8,512 research outputs found
Combining Full-Shape and BAO Analyses of Galaxy Power Spectra: A 1.6% CMB-independent constraint on H0
We present cosmological constraints from a joint analysis of the pre- and
post-reconstruction galaxy power spectrum multipoles from the final data
release of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Geometric
constraints are obtained from the positions of BAO peaks in reconstructed
spectra, analyzed in combination with the unreconstructed spectra in a
full-shape (FS) likelihood using a joint covariance matrix, giving stronger
parameter constraints than FS-only or BAO-only analyses. We introduce a new
method for obtaining constraints from reconstructed spectra based on a
correlated theoretical error, which is shown to be simple, robust, and
applicable to any flavor of density-field reconstruction. Assuming CDM
with massive neutrinos, we analyze data from two redshift bins
and obtain constraints on the Hubble
constant , using only a single prior on the current baryon density
from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and no knowledge of the power
spectrum slope . This gives , with the inclusion of BAO
data sharpening the measurement by , representing one of the strongest
current constraints on independent of cosmic microwave background data.
Restricting to the best-fit slope from Planck (but without additional
priors on the spectral shape), we obtain a measurement of . We find strong constraints on the
cosmological parameters from a joint analysis of the FS, BAO, and Planck data.
This sets new bounds on the sum of neutrino masses (at confidence) and the effective number of
relativistic degrees of freedom , though
contours are not appreciably narrowed by the inclusion of BAO data.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, accepted by JCAP, likelihoods available at
https://github.com/Michalychforever/lss_montepython (minor typo corrected
Exploring degeneracies in modified gravity with weak lensing
By considering linear-order departures from general relativity, we compute a
novel expression for the weak lensing convergence power spectrum under
alternative theories of gravity. This comprises an integral over a 'kernel' of
general relativistic quantities multiplied by a theory-dependent 'source' term.
The clear separation between theory-independent and -dependent terms allows for
an explicit understanding of each physical effect introduced by altering the
theory of gravity. We take advantage of this to explore the degeneracies
between gravitational parameters in weak lensing observations.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures. v2: Minor changes to match version accepted by
PR
Regularization-free estimation in trace regression with symmetric positive semidefinite matrices
Over the past few years, trace regression models have received considerable
attention in the context of matrix completion, quantum state tomography, and
compressed sensing. Estimation of the underlying matrix from
regularization-based approaches promoting low-rankedness, notably nuclear norm
regularization, have enjoyed great popularity. In the present paper, we argue
that such regularization may no longer be necessary if the underlying matrix is
symmetric positive semidefinite (\textsf{spd}) and the design satisfies certain
conditions. In this situation, simple least squares estimation subject to an
\textsf{spd} constraint may perform as well as regularization-based approaches
with a proper choice of the regularization parameter, which entails knowledge
of the noise level and/or tuning. By contrast, constrained least squares
estimation comes without any tuning parameter and may hence be preferred due to
its simplicity
Robust Inversion Methods for Aerosol Spectroscopy
The Fast Aerosol Spectrometer (FASP) is a device for spectral aerosol
measurements. Its purpose is to safely monitor the atmosphere inside a reactor
containment. First we describe the FASP and explain its basic physical laws.
Then we introduce our reconstruction methods for aerosol particle size
distributions designed for the FASP. We extend known existence results for
constrained Tikhonov regularization by uniqueness criteria and use those to
generate reasonable models for the size distributions. We apply a Bayesian
model-selection framework on these pre-generated models. We compare our
algorithm with classical inversion methods using simulated measurements. We
then extend our reconstruction algorithm for two-component aerosols, so that we
can simultaneously retrieve their particle-size distributions and unknown
volume fractions of their two components. Finally we present the results of a
numerical study for the extended algorithm.Comment: 37 pages, 3 figure
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