Abstract
We report the methods of and initial scientific inferences from the extraction of precision photometric information for the >800 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) discovered in the images of ...the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Scene-modeling photometry is used to obtain shot-noise-limited flux measures for each exposure of each TNO, with background sources subtracted. Comparison of double-source fits to the pixel data with single-source fits are used to identify and characterize two binary TNO systems. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo method samples the joint likelihood of the intrinsic colors of each source as well as the amplitude of its flux variation, given the time series of multiband flux measurements and their uncertainties. A catalog of these colors and light-curve amplitudes
A
is included with this publication. We show how to assign a likelihood to the distribution
q
(
A
) of light-curve amplitudes in any subpopulation. Using this method, we find decisive evidence (i.e., evidence ratio <0.01) that cold classical (CC) TNOs with absolute magnitude 6 <
H
r
< 8.2 are more variable than the hot classical (HC) population of the same
H
r
, reinforcing theories that the former form in situ and the latter arise from a different physical population. Resonant and scattering TNOs in this
H
r
range have variability consistent with either the HCs or CCs. DES TNOs with
H
r
< 6 are seen to be decisively less variable than higher-
H
r
members of any dynamical group, as expected. More surprising is that detached TNOs are decisively less variable than scattering TNOs, which requires them to have distinct source regions or some subsequent differential processing.
Two of the most sensitive probes of the large scale structure of the universe are the clustering of galaxies and the tangential shear of background galaxy shapes produced by those foreground ...galaxies, so-called galaxy-galaxy lensing. Combining the measurements of these two two-point functions leads to cosmological constraints that are independent of the galaxy bias factor. The optimal choice of foreground, or lens, galaxies is governed by the joint, but conflicting requirements to obtain accurate redshift information and large statistics. We present cosmological results from the full 5000 sq. deg2 of the Dark Energy Survey first three years of observations (Y3) combining those two-point functions, using for the first time a magnitude-limited lens sample (MagLim) of 11 million galaxies especially selected to optimize such combination, and 100 million background shapes. We consider two cosmological models, flat ΛCDM and wCDM. In ΛCDM we obtain for the matter density Ωm = 0.320$^{+0.041}_{–0.034}$ and for the clustering amplitude S8 = σ8(Ωm/0.3)0.5 = 0.778$^{+0.037}_{–0.031}$, at 68% C.L. The latter is only 1σ smaller than the prediction in this model informed by measurements of the cosmic microwave background by the Planck satellite. In wCDM we find Ωm = 0.32$^{+0.044}_{–0.046}$, S8 = 0.777$^{+0.049}_{–0.051}$, and dark energy equation of state w = –1.031$^{+0.218}_{–0.379}$. We find that including smaller scales while marginalizing over non-linear galaxy bias improves the constraining power in the Ωm – S8 plane by 31% and in the Ωm – w plane by 41% while yielding consistent cosmological parameters from those in the linear bias case. Furthermore, these results are combined with those from cosmic shear in a companion paper to present full DES-Y3 constraints from the three two-point functions (3 x 2pt).
We perform a joint analysis of the counts and weak lensing signal of redMaPPer clusters selected from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 dataset. Our analysis uses the same shear and source ...photometric redshifts estimates as were used in the DES combined probes analysis. Our analysis results in surprisingly low values for S8 = σ8 (Ωm/0.3)0.5 = 0.65 ± 0.04, driven by a low matter density parameter, Ωm = 0.179+0.031−0.038, with σ8 − Ωm posteriors in 2.4σ tension with the DES Y1 3x2pt results, and in 5.6σ with the Planck CMB analysis. These results include the impact of post-unblinding changes to the analysis, which did not improve the level of consistency with other data sets compared to the results obtained at the unblinding. The fact that multiple cosmological probes (supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, cosmic shear, galaxy clustering and CMB anisotropies), and other galaxy cluster analyses all favor significantly higher matter densities suggests the presence of systematic errors in the data or an incomplete modeling of the relevant physics. Cross checks with x-ray and microwave data, as well as independent constraints on the observable-mass relation from Sunyaev-Zeldovich selected clusters, suggest that the discrepancy resides in our modeling of the weak lensing signal rather than the cluster abundance. Repeating our analysis using a higher richness threshold (λ ≥ 30) significantly reduces the tension with other probes, and points to one or more richness-dependent effects not captured by our model.
