant future large-scale structure experiments: spectroscopic and photometric galaxy redshift surveys, intensity mapping surveys of neutral hydrogen, and radio continuum surveys. Our forecasts show that next-generation experiments, reaching out to redshifts

Homogeneity and isotropy in the Two Micron All Sky Survey Photometric Redshift catalogue

zsimeq 4

Observational future of cosmological scalar-tensor theories

, will not be able to detect previously-undetected general-relativistic effects by using individual tracers of the density field, although the contribution of weak lensing magnification on large scales should be clearly detectable. We also perform a rigorous joint forecast for the detection of primordial non-Gaussianity through the excess power it produces in the clustering of biased tracers on large scales, finding that uncertainties of

Tracing the sound horizon scale with photometric redshift surveys

sigma(f_{rm NL})sim 1-2

Halo abundances within the cosmic web

should be achievable. We study the level of degeneracy of these large-scale effects with several tracer-dependent nuisance parameters, quantifying the minimal priors on the latter that are needed for an optimal measurement of the former. Finally, we discuss the systematic effects that must be mitigated to achieve this level of sensitivity, and some alternative approaches that should help to improve the constraints. The computational tools developed to carry out this study, which requires the full-sky computation of the theoretical angular power spectra for