The impact of galactic winds from LBGs on the Intergalactic Medium

An excess of sight-lines close to Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) with little or no absorption in QSO absorption spectra has been reported and has been interpreted as the effect of galactic winds on the Intergalactic Medium. We use here numerical simulations to investigate the flux probability function close to plausible sites of LBGs. We show that the flux distribution near our LBGs in the simulation depends strongly on redshift, and is very sensitive to the averaging procedure. We show that a model without galactic winds and a model with a wind bubble size of 0.5Mpc/h (comoving) are equally consistent with the new determination of the conditional flux distribution by Adelberger et al. (2005). Models with the larger bubble sizes suggested by the previous observations of Adelberger et al. (2003) based on a much smaller sample at higher redshift are not consistent with the new data. We therefore argue that the volume filling factor of galactic winds driven by LBGs may be much smaller than previously thought, and that most of the metals responsible for the metal absorption associated with the low column density Lya forest are unlikely to have been ejected by LBGs.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Magnification effect on the detection of primordial non-Gaussianity from photometric surveys

We present forecast results for constraining the primordial non-Gaussianity from photometric surveys through a large-scale enhancement of the galaxy clustering amplitude. In photometric surveys, the distribution of observed galaxies at high redshifts suffers from the gravitational-lensing magnification, which systematically alters the number density for magnitude-limited galaxy samples. We estimate size of the systematic bias in the best-fit cosmological parameters caused by the magnification effect, particularly focusing on the primordial non-Gaussianity. For upcoming deep and/or wide photometric surveys like HSC, DES and LSST, the best-fit value of the non-Gaussian parameter, fNL, obtained from the galaxy count data is highly biased, and the true values of fNL would typically go outside the 3-sigma error of the biased confidence region, if we ignore the magnification effect in the theoretical template of angular power spectrum. The additional information from cosmic shear data helps not only to improve the constraint, but also to reduce the systematic bias. As a result, the size of systematic bias on fNL would become small enough compared to the expected 1-sigma error for HSC and DES, but it would be still serious for deep surveys with z_m > 1.5, like LSST. Tomographic technique improves the constraint on fNL by a factor of 2-3 compared to the one without tomography, but the systematic bias would increase.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

The matter bispectrum in N-body simulations with non-Gaussian initial conditions

We present measurements of the dark matter bispectrum in N-body simulations with non-Gaussian initial conditions of the local kind for a large variety of triangular configurations and compare them with predictions from Eulerian perturbation theory up to one-loop corrections. We find that the effects of primordial non-Gaussianity at large scales, when compared to perturbation theory, are well described by the initial component of the matter bispectrum, linearly extrapolated at the redshift of interest. In addition, we find that for fNL= 100, the non-linear corrections due to non-Gaussian initial conditions are of the order of ∼3-4 per cent for generic triangles and up to ∼20 per cent for squeezed configurations, at any redshift. We show that the predictions of perturbation theory at the tree level fail to describe the simulation results at redshift z= 0 at scales corresponding to k∼ 0.02-0.08 h Mpc−1, depending on the triangle, while one-loop corrections can significantly extend their validity to smaller scales. At higher redshift, one-loop perturbation theory indeed provides quite accurate predictions, particularly with respect to the relative correction due to primordial non-Gaussianit

Optimal Constraints on Local Primordial Non-Gaussianity from the Two-Point Statistics of Large-Scale Structure

One of the main signatures of primordial non-Gaussianity of the local type is a scale-dependent correction to the bias of large-scale structure tracers such as galaxies or clusters, whose amplitude depends on the bias of the tracers itself. The dominant source of noise in the power spectrum of the tracers is caused by sampling variance on large scales (where the non-Gaussian signal is strongest) and shot noise arising from their discrete nature. Recent work has argued that one can avoid sampling variance by comparing multiple tracers of different bias, and suppress shot noise by optimally weighting halos of different mass. Here we combine these ideas and investigate how well the signatures of non-Gaussian fluctuations in the primordial potential can be extracted from the two-point correlations of halos and dark matter. On the basis of large $N$-body simulations with local non-Gaussian initial conditions and their halo catalogs we perform a Fisher matrix analysis of the two-point statistics. Compared to the standard analysis, optimal weighting- and multiple-tracer techniques applied to halos can yield up to one order of magnitude improvements in \fnl-constraints, even if the underlying dark matter density field is not known. We compare our numerical results to the halo model and find satisfactory agreement. Forecasting the optimal \fnl-constraints that can be achieved with our methods when applied to existing and future survey data, we find that a survey of $50h^{-1}\mathrm{Gpc}^3$ volume resolving all halos down to 10^{11}\hMsun at $z=1$ will be able to obtain \sigma_{\fnl}\sim1 (68% cl), a factor of $\sim20$ improvement over the current limits. Decreasing the minimum mass of resolved halos, increasing the survey volume or obtaining the dark matter maps can further improve these limits, potentially reaching the level of \sigma_{\fnl}\sim0.1. (abridged)Comment: V1: 23 pages, 12 figures, submitted to PRD. V2: 24 pages, added appendix and citations, matched to PRD published versio

