118682213
Locating the baryon acoustic peak
Forthcoming photometric redshift surveys should provide an accurate probe of the acoustic peak in the two-point galaxy correlation function, in the form of angular clustering of galaxies within a given shell in redshift space. We investigate the form of the anticipated signal, quantifying the distortions that arise due to projection effects, and, in particular, explore the validity of applying the Limber approximation. A single-integral prescription is presented, which provides an alternative to Limber's equation, and produces a significantly improved prediction in the regime of interest. The position of the acoustic peak within the angular correlation function relates to the angular diameter distance to the far side of the redshift bin. Thicker redshift bins therefore shift comoving features toward smaller angular scales. As a result, the value of the photometric redshift error acquires a greater significance, particularly at lower redshifts. In order to recover the dark energy equation of state to a level of 1 %, we find the total redshift dispersion must be determined to within Δ σz ≤ 10 -3 , which may prove challenging to achieve in practice.
53611492
Spatial matter density mapping of the STAGES Abell A901/2 supercluster field with 3D lensing
We present weak lensing data from the Hubble Space Telescope(HST)/Space Telescope A901/902 Galaxy Evolution Survey (STAGES) survey1 to study the three-dimensional spatial distribution of matter and galaxies in the Abell 901/902 supercluster complex. Our method improves over the existing 3D lensing mapping techniques by calibrating and removing redshift bias and accounting for the effects of the radial elongation of 3D structures. We also include the first detailed noise analysis of a 3D lensing map, showing that even with deep HST-quality data, only the most massive structures, for example M200≳ 1015 M⊙ h−1 at z∼ 0.8, can be resolved in 3D with any reasonable redshift accuracy (Δz≈ 0.15). We compare the lensing map to the stellar mass distribution and find luminous counterparts for all mass peaks detected with a peak significance >3σ. We see structures in and behind the z= 0.165 foreground supercluster, finding structure directly behind the A901b cluster at z∼ 0.6 and also behind the south-west (SW) group at z∼ 0.7. This 3D structure viewed in projection has no significant impact on recent mass estimates of A901b or the SW group components SWa and SWb
119192089
Cosmic shear tomography and efficient data compression using COSEBIs
Context. Gravitational lensing is one of the leading tools in understanding the dark side of the Universe. The need for accurate, efficient and effective methods, which are able to extract this information along with other cosmological parameters from cosmic shear data is ever growing. Complete Orthogonal Sets of E-/B-Integrals (COSEBIs) is a recently developed statistical measure that encompasses the complete E-/B-mode separable information contained in the shear correlation functions measured on a finite angular range. Aims. The aim of the present work is to test the properties of this newly developed statistics for a higher-dimensional parameter space and to generalize and test it for shear tomography. Methods. We use Fisher analysis to study the effectiveness of COSEBIs. We show our results in terms of figure-of-merit quantities, based on Fisher matrices. Results. We find that a relatively small number of COSEBIs modes is always enough to saturate to the maximum information level. This number is always smaller for “logarithmic COSEBIs” than for “linear COSEBIs”, and also depends on the number of redshift bins, the number and choice of cosmological parameters, as well as the survey characteristics. Conclusions. COSEBIs provide a very compact way of analyzing cosmic shear data, i.e., all the E-/B-mode separable second-order statistical information in the data is reduced to a small number of COSEBIs modes. Furthermore, with this method the arbitrariness in data binning is no longer an issue since the COSEBIs modes are discrete. Finally, the small number of modes also implies that covariances, and their inverse, are much more conveniently obtainable, e.g., from numerical simulations, than for the shear correlation functions themselves.
1663219
CARS: the CFHTLS-Archive-Research Survey II. Weighing dark matter halos of Lyman-break galaxies at z = 3-5
Aims. We measure the clustering properties for a large samples of u- (z ~ 3), g- (z ~ 4), and r- (z ~ 5) dropouts from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS) Deep fields. 
 
Methods. Photometric redshift distributions along with simulations allow us to de-project the angular correlation measurements and estimate physical quantities such as the correlation length, halo mass, galaxy bias, and halo occupation as a function of UV luminosity. 
 
Results. For the first time we detect a significant one-halo term in the correlation function at z ~ 5 . The comoving correlation lengths and halo masses of LBGs are found to decrease with decreasing rest-frame UV-luminosity. No significant redshift evolution is found in either quantity. The typical halo mass hosting an LBG is M ≳ 10^(12)h^(-1) M⊙ and the halos are typically occupied by less than one galaxy. Clustering segregation with UV luminosity is clearly observed in the dropout samples, however redshift evolution cannot clearly be disentangled from systematic uncertainties introduced by the redshift distributions. We study a range of possible redshift distributions to illustrate the effect of this choice. Spectroscopy of representative subsamples is required to make high-accuracy absolute measurements of high-z halo masses.
8253626
The non-Gaussianity of the cosmic shear likelihood or How odd is the Chandra Deep Field South?
