Simulations of weak gravitational lensing – II. Including finite support effects in cosmic shear covariance matrices

Numerical N-body simulations play a central role in the assessment of weak gravitational lensing statistics, residual systematics and error analysis. In this paper, we investigate and quantify the impact of finite simulation volume on weak lensing two- and four-point statistics. These finite support (FS) effects are modelled for several estimators, simulation box sizes and source redshifts, and validated against a new large suite of 500 N-body simulations. The comparison reveals that our theoretical model is accurate to better than 5 per cent for the shear correlation function ξ+(θ) and its error. We find that the most important quantities for FS modelling are the ratio between the measured angle θ and the angular size of the simulation box at the source redshift, θbox(zs), or the multipole equivalent ℓ/ℓbox(zs). When this ratio reaches 0.1, independently of the source redshift, the shear correlation function ξ+ is suppressed by 5, 10, 20 and 25 per cent for Lbox = 1000, 500, 250 and 147 h−1 Mpc, respectively. The same effect is observed in ξ−(θ), but at much larger angles. This has important consequences for cosmological analyses using N-body simulations and should not be overlooked. We propose simple semi-analytic correction strategies that account for shape noise and survey masks, generalizable to any weak lensing estimator. From the same simulation suite, we revisit the existing non-Gaussian covariance matrix calibration of the shear correlation function, and propose a new one based on the 9-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe)+baryon acoustic oscillations+supernova cosmology. Our calibration matrix is accurate at 20 per cent down to the arcminute scale, for source redshifts in the range 0 < z < 3, even for the far off-diagonal elements. We propose, for the first time, a parametrization for the full ξ− covariance matrix, also 20 per cent accurate for most elements

Understanding the potential for marine megafauna entanglement risk from renewable marine energy developments

PublishedThis is the final version of the article. Available from the Scottish National Heritage via the link in this record.Commissioned Report No. 791 Project no: 14635 Contractor: Scottish Association for Marine Science Research Services Ltd and the University of Exeter Year of publication: 2014Scottish Natural Heritag

Non-Gaussian errors of baryonic acoustic oscillations

We revisit the uncertainty in baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) forecasts and data analyses. In particular, we study how much the uncertainties on both the measured mean dilation scale and the associated error bar are affected by the non-Gaussianity of the non-linear density field. We examine two possible impacts of non-Gaussian analysis: (1) we derive the distance estimators from Gaussian theory, but use 1000 N-Body simulations to measure the actual errors, and compare this to the Gaussian prediction, and (2) we compute new optimal estimators, which requires the inverse of the non-Gaussian covariance matrix of the matter power spectrum. Obtaining an accurate and precise inversion is challenging, and we opted for a noise reduction technique applied on the covariance matrices. By measuring the bootstrap error on the inverted matrix, this work quantifies for the first time the significance of the non-Gaussian error corrections on the BAO dilation scale. We find that the variance (error squared) on distance measurements can deviate by up to 12% between both estimators, an effect that requires a large number of simulations to be resolved. We next apply a reconstruction algorithm to recover some of the BAO signal that had been smeared by non-linear evolution, and we rerun the analysis. We find that after reconstruction, the rms error on the distance measurement improves by a factor of ~1.7 at low redshift (consistent with previous results), and the variance ({\sigma}^2) shows a change of up to 18% between optimal and sub-optimal cases (note, however, that these discrepancies may depend in detail on the procedure used to isolate the BAO signal). We finally discuss the impact of this work on current data analyses.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, MNRAS accepte

Testing modified gravity with cosmic shear

We use the cosmic shear data from the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey to place constraints on f(R) and Generalized Dilaton models of modified gravity. This is highly complementary to other probes since the constraints mainly come from the non-linear scales: maximal deviations with respects to the General Relativity (GR) + Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) scenario occurs at k ∼ 1 h Mpc−1. At these scales, it becomes necessary to account for known degeneracies with baryon feedback and massive neutrinos, hence we place constraints jointly on these three physical effects. To achieve this, we formulate these modified gravity theories within a common tomographic parametrization, we compute their impact on the clustering properties relative to a GR universe, and propagate the observed modifications into the weak lensing ξ± quantity. Confronted against the cosmic shear data, we reject the f(R) {|fR0|=10−4,n=1} model with more than 99.9 per cent confidence interval (CI) when assuming a ΛCDM dark matter only model. In the presence of baryonic feedback processes and massive neutrinos with total mass up to 0.2 eV, the model is disfavoured with at least 94 per cent CI in all different combinations studied. Constraints on the {|fR0|=10−4,n=2} model are weaker, but nevertheless disfavoured with at least 89 per cent CI. We identify several specific combinations of neutrino mass, baryon feedback and f(R) or Dilaton gravity models that are excluded by the current cosmic shear data. Notably, universes with three massless neutrinos and no baryon feedback are strongly disfavoured in all modified gravity scenarios studied. These results indicate that competitive constraints may be achieved with future cosmic shear data

Enhancing the cosmic shear power spectrum

Applying a transformation to a non-Gaussian field can enhance the information content of the resulting power spectrum, by reducing the correlations between Fourier modes. In the context of weak gravitational lensing, it has been shown that this gain in information content is significantly compromised by the presence of shape noise. We apply clipping to mock convergence fields, a technique which is known to be robust in the presence of noise and has been successfully applied to galaxy number density fields. When analysed in isolation the resulting convergence power spectrum returns degraded constraints on cosmological parameters. However, substantial gains can be achieved by performing a combined analysis of the power spectra derived from both the original and transformed fields. Even in the presence of realistic levels of shape noise, we demonstrate that this approach is capable of reducing the area of likelihood contours within the Ωm − σ8 plane by more than a factor of 3

