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Ho, S. et al, de Putter, R., & Mena, O. (2012). Clustering of Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Photometric Luminous Galaxies: The Measurement, Systematics and Cosmological Implications. Astrophys. J., 761(1), 14–24pp.
Abstract: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) surveyed 14,555 deg(2), and delivered over a trillion pixels of imaging data. We present a study of galaxy clustering using 900,000 luminous galaxies with photometric redshifts, spanning between z = 0.45 and z = 0.65, constructed from the SDSS using methods described in Ross et al. This data set spans 11,000 deg(2) and probes a volume of 3 h(-3) Gpc(3), making it the largest volume ever used for galaxy clustering measurements. We describe in detail the construction of the survey window function and various systematics affecting our measurement. With such a large volume, high-precision cosmological constraints can be obtained given careful control and understanding of the observational systematics. We present a novel treatment of the observational systematics and its applications to the clustering signals from the data set. In this paper, we measure the angular clustering using an optimal quadratic estimator at four redshift slices with an accuracy of similar to 15%, with a bin size of delta(l) = 10 on scales of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs; at l similar to 40-400). We also apply corrections to the power spectra due to systematics and derive cosmological constraints using the full shape of the power spectra. For a flat Lambda CDM model, when combined with cosmic microwave background Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 (WMAP7) and H-0 constraints from using 600 Cepheids observed by Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3; HST), we find Omega(Lambda) = 0.73 +/- 0.019 and H-0 to be 70.5 +/- 1.6 s(-1) Mpc(-1) km. For an open Lambda CDM model, when combined with WMAP7 + HST, we find Omega(K) = 0.0035 +/- 0.0054, improved over WMAP7+HST alone by 40%. For a wCDM model, when combined with WMAP7+HST+ SN, we find w = -1.071 +/- 0.078, and H-0 to be 71.3 +/- 1.7 s(-1) Mpc(-1) km, which is competitive with the latest large-scale structure constraints from large spectroscopic surveys such as the SDSS Data Release 7 (DR7) and WiggleZ. We also find that systematic-corrected power spectra give consistent constraints on cosmological models when compared with pre-systematic correction power spectra in the angular scales of interest. The SDSS-III Data Release 8 (SDSS-III DR8) Angular Clustering Data allow a wide range of investigations into the cosmological model, cosmic expansion (via BAO), Gaussianity of initial conditions, and neutrino masses. Here, we refer to our companion papers for further investigations using the clustering data. Our calculation of the survey selection function, systematics maps, and likelihood function for the COSMOMC package will be released at http://portal.nersc.gov/project/boss/galaxy/photoz/.
Keywords: cosmological parameters; dark energy; dark matter; distance scale
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Lopez Honorez, L., Mena, O., & Panotopoulos, G. (2010). Higher-order coupled quintessence. Phys. Rev. D, 82(12), 123525–7pp.
Abstract: We study a coupled quintessence model in which the interaction with the dark-matter sector is a function of the quintessence potential. Such a coupling can arise from a field dependent mass term for the dark-matter field. The dynamical analysis of a standard quintessence potential coupled with the interaction explored here shows that the system possesses a late-time accelerated attractor. In light of these results, we perform a fit to the most recent Supernovae Ia, Cosmic Microwave Background, and Baryon Acoustic Oscillation data sets. Constraints arising from weak equivalence principle violation arguments are also discussed.
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Lopez Honorez, L., Reid, B. A., Mena, O., Verde, L., & Jimenez, R. (2010). Coupled dark matter-dark energy in light of near universe observations. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 09(9), 029–36pp.
Abstract: Cosmological analysis based on currently available observations are unable to rule out a sizeable coupling among the dark energy and dark matter fluids. We explore a variety of coupled dark matter-dark energy models, which satisfy cosmic microwave background constraints, in light of low redshift and near universe observations. We illustrate the phenomenology of different classes of dark coupling models, paying particular attention in distinguishing between effects that appear only on the expansion history and those that appear in the growth of structure. We find that while a broad class of dark coupling models are effectively models where general relativity (GR) is modified – and thus can be probed by a combination of tests for the expansion history and the growth of structure -, there is a class of dark coupling models where gravity is still GR, but the growth of perturbations is, in principle modified. While this effect is small in the specific models we have considered, one should bear in mind that an inconsistency between reconstructed expansion history and growth may not uniquely indicate deviations from GR. Our low redshift constraints arise from cosmic velocities, redshift space distortions and dark matter abundance in galaxy voids. We find that current data constrain the dimensionless coupling to be vertical bar xi vertical bar < 0.2, but prospects from forthcoming data are for a significant improvement. Future, precise measurements of the Hubble constant, combined with high-precision constraints on the growth of structure, could provide the key to rule out dark coupling models which survive other tests. We shall exploit as well weak equivalence principle violation arguments, which have the potential to highly disfavour a broad family of coupled models.
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Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., Moline, A., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Vincent, A. C. (2016). The 21 cm signal and the interplay between dark matter annihilations and astrophysical processes. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 08(8), 004–40pp.
Abstract: Future dedicated radio interferometers, including HERA and SKA, are very promising tools that aim to study the epoch of reionization and beyond via measurements of the 21 cm signal from neutral hydrogen. Dark matter (DM) annihilations into charged particles change the thermal history of the Universe and, as a consequence, affect the 21 cm signal. Accurately predicting the effect of DM strongly relies on the modeling of annihilations inside halos. In this work, we use up-to-date computations of the energy deposition rates by the products from DM annihilations, a proper treatment of the contribution from DM annihilations in halos, as well as values of the annihilation cross section allowed by the most recent cosmological measurements from the Planck satellite. Given current uncertainties on the description of the astrophysical processes driving the epochs of reionization, X-ray heating and Lyman-alpha pumping, we find that disentangling DM signatures from purely astrophysical effects, related to early-time star formation processes or late-time galaxy X-ray emissions, will be a challenging task. We conclude that only annihilations of DM particles with masses of similar to 100 MeV, could leave an unambiguous imprint on the 21 cm signal and, in particular, on the 21cm power spectrum. This is in contrast to previous, more optimistic results in the literature, which have claimed that strong signatures might also be present even for much higher DM masses. Additional measurements of the 21cm signal at different cosmic epochs will be crucial in order to break the strong parameter degeneracies between DM annihilations and astrophysical effects and undoubtedly single out a DM imprint for masses different from similar to 100 MeV.
Keywords: dark matter theory; intergalactic media; reionization
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Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Villanueva-Domingo, P. (2017). Warm dark matter and the ionization history of the Universe. Phys. Rev. D, 96(10), 103539–14pp.
Abstract: In warm dark matter scenarios structure formation is suppressed on small scales with respect to the cold dark matter case, reducing the number of low-mass halos and the fraction of ionized gas at high redshifts and thus, delaying reionization. This has an impact on the ionization history of the Universe and measurements of the optical depth to reionization, of the evolution of the global fraction of ionized gas and of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, can be used to set constraints on the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the suppression of the fraction of ionized medium in these scenarios can be partly compensated by varying other parameters, as the ionization efficiency or the minimum mass for which halos can host star-forming galaxies. Here we use different data sets regarding the ionization and thermal histories of the Universe and, taking into account the degeneracies from several astrophysical parameters, we obtain a lower bound on the mass of thermal warm dark matter candidates of m(X) > 1.3 keV, or m(s) > 5.5 keV for the case of sterile neutrinos nonresonantly produced in the early Universe, both at 90% confidence level.
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