Aims. We study the validity of the approximation of a Gaussian cosmic shear likelihood. We estimate the true likelihood for a fiducial cosmological model from a large set of ray-tracing simulations and investigate the impact of non-Gaussianity on cosmological parameter estimation. We investigate how odd the recently reported very low value of σ8 really is as derived from the Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS) using cosmic shear by taking the non-Gaussianity of the likelihood into account, as well as the possibility of biases coming from the way the CDFS was selected. Methods. A brute force approach to estimating the likelihood from simulations must fail because of the high dimensionality of the problem. We therefore use independent component analysis to transform the cosmic shear correlation functions to a new basis, in which the likelihood approximately factorises into a product of one-dimensional distributions. Results. We find that the cosmic shear likelihood is significantly non-Gaussian. This leads to both a shift of the maximum of the posterior distribution and a significantly smaller credible region compared to the Gaussian case. We re-analyse the CDFS cosmic shear data using the non-Gaussian likelihood in combination with conservative galaxy selection criteria that minimise calibration uncertainties. Assuming that the CDFS is a random pointing, we find σ8 = 0.68 +0.09 −0.16 for fixed Ωm = 0.25. In a WMAP5-like cosmology, a value equal to or lower than this would be expected in ≈5% of the times. Taking biases into account arising from the way the CDFS was selected, which we model as being dependent on the number of haloes in the CDFS, we obtain σ8 = 0.71 +0.10 −0.15 . Combining the CDFS data with the parameter constraints from WMAP5 yields Ωm = 0.26 +0.03 −0.02 and σ8 = 0.79 +0.04 −0.03 for a flat universe.
13518930
Why your model parameter confidences might be too optimistic. Unbiased estimation of the inverse covariance matrix
Aims. The maximum-likelihood method is the standard approach to obtain model fits to observational data and the corresponding confidence regions. We investigate possible sources of bias in the log-likelihood function and its subsequent analysis, focusing on estimators of the inverse covariance matrix. Furthermore, we study under which circumstances the estimated covariance matrix is invertible. Methods. We perform Monte-Carlo simulations to investigate the behaviour of estimators for the inverse covariance matrix, depending on the number of independent data sets and the number of variables of the data vectors. Results. We find that the inverse of the maximum-likelihood estimator of the covariance is biased, the amount of bias depending on the ratio of the number of bins (data vector variables), p , to the number of data sets, n . This bias inevitably leads to an – in extreme cases catastrophic – underestimation of the size of confidence regions. We report on a method to remove this bias for the idealised case of Gaussian noise and statistically independent data vectors. Moreover, we demonstrate that marginalisation over parameters introduces a bias into the marginalised log-likelihood function. Measures of the sizes of confidence regions suffer from the same problem. Furthermore, we give an analytic proof for the fact that the estimated covariance matrix is singular if $p>n$.
14198652
Bosonic-type S -matrix, vacuum instability and CDD ambiguities
Abstract We consider the simplest bosonic-type S -matrix which is usually regarded as unphysical due to the complex values of the finite volume ground state energy. While a standard quantum field theory interpretation of such a scattering theory is precluded, we argue that the physical situation described by this S -matrix is of a massive Ising model perturbed by a particular set of irrelevant operators. The presence of these operators drastically affects the stability of the original vacuum of the massive Ising model and its ultraviolet properties.
117969814
Mutation of Andreev into Majorana bound states in long superconductor-normal and superconductor-normal-superconductor junctions
We study one-dimensional topological SN and SNS long junctions obtained by placing a topological insulating nanowire in the proximity of either one or two SC finite-size leads. Using the Majorana Polarization order parameter (MP) introduced in Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 096802 (2012)(arxiv:1109.5697) we find that the extended Andreev bound states (ABS) of the normal part of the wire acquire a finite MP: for a finite-size SN junction the ABS spectrum exhibits a zero-energy extended state which carries a full Majorana fermion, while the ABS of long SNS junctions with phase difference $\pi$ transform into two zero-energy states carrying two Majorana fermions with the same MP. Given their extended character inside the whole normal link, and not only close to an interface, these Majorana-Andreev states can be directly detected in tunneling spectroscopy experiments.
119273967
Josephson effect in superconducting wires supporting multiple Majorana edge states
We study superconducting-normal-superconducting (SNS) Josephson junctions in one-dimensional topological superconductors which support more than one Majorana end mode. The variation of the energy spectrum with the superconducting phase is investigated by combining numerical diagonalizations of tight-binding models describing the SNS junction together with an analysis of appropriate low-energy effective Hamiltonians. We show that the four pi-periodicity characteristic of the fractional dc Josephson effect is preserved. Additionally, the ideal conductance of a NS junction with a topological supraconductor, hosting two Majorana modes at its ends, is doubled compared to the single Majorana case. Last, we illustrate how a nonzero superconducting phase gradient can potentially destroy the phases supporting multiple Majorana end states.
16157496
Universal amplitude ratios of the renormalization group: two-dimensional tricritical Ising model.
The scaling form of the free energy near a critical point allows for the definition of various thermodynamical amplitudes and the determination of their dependence on the microscopic nonuniversal scales. Universal quantities can be obtained by considering special combinations of the amplitudes. Together with the critical exponents they characterize the universality classes and may be useful quantities for their experimental identification. We compute the universal amplitude ratios for the tricritical Ising model in two dimensions by using several theoretical methods from perturbed conformal field theory and scattering integrable quantum field theory. The theoretical approaches are further supported and integrated by results coming from a numerical determination of the energy eigenvalues and eigenvectors of off-critical systems in an infinite cylinder.
124148859
2-D fractional supersymmetry: From rational to irrational conformal field theory