Cosmology and Gravitation

The new gravitational-wave signal GW190521in LIGO and Virgo marks the first observational detection of the elusive intermediate-mass black holes. The detection also confirms there exist a new class of black holes in the mass gap predicted by the pair-instability supernovae theory. In this talk, I will discuss the process that went behind inferring the astrophysical properties of this historic discovery. I would briefly address the alternative scenarios we looked into for a possible exotic origin of this signal, including any violation of General Relativity. For the upcoming ESA/NASA space mission LISA, I would highlight how this discovery opens a unique epoch of multi-band, multi-messenger astronomy.

The outskirts of accreting dark matter haloes exhibit a sudden drop in density delimiting the virialized region. After briefly describing the physics shaping this feature and how it is measured, I will discuss its applications. I will examine its connection to structure formation and how it can constrain the screening mechanisms of beyond-GR models of gravity.

Studying the smallest self-bound dark matter structure in our Universe can yield important clues about the fundamental particle nature of dark matter, and galaxy-scale strong gravitational lensing provides a unique way to detect and characterize dark matter on small scales at cosmological distances from the Milky Way. Research in this field can be broadly separated into works that aim to directly detect individual perturbers and works that aim to statistically constrain the matter distribution by looking at collective perturbations caused by an unresolved population of perturbers. We present recent advances in both of these approaches. With respect to the former, we present advances in the analysis of gravitational lenses and identification of small-scale clumps using machine learning. With respect to the latter, we introduce the convergence power spectrum as a promising statistical observable that can be extracted from strong lens images and used to distinguish between different dark matter scenarios, showing how different properties of the dark matter get imprinted on different scales. We include a discussion on the different contribution of substructure and line-of-sight structure to perturbations in strong lens images.

Mapping of galaxy density fluctuations on large scales is one of the most important goals of observational cosmology in this decade. These observations can significantly improve our knowledge of the universe, its origins and composition. In this talk I will review some of the science goals of the ongoing and future spectroscopic galaxy surveys and explain how these goals can be met. In particular, I will focus on some recent progress in theoretical modelling of the nonlinear structure formation and show how it can be used to extract cosmology from observations of the cosmic web. As an example I will present several analyses from the publicly available Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) data and results for the standard LCDM model as well as several relevant extensions.

Current and forthcoming observing runs at ground-based laser interferometry detectors are starting to uncover gravitational waves from binary black hole (BBH) mergers at cosmological distances, and a fraction of them are expected to be gravitationally lensed by intervening galaxy or cluster lenses with multiple images. Such strongly lensed events, if discovered, may offer a precious opportunity to localize BBH host galaxies and probe global and small-scale property of the lens mass profile. We investigate multiple BBH events showing parameter coincidence in the LIGO/Virgo O2 run, and search for additional sub-threshold signals that may be fainter lensed images. For the first time, we factor in the effect of the Morse phase shift in the analysis, and demonstrate how to measure the relative Morse phase via joint parameter inference. We confirm curiously high level of intrinsic and extrinsic parameter coincidence between GW170814 and GW170104, and uncover a third sub-threshold candidate lensed image, GWC170620, in a single-template search, which amounts to an estimated 10^-4 overall chance of statistical fluke. The measured relative Morse phases among the three events, although consistent with ray-optics lensing, point toward a complicated and unexpected image topology with a magnified image at a local maximum of the Fermat potential, which however casts doubt on the lensing hypothesis. The long time delays on the order of months necessarily require a massive lens of galaxy cluster scale. If a genuine set of multiple lensed images, we localize the source to ~ 16 deg^2 on the sky and suggest a range 0.4 < z < 0.7 for its redshift. Optical follow-up observations are encouraged to collect any additional information that may further shed light on the case. 
 

Understanding galaxy formation is an outstanding problem in Astrophysics. The feedback processes that drive it, exploding stars and accretion onto supermassive black holes, are poorly understood. This results in an order unity uncertainty in the distribution of the gas inside halos, the ``missing baryon problem''. Because baryons are 15% of the total mass in the universe, this baryonic uncertainty is the largest theoretical systematics for percent precision weak lensing surveys like DES, HSC, Rubin Observatory, Roman Observatory and Euclid.
By measuring the kinematic and thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects (kSZ and tSZ), high resolution and high sensitivity CMB experiments can solve these issues by measuring the gas thermodynamics in galaxy groups and clusters, at high redshift and out to the outskirts of the halo. I will present joint tSZ, kSZ and dust measurement of BOSS (CMASS) galaxy groups, for which clustering and lensing data is also available. Using data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), we produced the highest significance kSZ measurement to date. This measurement shows with high statistical confidence that the gas is more spread out than the dark matter. It informs the modeling of the CMASS galaxy-galaxy lensing data, and shows that the small-scale ``lensing is low'' tension is not entirely caused by baryonic effects. Finally, comparing the observed kSZ and tSZ to hydrodynamical simulations reveals insight about the modalities of feedback.

