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de Putter, R., Wagner, C., Mena, O., Verde, L., & Percival, W. J. (2012). Thinking outside the box: effects of modes larger than the survey on matter power spectrum covariance. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 019–31pp.
Abstract: Accurate power spectrum (or correlation function) covariance matrices are a crucial requirement for cosmological parameter estimation from large scale structure surveys. In order to minimize reliance on computationally expensive mock catalogs, it is important to have a solid analytic understanding of the different components that make up a covariance matrix. Considering the matter power spectrum covariance matrix, it has recently been found that there is a potentially dominant effect on mildly non-linear scales due to power in modes of size equal to and larger than the survey volume. This beat coupling effect has been derived analytically in perturbation theory and while it has been tested with simulations, some questions remain unanswered. Moreover, there is an additional effect of these large modes, which has so far not been included in analytic studies, namely the effect on the estimated average density which enters the power spectrum estimate. In this article, we work out analytic, perturbation theory based expressions including both the beat coupling and this local average effect and we show that while, when isolated, beat coupling indeed causes large excess covariance in agreement with the literature, in a realistic scenario this is compensated almost entirely by the local average effect, leaving only similar to 10% of the excess. We test our analytic expressions by comparison to a suite of large N-body simulations, using both full simulation boxes and subboxes thereof to study cases without beat coupling, with beat coupling and with both beat coupling and the local average effect. For the variances, we find excellent agreement with the analytic expressions for k < 0.2 hMpc(-1) at z = 0.5, while the correlation coefficients agree to beyond k = 0.4 hMpc(-1). As expected, the range of agreement increases towards higher redshift and decreases slightly towards z = 0. We finish by including the large-mode effects in a full covariance matrix description for arbitrary survey geometry and confirming its validity using simulations. This may be useful as a stepping stone towards building an actual galaxy (or other tracer's) power spectrum covariance matrix.
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Doncel, M., Cederwall, B., Gadea, A., Gerl, J., Kojouharov, I., Martin, S., et al. (2017). Performance and imaging capabilities of the DEGAS high-resolution gamma-ray detector array for the DESPEC experiment at FAIR. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 873, 36–38.
Abstract: Monte Carlo simulations of one of the possible configurations of the imaging phase for the DEGAS spectrometer situated at the DESPEC/NUSTAR experiment have been performed. The geometry consists of the coupling of the high-resolution gamma spectroscopy array, AGATA, with a high-resolution segmented planar detector utilized as an implantation detector in a compact configuration. The sensitivity and performance of the array in terms of efficiency and imaging capability is deduced.
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Fornengo, N., Lineros, R. A., Regis, M., & Taoso, M. (2012). Cosmological radio emission induced by WIMP Dark Matter. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 033–27pp.
Abstract: We present a detailed analysis of the radio synchrotron emission induced by WIMP dark matter annihilations and decays in extragalactic halos. We compute intensity, angular correlation, and source counts and discuss the impact on the expected signals of dark matter clustering, as well as of other astrophysical uncertainties as magnetic fields and spatial diffusion. Bounds on dark matter microscopic properties are then derived, and, depending on the specific set of assumptions, they are competitive with constraints from other indirect dark matter searches. At GHz frequencies, dark matter sources can become a significant fraction of the total number of sources with brightness below the microJansky level. We show that, at this level of fluxes (which are within the reach of the next-generation radio surveys), properties of the faint edge of differential source counts, as well as angular correlation data, can become an important probe for WIMPs.
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Garcia, A. R., Martinez, T., Cano-Ott, D., Castilla, J., Guerrero, C., Marin, J., et al. (2012). MONSTER: a time of flight spectrometer for beta-delayed neutron emission measurements. J. Instrum., 7, C05012–12pp.
Abstract: The knowledge of the beta-decay properties of nuclei contributes decisively to our understanding of nuclear phenomena: the beta-delayed neutron emission of neutron rich nuclei plays an important role in the nucleosynthesis r-process and constitutes a probe for nuclear structure of very neutron rich nuclei providing information about the high energy part of the full beta strength (S-beta) function. In addition, beta-delayed neutrons are essential for the control and safety of nuclear reactors. In order to determine the neutron energy spectra and emission probabilities from neutron precursors a MOdular Neutron time-of-flight SpectromeTER (MONSTER) has been proposed for the DESPEC experiment at the future FAIR facility. The design of MONSTER and status of its construction are reported in this work.
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Gariazzo, S., Mena, O., Ramirez, H., & Boubekeur, L. (2017). Primordial power spectrum features in phenomenological descriptions of inflation. Phys. Dark Universe, 17, 38–45.
Abstract: We extend an alternative, phenomenological approach to inflation by means of an equation of state and a sound speed, both of them functions of the number of e-folds and four phenomenological parameters. This approach captures a number of possible inflationary models, including those with non-canonical kinetic terms or scale-dependent non-gaussianities. We perform Markov Chain Monte Carlo analyses using the latest cosmological publicly available measurements, which include Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data from the Planck satellite. Within this parameterization, we discard scale invariance with a significance of about 10 sigma, and the running of the spectral index is constrained as alpha(s) = -0.60(-0.10)(+0.08) x 10(-3) (68% CL errors). The limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio is r < 0.005 at 95% CL from CMB data alone. We find no significant evidence for this alternative parameterization with present cosmological observations. The maximum amplitude of the equilateral non-gaussianity that we obtain, vertical bar f(NL)(equil)vertical bar < 1, is much smaller than the current Planck mission errors, strengthening the case for future high-redshift, all-sky surveys, which could reach the required accuracy on equilateral non-gaussianities.
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