Precision reconstruction of the cold dark matter-neutrino relative velocity fromN-body simulations

Discovering the mass of neutrinos is a principle goal in high energy physics and cosmology. In addition to cosmological measurements based on two-point statistics, the neutrino mass can also be estimated by observations of neutrino wakes resulting from the relative motion between cold dark matter (CDM) and neutrinos. Such a detection relies on an accurate reconstruction of the CDM-neutrino relative velocity which is affected by nonlinear structure growth and galaxy bias. We investigate our ability to reconstruct this relative velocity using large N-body simulations where we evolve neutrinos as distinct particles alongside the CDM. We find that the CDM velocity power spectrum is overpredicted by linear theory whereas the neutrino velocity power spectrum is underpredicted. The magnitude of the relative velocity observed in the simulations is found to be lower than what is predicted in linear theory. Since neither the CDM nor the neutrino velocity fields are directly observable from galaxy or 21 cm surveys, we test the accuracy of a reconstruction algorithm based on halo density fields and linear theory. Assuming prior knowledge of the halo bias, we find that the reconstructed relative velocities are highly correlated with the simulated ones with correlation coefficients of 0.94, 0.93, 0.92 and 0.88 for neutrinos of mass 0.05, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 eV. We confirm that the relative velocity field reconstructed from large scale structure observations such as galaxy or 21 cm surveys can be accurate in direction and, with appropriate scaling, magnitude

Are transnational tobacco companies' market access strategies linked to economic development models? A case study of South Korea.

Transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) have used varied strategies to access previously closed markets. Using TTCs' efforts to enter the South Korean market from the late 1980s as a case study, this article asks whether there are common patterns in these strategies that relate to the broader economic development models adopted by targeted countries. An analytical review of the existing literature on TTCs' efforts to access emerging markets was conducted to develop hypotheses relating TTCs' strategies to countries' economic development models. A case study of Korea was then undertaken based on analysis of internal tobacco industry documents. Findings were consistent with the hypothesis that TTCs' strategies in Korea were linked to Korea's export-oriented economic development model and its hostile attitude towards foreign investment. A fuller understanding of TTCs' strategies for expansion globally can be derived by locating them within the economic development models of specific countries or regions. Of foremost importance is the need for governments to carefully balance economic and public health policies when considering liberalisation

CFHTLenS revisited: assessing concordance with Planck including astrophysical systematics

We investigate the impact of astrophysical systematics on cosmic shear cosmological parameter constraints from the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS) and the concordance with cosmic microwave background measurements by Planck. We present updated CFHTLenS cosmic shear tomography measurements extended to degree scales using a covariance calibrated by a new suite of N-body simulations. We analyse these measurements with a new model fitting pipeline, accounting for key systematic uncertainties arising from intrinsic galaxy alignments, baryonic effects in the non-linear matter power spectrum, and photometric redshift uncertainties. We examine the impact of the systematic degrees of freedom on the cosmological parameter constraints, both independently and jointly. When the systematic uncertainties are considered independently, the intrinsic alignment amplitude is the only degree of freedom that is substantially preferred by the data. When the systematic uncertainties are considered jointly, there is no consistently strong preference in favour of the more complex models. We quantify the level of concordance between the CFHTLenS and Planck data sets by employing two distinct data concordance tests, grounded in Bayesian evidence and information theory. We find that the two data concordance tests largely agree with one another and that the level of concordance between the CFHTLenS and Planck data sets is sensitive to the exact details of the systematic uncertainties included in our analysis, ranging from decisive discordance to substantial concordance as the treatment of the systematic uncertainties becomes more conservative. The least conservative scenario is the one most favoured by the cosmic shear data, but it is also the one that shows the greatest degree of discordance with Planck. The data and analysis code are publicly available at https://github.com/sjoudaki/cfhtlens_revisited

Precision calculations of the cosmic shear power spectrum projection

We compute the spherical-sky weak-lensing power spectrum of the shear and convergence. We discuss various approximations, such as flat-sky, and first- and second-order Limber equations for the projection. We find that the impact of adopting these approximations is negligible when constraining cosmological parameters from current weak-lensing surveys. This is demonstrated using data from the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey. We find that the reported tension with Planck cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy results cannot be alleviated. For future large-scale surveys with unprecedented precision, we show that the spherical second-order Limber approximation will provide sufficient accuracy. In this case, the cosmic-shear power spectrum is shown to be in agreement with the full projection at the sub-percent level for ℓ > 3, with the corresponding errors an order of magnitude below cosmic variance for all ℓ. When computing the two-point shear correlation function, we show that the flat-sky fast Hankel transformation results in errors below two percent compared to the full spherical transformation. In the spirit of reproducible research, our numerical implementation of all approximations and the full projection are publicly available within the package NICAEA at http://www.cosmostat.org/software/nicaea

The BAHAMAS project: the CMB-large-scale structure tension and the roles of massive neutrinos and galaxy formation

Large scale structure and cosmolog