Physics of dark energy particles

We consider the astrophysical and cosmological implications of the existence of a minimum density and mass due to the presence of the cosmological constant. If there is a minimum length in nature, then there is an absolute minimum mass corresponding to a hypothetical particle with radius of the order of the Planck length. On the other hand, quantum mechanical considerations suggest a different minimum mass. These particles associated with the dark energy can be interpreted as the ``quanta'' of the cosmological constant. We study the possibility that these particles can form stable stellar-type configurations through gravitational condensation, and their Jeans and Chandrasekhar masses are estimated. From the requirement of the energetic stability of the minimum density configuration on a macroscopic scale one obtains a mass of the order of 10^55 g, of the same order of magnitude as the mass of the universe. This mass can also be interpreted as the Jeans mass of the dark energy fluid. Furthermore we present a representation of the cosmological constant and of the total mass of the universe in terms of `classical' fundamental constants.Comment: 10 pages, no figures; typos corrected, 4 references added; 1 reference added; reference added; entirely revised version, contains new parts, now 14 page

Time-Varying Emulator for Short and Long-Term Analysis of Coastal Flood Hazard Potential

Rising seas coupled with ever increasing coastal populations present the potential for significant social and economic loss in the 21st century. Relatively short records of the full multidimensional space contributing to total water level coastal flooding events (astronomic tides, sea level anomalies, storm surges, wave run‐up, etc.) result in historical observations of only a small fraction of the possible range of conditions that could produce severe flooding. The Time‐varying Emulator for Short‐ and Long‐Term analysis of coastal flood hazard potential is presented here as a methodology capable of producing new iterations of the sea‐state parameters associated with the present‐day Pacific Ocean climate to simulate many synthetic extreme compound events. The emulator utilizes weather typing of fundamental climate drivers (sea surface temperatures, sea level pressures, etc.) to reduce complexity and produces new daily synoptic weather chronologies with an auto‐regressive logistic model accounting for conditional dependencies on the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Madden‐Julian Oscillation, seasonality, and the prior two days of weather progression. Joint probabilities of sea‐state parameters unique to simulated weather patterns are used to create new time series of the hypothetical components contributing to synthetic total water levels (swells from multiple directions coupled with water levels due to wind setup, temperature anomalies, and tides). The Time‐varying Emulator for Short‐ and Long‐Term analysis of coastal flood hazard potential reveals the importance of considering the multivariate nature of extreme coastal flooding, while progressing the ability to incorporate large‐scale climate variability into site specific studies assessing hazards within the context of predicted climate change in the 21st century

Ellipsoidal configurations in the de Sitter spacetime

The cosmological constant $\Lambda$ modifies certain properties of large astrophysical rotating configurations with ellipsoidal geometries, provided the objects are not too compact. Assuming an equilibrium configuration and so using the tensor virial equation with $\Lambda$ we explore several equilibrium properties of homogeneous rotating ellipsoids. One shows that the bifurcation point, which in the oblate case distinguishes the Maclaurin ellipsoid from the Jacobi ellipsoid, is sensitive to the cosmological constant. Adding to that, the cosmological constant allows triaxial configurations of equilibrium rotating the minor axis as solutions of the virial equations. The significance of the result lies in the fact that minor axis rotation is indeed found in nature. Being impossible for the oblate case, it is permissible for prolate geometries, with $\Lambda$ zero and positive. For the triaxial case, however, an equilibrium solution is found only for non-zero positive $\Lambda$. Finally, we solve the tensor virial equation for the angular velocity and display special effects of the cosmological constant there.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, published in Class. Quant. Grav. References adde

Equilibrium configurations of fluids and their stability in higher dimensions

We study equilibrium shapes, stability and possible bifurcation diagrams of fluids in higher dimensions, held together by either surface tension or self-gravity. We consider the equilibrium shape and stability problem of self-gravitating spheroids, establishing the formalism to generalize the MacLaurin sequence to higher dimensions. We show that such simple models, of interest on their own, also provide accurate descriptions of their general relativistic relatives with event horizons. The examples worked out here hint at some model-independent dynamics, and thus at some universality: smooth objects seem always to be well described by both ``replicas'' (either self-gravity or surface tension). As an example, we exhibit an instability afflicting self-gravitating (Newtonian) fluid cylinders. This instability is the exact analogue, within Newtonian gravity, of the Gregory-Laflamme instability in general relativity. Another example considered is a self-gravitating Newtonian torus made of a homogeneous incompressible fluid. We recover the features of the black ring in general relativity.Comment: 42 pages, 11 Figures, RevTeX4. Accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravity. v2: Minor corrections and references adde

Comparing two approaches to Hawking radiation of Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes

We study two different ways to analyze the Hawking evaporation of a Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole. The first one uses the standard approach of surface gravity evaluated at the possible horizons. The second method derives its results via the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) which offers a yet different method to look at the problem. In the case of a Schwarzschild black hole it is known that this methods affirms the existence of a black hole remnant (minimal mass $M_{\rm min}$) of the order of Planck mass $m_{\rm pl}$ and a corresponding maximal temperature $T_{\rm max}$ also of the order of $m_{\rm pl}$. The standard $T(M)$ dispersion relation is, in the GUP formulation, deformed in the vicinity of Planck length $l_{\rm pl}$ which is the smallest value the horizon can take. We generalize the uncertainty principle to Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime with the cosmological constant $\varLambda=1/m_\varLambda^2$ and find a dual relation which, compared to $M_{\rm min}$ and $T_{\rm max}$, affirms the existence of a maximal mass $M_{\rm max}$ of the order $(m_{\rm pl}/m_\varLambda)m_{\rm pl}$, minimum temperature $T_{\rm min} \sim m_\varLambda$. As compared to the standard approach we find a deformed dispersion relation $T(M)$ close to $l_{\rm pl}$ and in addition at the maximally possible horizon approximately at $r_\varLambda=1/m_\varLambda$. $T(M)$ agrees with the standard results at $l_{\rm pl} \ll r \ll r_\varLambda$ (or equivalently at $M_{\rm min} \ll M \ll M_{\rm max}$).Comment: new references adde

Dark spinor models in gravitation and cosmology

We introduce and carefully define an entire class of field theories based on non-standard spinors. Their dominant interaction is via the gravitational field which makes them naturally dark; we refer to them as Dark Spinors. We provide a critical analysis of previous proposals for dark spinors noting that they violate Lorentz invariance. As a working assumption we restrict our analysis to non-standard spinors which preserve Lorentz invariance, whilst being non-local and explicitly construct such a theory. We construct the complete energy-momentum tensor and derive its components explicitly by assuming a specific projection operator. It is natural to next consider dark spinors in a cosmological setting. We find various interesting solutions where the spinor field leads to slow roll and fast roll de Sitter solutions. We also analyse models where the spinor is coupled conformally to gravity, and consider the perturbations and stability of the spinor.Comment: 43 pages. Several new sections and details added. JHEP in prin

Euclid preparation: XII. Optimizing the photometric sample of the Euclid survey for galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing analyses

Photometric redshifts (photo-zs) are one of the main ingredients in the analysis of cosmological probes. Their accuracy particularly affects the results of the analyses of galaxy clustering with photometrically selected galaxies (GCph) and weak lensing. In the next decade, space missions such as Euclid will collect precise and accurate photometric measurements for millions of galaxies. These data should be complemented with upcoming ground-based observations to derive precise and accurate photo-zs. In this article we explore how the tomographic redshift binning and depth of ground-based observations will affect the cosmological constraints expected from the Euclid mission. We focus on GCph and extend the study to include galaxy-galaxy lensing (GGL). We add a layer of complexity to the analysis by simulating several realistic photo-z distributions based on the Euclid Consortium Flagship simulation and using a machine learning photo-z algorithm. We then use the Fisher matrix formalism together with these galaxy samples to study the cosmological constraining power as a function of redshift binning, survey depth, and photo-z accuracy. We find that bins with an equal width in redshift provide a higher figure of merit (FoM) than equipopulated bins and that increasing the number of redshift bins from ten to 13 improves the FoM by 35% and 15% for GCph and its combination with GGL, respectively. For GCph, an increase in the survey depth provides a higher FoM. However, when we include faint galaxies beyond the limit of the spectroscopic training data, the resulting FoM decreases because of the spurious photo-zs. When combining GCph and GGL, the number density of the sample, which is set by the survey depth, is the main factor driving the variations in the FoM. Adding galaxies at faint magnitudes and high redshift increases the FoM, even when they are beyond the spectroscopic limit, since the number density increase compensates for the photo-z degradation in this case. We conclude that there is more information that can be extracted beyond the nominal ten tomographic redshift bins of Euclid and that we should be cautious when adding faint galaxies into our sample since they can degrade the cosmological constraints