The Initial Spin Probability Distribution of Primordial Black Holes

We study the spin of primordial black holes produced by the collapse of large inhomogeneities in the early universe. Since such primordial black holes originate from peaks, that is, from maxima of the local overdensity, we resort to peak theory to obtain the probability distribution of the spin at formation. We show that the spin is a first-order effect in perturbation theory: it results from the action of first-order tidal gravitational fields generating first-order torques upon horizon-crossing, and from the asphericity of the collapsing object. Assuming an ellipsoidal shape, the typical value of the dimensionless parameter $a_{\rm s}=S/G_N M^2$, where $S$ is the spin and $M$ is the mass of the primordial black hole, is about $\sigma_\delta\sqrt{1-\gamma^2}/2\pi$. Here, $\sigma^2_\delta$ is the variance of the overdensity at horizon crossing and the parameter $\gamma$ is a measure of the width of the power spectrum giving rise to primordial black holes. One has $\gamma=1$ for monochromatic spectra. For these narrow spectra, the suppression arises because the velocity shear, which is strongly correlated with the inertia tensor, tends to align with the principal axis frame of the collapsing object. Typical values of $a_{\rm s}$ are at the percent level.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figure

Testing Multi-Field Inflation with Galaxy Bias

Multi-field models of inflation predict an inequality between the amplitude tauNL of the collapsed limit of the four-point correlator of the primordial curvature perturbation and the amplitude fNL of the squeezed limit of its three-point correlator. While a convincing detection of non-Gaussianity through the squeezed limit of the three-point correlator would rule out all single-field models, a robust confirmation or disproval of the inequality between tauNL and fNL would provide crucial information about the validity of multi-field models of inflation. In this paper, we discuss to which extent future measurements of the scale-dependence of galaxy bias can test multi-field inflationary scenarios. The strong degeneracy between the effect of a non-vanishing fNL and tauNL on halo bias can be broken by considering multiple tracer populations of the same surveyed volume. If halos down to 1e13 Msun/h are resolved in a survey of volume 25(Gpc/h)^3, then testing multi-field models of inflation at the 3-\sigma level would require, for instance, a detection of tauNL at the level of tauNL~1e5 given a measurement of a local bispectrum with amplitude fNL~10. However, we find that disproving multi-field models of inflation with measurements of the non-Gaussian bias only will be very challenging, unless |fNL| > 80 and one can achieve a halo mass resolution of 1e10 Msun/h.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Constraints on the Abundance of Highly Ionized Proto-Cluster Regions from the Absence of Large Voids in the Lyman Alpha Forest

Energetic feedback processes during the formation of galaxy clusters may have heated and ionized a large fraction of the intergalactic gas in proto-cluster regions. When such a highly ionized hot ``super-bubble'' falls along the sightline to a background quasar, it would be seen as a large void, with little or no absorption, in the Lyman alpha forest. We examine the spectra of 137 quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, to search for such voids, and find no clear evidence of their existence. The size distribution of voids in the range 5-70 Angstrom (corresponding to physical sizes of approximately 3-35 comoving Mpc/h) is consistent with the standard model for the Lyman alpha forest without additional hot bubbles. We adapt a physical model for HII bubble growth during cosmological reionization (Furlanetto, Zaldarriaga and Hernquist 2004), to describe the expected size-distribution of hot super-bubbles at redshift around z = 3. This model incorporates the conjoining of bubbles around individual neighboring galaxies. Using the non-detection of voids, we find that models in which the volume filling factor of hot bubbles exceeds approximately 20 percent at z=3 can be ruled out, primarily because they overproduce the number of large (40-50 Angstrom) voids. We conclude that any pre-heating mechanism that explains galaxy cluster observations must avoid heating the low-density gas in the proto-cluster regions, either by operating relatively recently (z<3) or by depositing entropy in the high-density regions.Comment: submitted to ApJ, 9 emulateapj pages with 3 figure

The Halo Bispectrum in N-body Simulations with non-Gaussian Initial Conditions

We present measurements of the bispectrum of dark matter halos in numerical simulations with non-Gaussian initial conditions of the local type. We show, in the first place, that the overall effect of primordial non-Gaussianity on the halo bispectrum is larger than on the halo power spectrum when all measurable configurations are taken into account. We then compare our measurements with a tree-level perturbative prediction finding good agreement at large scale when the constant Gaussian bias parameter, both linear and quadratic, and their constant non-Gaussian corrections are fitted for. The best-fit values of the Gaussian bias factors and their non-Gaussian, scale-independent corrections are in qualitative agreement with the peak-background split expectations. In particular, we show that the effect of non-Gaussian initial conditions on squeezed configurations is fairly large (up to 30% for f_NL=100 at redshift z=0.5) and results from contributions of similar amplitude induced by the initial matter bispectrum, scale-dependent bias corrections as well as from nonlinear matter bispectrum corrections. We show, in addition, that effects at second order in f_NL are irrelevant for the range of values allowed by CMB and galaxy power spectrum measurements, at least on the scales probed by our simulations. Finally, we present a Fisher matrix analysis to assess the possibility of constraining primordial non-Gaussianity with future measurements of the galaxy bispectrum. We find that a survey with a volume of about 10 cubic Gpc at mean redshift z ~ 1 could provide an error on f_NL of the order of a few. This shows the relevance of a joint analysis of galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum in future redshift surveys.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figure