1,480 research outputs found
Torsion, an alternative to the cosmological constant?
We confront Einstein-Cartan's theory with the Hubble diagram and obtain a
negative answer to the question in the title. Contrary findings in the
literature seem to stem from an error in the field equations.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure. Version 2 corrects a factor 3 in Cartan's
equations to become
Modelling the relative velocities of isolated pairs of galaxies
We study the comoving relative velocities, v12, of model isolated galaxy
pairs at z=0.5. For this purpose, we use the predictions from the GALFORM
semi-analytical model of galaxy formation and evolution based on a Lambda cold
dark matter cosmology consistent with the results from WMAP7. In real space, we
find that isolated pairs of galaxies are predicted to form an angle t with the
line-of-sight that is uniformily distributed as expected if the Universe is
homogeneous and isotropic. We also find that isolated pairs of galaxies
separated by a comoving distance between 1 and 3 Mpc/h are predicted to have
=0. For galaxies in this regime, the distribution of the angle t is
predicted to change minimally from real to redshift space, with a change
smaller than 5% in . However, the distances defining the comoving
regime strongly depends on the applied isolation criteria.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, SF2A 2013 Proceedin
Prospects for Dark Energy Evolution: a Frequentist Multi-Probe Approach
A major quest in cosmology is the understanding of the nature of dark energy.
It is now well known that a combination of cosmological probes is required to
break the underlying degeneracies on cosmological parameters. In this paper, we
present a method, based on a frequentist approach, to combine probes without
any prior constraints, taking full account of the correlations in the
parameters. As an application, a combination of current SNIa and CMB data with
an evolving dark energy component is first compared to other analyses. We
emphasise the consequences of the implementation of the dark energy
perturbations on the result for a time varying equation of state. The impact of
future weak lensing surveys on the measurement of dark energy evolution is then
studied in combination with future measurements of the cosmic microwave
background and type Ia supernovae. We present the combined results for future
mid-term and long-term surveys and confirm that the combination with weak
lensing is very powerful in breaking parameter degeneracies. A second
generation of experiment is however required to achieve a 0.1 error on the
parameters describing the evolution of dark energy.Comment: Submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics 14 pages, 8 figure
On a weak Gauss law in general relativity and torsion
We present an explicit example showing that the weak Gauss law of general
relativity (with cosmological constant) fails in Einstein-Cartan's theory. We
take this as an indication that torsion might replace dark matter.Comment: 10 pages. Version 2 corrects a factor 3 in Cartan's equations to
become
On the determination of the deceleration parameter from Supernovae data
Supernovae searches have shown that a simple matter-dominated and
decelerating universe should be ruled out. However a determination of the
present deceleration parameter through a simple kinematical description
is not exempt of possible drawbacks. We show that, with a time dependent
equation of state for the dark energy, a bias is present for : models
which are very far from the so-called Concordance Model can be accommodated by
the data and a simple kinematical analysis can lead to wrong conclusions. We
present a quantitative treatment of this bias and we present our conclusions
when a possible dynamical dark energy is taken into account.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitte
Jackknife resampling technique on mocks: an alternative method for covariance matrix estimation
We present a fast and robust alternative method to compute covariance matrix
in case of cosmology studies. Our method is based on the jackknife resampling
applied on simulation mock catalogues. Using a set of 600 BOSS DR11 mock
catalogues as a reference, we find that the jackknife technique gives a similar
galaxy clustering covariance matrix estimate by requiring a smaller number of
mocks. A comparison of convergence rates show that 7 times fewer
simulations are needed to get a similar accuracy on variance. We expect this
technique to be applied in any analysis where the number of available N-body
simulations is low.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, 2 table
Torsion, an alternative to dark matter?
We confront Einstein-Cartan's theory with the Hubble diagram. An affirmative
answer to the question in the title is compatible with today's supernovae data.Comment: 14 pp, 3 figures. Version 2 matches the version published in Gen.
Rel. Grav., references added. Version 3 corrects a factor 3 in Cartan's
equations to become
Cosmological parameter extraction and biases from type Ia supernova magnitude evolution
We study different one-parametric models of type Ia Supernova magnitude
evolution on cosmic time scales. Constraints on cosmological and Supernova
evolution parameters are obtained by combined fits on the actual data coming
from Supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, and baryonic acoustic
oscillations. We find that data prefer a magnitude evolution such that
high-redshift Supernova are brighter than would be expected in a standard
cosmos with a dark energy component. Data however are consistent with
non-evolving magnitudes at the one-sigma level, except special cases.
We simulate a future data scenario where SN magnitude evolution is allowed
for, and neglect the possibility of such an evolution in the fit. We find the
fiducial models for which the wrong model assumption of non-evolving SN
magnitude is not detectable, and for which at the same time biases on the
fitted cosmological parameters are introduced. Of the cosmological parameters
the overall mass density has the strongest chances to be biased due to the
wrong model assumption. Whereas early-epoch models with a magnitude offset ~z^2
show up to be not too dangerous when neglected in the fitting procedure, late
epoch models with magnitude offset ~sqrt(z) have high chances to bias the fit
results.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication by A&A.
Revised version: Corrected Typos, reference added to section
Probing Dark Energy with Supernovae : a concordant or a convergent model?
We present a revised interpretation of recent analysis of supernovae data. We
evaluate the effect of the priors on the extraction of the dark energy equation
of state. We find that the conclusions depend strongly on the prior
value and on its uncertainty, and show that a biased fitting procedure applied
on non concordant simulated data can converge to the "concordance model".
Relaxing the prior on points to other sets of solutions, which are
not excluded by observational data.Comment: 1+4 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Re
Probing Dark Energy with Supernovae : Bias from the time evolution of the equation of state
Observation of thousands of type Ia supernovae should offer the most direct
approach to probe the dark energy content of the universe. This will be
undertaken by future large ground-based surveys followed by a space mission
(SNAP/JDEM). We address the problem of extracting the cosmological parameters
from the future data in a model independent approach, with minimal assumptions
on the prior knowledge of some parameters. We concentrate on the comparison
between a fiducial model and the fitting function and adress in particular the
effect of neglecting (or not) the time evolution of the equation of state. We
present a quantitative analysis of the bias which can be introduced by the
fitting procedure. Such bias cannot be ignored as soon as the statistical
errors from present data are drastically improved.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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