Euclid preparation: X. The Euclid photometric-redshift challenge

Forthcoming large photometric surveys for cosmology require precise and accurate photometric redshift (photo-z) measurements for the success of their main science objectives. However, to date, no method has been able to produce photo-zs at the required accuracy using only the broad-band photometry that those surveys will provide. An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current methods is a crucial step in the eventual development of an approach to meet this challenge. We report on the performance of 13 photometric redshift code single value redshift estimates and redshift probability distributions (PDZs) on a common set of data, focusing particularly on the 0.2−2.6 redshift range that the Euclid mission will probe. We designed a challenge using emulated Euclid data drawn from three photometric surveys of the COSMOS field. The data was divided into two samples: one calibration sample for which photometry and redshifts were provided to the participants; and the validation sample, containing only the photometry to ensure a blinded test of the methods. Participants were invited to provide a redshift single value estimate and a PDZ for each source in the validation sample, along with a rejection flag that indicates the sources they consider unfit for use in cosmological analyses. The performance of each method was assessed through a set of informative metrics, using cross-matched spectroscopic and highlyaccurate photometric redshifts as the ground truth. We show that the rejection criteria set by participants are efficient in removing strong outliers, that is to say sources for which the photo-z deviates by more than 0.15(1 + z) from the spectroscopic-redshift (spec-z). We also show that, while all methods are able to provide reliable single value estimates, several machine-learning methods do not manage to produce useful PDZs. We find that no machine-learning method provides good results in the regions of galaxy color-space that are sparsely populated by spectroscopic-redshifts, for example z > 1. However they generally perform better than template-fitting methods at low redshift (z < 0.7), indicating that template-fitting methods do not use all of the information contained in the photometry. We introduce metrics that quantify both photo-z precision and completeness of the samples (post-rejection), since both contribute to the final figure of merit of the science goals of the survey (e.g., cosmic shear from Euclid). Template-fitting methods provide the best results in these metrics, but we show that a combination of template-fitting results and machine-learning results with rejection criteria can outperform any individual method. On this basis, we argue that further work in identifying how to best select between machine-learning and template-fitting approaches for each individual galaxy should be pursued as a priority

Euclid preparation: XVI. Exploring the ultra-low surface brightness Universe with Euclid /VIS

Context. While Euclid is an ESA mission specifically designed to investigate the nature of dark energy and dark matter, the planned unprecedented combination of survey area (∼15â 000 deg2), spatial resolution, low sky-background, and depth also make Euclid an excellent space observatory for the study of the low surface brightness Universe. Scientific exploitation of the extended low surface brightness structures requires dedicated calibration procedures that are yet to be tested. Aims. We investigate the capabilities of Euclid to detect extended low surface brightness structure by identifying and quantifying sky-background sources and stray-light contamination. We test the feasibility of generating sky flat-fields to reduce large-scale residual gradients in order to reveal the extended emission of galaxies observed in the Euclid survey. Methods. We simulated a realistic set of Euclid/VIS observations, taking into account both instrumental and astronomical sources of contamination, including cosmic rays, stray-light, zodiacal light, interstellar medium, and the cosmic infrared background, while simulating the effects of background sources in the field of view. Results. We demonstrate that a combination of calibration lamps, sky flats, and self-calibration would enable recovery of emission at a limiting surface brightness magnitude of μlim = 29.5-0.27+0.08 mag arcsec-2 (3σ, 10â ×â 10 arcsec2) in the Wide Survey, and it would reach regions deeper by 2 mag in the Deep Surveys. Conclusions.Euclid/VIS has the potential to be an excellent low surface brightness observatory. Covering the gap between pixel-To-pixel calibration lamp flats and self-calibration observations for large scales, the application of sky flat-fielding will enhance the sensitivity of the VIS detector at scales larger than 1″, up to the size of the field of view, enabling Euclid to detect extended surface brightness structures below μlimâ =â 31 mag arcsec-2 and beyond

Euclid preparation: XIII. Forecasts for galaxy morphology with the Euclid Survey using deep generative models

We present a machine learning framework to simulate realistic galaxies for the Euclid Survey, producing more complex and realistic galaxies than the analytical simulations currently used in Euclid. The proposed method combines a control on galaxy shape parameters offered by analytic models with realistic surface brightness distributions learned from real Hubble Space Telescope observations by deep generative models. We simulate a galaxy field of 0.4 deg2 as it will be seen by the Euclid visible imager VIS, and we show that galaxy structural parameters are recovered to an accuracy similar to that for pure analytic Sérsic profiles. Based on these simulations, we estimate that the Euclid Wide Survey (EWS) will be able to resolve the internal morphological structure of galaxies down to a surface brightness of 22.5 mag arcsec-2, and the Euclid Deep Survey (EDS) down to 24.9 mag arcsec-2. This corresponds to approximately 250 million galaxies at the end of the mission and a 50% complete sample for stellar masses above 1010.6 M (resp. 109.6 M) at a redshift z ∼ 0.5 for the EWS (resp. EDS). The approach presented in this work can contribute to improving the preparation of future high-precision cosmological imaging surveys by allowing simulations to incorporate more realistic galaxies