Measurements of gravitational lensing in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) allow the dark matter distribution to be mapped out to uniquely high redshifts. After giving a brief overview of current and upcoming CMB lensing measurements, I will focus on two new ways of using CMB lensing, in combination with galaxy surveys, to constrain the early universe. First, I will explore how CMB lensing and galaxy surveys could provide insights into current discrepancies in measurements of the Hubble constant. Second, I will explain why new approaches to de-lensing – removing the lensing effect to reveal the primordial polarization sky – will be important for probing the early universe with the Simons Observatory CMB experiment.

On Monday July 20th, we announced the final results from extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), the last large-scale structure galaxy survey to be undertaken within the umbrella of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This marks the culmination of 20 years of galaxy surveys undertaken using the Sloan Foundation Telescope. In this seminar I will summarise the measurements presented in the 23 scientific papers that were released last Monday, and present the impact of the measurements from eBOSS and previous SDSS galaxy surveys on the development of the standard cosmological model.

The standard cosmological model determined from the accurate cosmic microwave background measurements made by the Planck satellite implies a value of the Hubble constant H0 that is 4.2 standard deviations lower than the one determined from Type Ia supernovae. The Planck best fit model also predicts lower values of the matter density fraction Om and clustering amplitude S8 compared to those obtained from the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 data. We show that accounting for the enhanced recombination rate due to additional inhomogeneities in the baryon density can solve both the H0 and the S8-Om tensions. The additional baryon inhomogeneities can be induced by primordial magnetic fields present in the plasma prior to recombination. The required field strength to solve the Hubble tension is just what is needed to explain the existence of galactic, cluster, and extragalactic magnetic fields without relying on dynamo amplification. Our results show clear evidence for this effect and motivate further detailed studies of primordial magnetic fields, setting several well-defined targets for future observations.

Zoom Link:  https://pitp.zoom.us/j/93581608531?pwd=d3NRQXRGNTNISkhuWmxLYkJMZllTUT09

Based on recent work arXiv:1902.08207 and arXiv:1911.02018 with E. Verlinde.

Over the last decade, the Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structure (EFTofLSS) has emerged as a frontrunner in the effort to produce accurate models of cosmological statistics. Quantities such as power spectra can be fit with sub-percent precision, and there is a wealth of literature applying the formalism to more complex statistics. It is interesting to ask what lies ahead for the theory. Can it be used for cosmological parameter inference? And is it just for statistics based on the 3D density field?

In this talk, I will present a pedagogical introduction to the EFTofLSS, discussing its motivation and basic formalism, as well as a few of its theoretical challenges. To demonstrate the utility of the theory beyond the blackboard, I will discuss the analysis of galaxy power spectra. Using this model, competitive constraints can be placed on cosmology utilizing all the large-scale spatial information, not just the position of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations. In particular, this yields the strongest CMB-independent measurement of H0. 

In answering the second question, I will introduce two less conventional applications of the EFTofLSS. Firstly, the marked density field. This is simply the matter field weighted by its local overdensity, and recent works have shown its power spectrum to be capable of placing strong constraints on the neutrino mass. I will discussing its perturbative modeling, highlighting its unusual features, and how the model allows us to shed light on the surprising constraining of the statistic. An additional statistic of interest is weak lensing. Creating an analytic model for this has its own complications, since it is sensitive to a large range of scales, requiring extensions to the usual EFTofLSS modeling. Crucial to this effort is the development of a matter power spectrum model which is accurate on all scales; I will present the results of recent modeling efforts within the ‘Effective Halo Model’, and discuss future applications to integrated statistics such as weak lensing.

Zoom Link: https://pitp.zoom.us/j/91697113596?pwd=OTh3ZjZ5SHd5Q09sTFdReUMyb0hpUT09

COVID-19 is a mysterious disease associated with a large number of unanswered questions. 

In this talk we review what is currently known, what is still a mystery and highlight some of our recent work on the role of climate, blood type and vaccinations on the transmission of the disease and on the extent of "dark infections", the asymptomatic and untested proportion of infections. We end with a list of open research questions that may be amenable to techniques from physics and data science.