ABSTRACT
We study the optical gri photometric variability of a sample of 190 quasars within the SDSS Stripe 82 region that have long-term photometric coverage during ∼1998−2020 with SDSS, ...PanSTARRS-1, the Dark Energy Survey, and dedicated follow-up monitoring with Blanco 4m/DECam. With on average ∼200 nightly epochs per quasar per filter band, we improve the parameter constraints from a Damped Random Walk (DRW) model fit to the light curves over previous studies with 10–15 yr baselines and ≲ 100 epochs. We find that the average damping time-scale τDRW continues to rise with increased baseline, reaching a median value of ∼750 d (g band) in the rest frame of these quasars using the 20-yr light curves. Some quasars may have gradual, long-term trends in their light curves, suggesting that either the DRW fit requires very long baselines to converge, or that the underlying variability is more complex than a single DRW process for these quasars. Using a subset of quasars with better-constrained τDRW (less than 20 per cent of the baseline), we confirm a weak wavelength dependence of τDRW∝λ0.51 ± 0.20. We further quantify optical variability of these quasars over days to decades time-scales using structure function (SF) and power spectrum density (PSD) analyses. The SF and PSD measurements qualitatively confirm the measured (hundreds of days) damping time-scales from the DRW fits. However, the ensemble PSD is steeper than that of a DRW on time-scales less than ∼ a month for these luminous quasars, and this second break point correlates with the longer DRW damping time-scale.
We present and characterize the galaxy-galaxy lensing signal measured using the first three years of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES Y3) covering 4132 deg2. These galaxy-galaxy measurements ...are used in the DES Y3 3×2 pt cosmological analysis, which combines weak lensing and galaxy clustering information. We use two lens samples: a magnitude-limited sample and the redmagic sample, which span the redshift range ∼0.2–1 with 10.7 and 2.6 M galaxies, respectively. For the source catalog, we use the metacalibration shape sample, consisting of ≃100 M galaxies separated into four tomographic bins. Our galaxy-galaxy lensing estimator is the mean tangential shear, for which we obtain a total SNR of ∼148 for maglim (∼120 for redmagic), and ∼67 (∼55) after applying the scale cuts of 6 Mpc/h. Thus we reach percent-level statistical precision, which requires that our modeling and systematic-error control be of comparable accuracy. The tangential shear model used in the 3×2 pt cosmological analysis includes lens magnification, a five-parameter intrinsic alignment model, marginalization over a point mass to remove information from small scales and a linear galaxy bias model validated with higher-order terms. We explore the impact of these choices on the tangential shear observable and study the significance of effects not included in our model, such as reduced shear, source magnification, and source clustering. We also test the robustness of our measurements to various observational and systematics effects, such as the impact of observing conditions, lens-source clustering, random-point subtraction, scale-dependent metacalibration responses, point spread function residuals, and B modes.
Abstract
We use a recent census of the Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxy population to constrain the lifetime of particle dark matter (DM). We consider two-body decaying dark matter (DDM) in which a ...heavy DM particle decays with lifetime
τ
comparable to the age of the universe to a lighter DM particle (with mass splitting
ϵ
) and to a dark radiation species. These decays impart a characteristic “kick velocity,”
V
kick
=
ϵ
c
, on the DM daughter particles, significantly depleting the DM content of low-mass subhalos and making them more susceptible to tidal disruption. We fit the suppression of the present-day DDM subhalo mass function (SHMF) as a function of
τ
and
V
kick
using a suite of high-resolution zoom-in simulations of MW-mass halos, and we validate this model on new DDM simulations of systems specifically chosen to resemble the MW. We implement our DDM SHMF predictions in a forward model that incorporates inhomogeneities in the spatial distribution and detectability of MW satellites and uncertainties in the mapping between galaxies and DM halos, the properties of the MW system, and the disruption of subhalos by the MW disk using an empirical model for the galaxy–halo connection. By comparing to the observed MW satellite population, we conservatively exclude DDM models with
τ
< 18 Gyr (29 Gyr) for
V
kick
= 20 kms
−1
(40 kms
−1
) at 95% confidence. These constraints are among the most stringent and robust small-scale structure limits on the DM particle lifetime and strongly disfavor DDM models that have been proposed to alleviate the Hubble and
S
8
tensions.
We study a phenomenological class of models where dark matter converts to dark radiation in the low redshift epoch. This class of models, dubbed DMDR, characterizes the evolution of comoving ...dark-matter density with two extra parameters, and may be able to help alleviate the observed discrepancies between early and late-time probes of the Universe. We investigate how the conversion affects key cosmological observables such as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and matter power spectra. Combining 3x2pt data from Year 1 of the Dark Energy Survey, Planck-2018 CMB temperature and polarization data, supernovae (SN) Type Ia data from Pantheon, and baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data from BOSS DR12, MGS and 6dFGS, we place new constraints on the amount of dark matter that has converted to dark radiation and the rate of this conversion. The fraction of the dark matter that has converted since the beginning of the Universe in units of the current amount of dark matter, ζ, is constrained at 68% confidence level to be <0.32 for DES-Y1 3x2pt data, <0.030 for CMB+SN+BAO data, and <0.037 for the combined dataset. The probability that the DES and CMB+SN+BAO datasets are concordant increases from 4% for the ΛCDM model to 8% (less tension) for DMDR. The tension in S8=σ8√Ωm/0.3 between DES-Y1 3x2pt and CMB+SN+BAO is slightly reduced from 2.3σ to 1.9σ. We find no reduction in the Hubble tension when the combined data is compared to distance-ladder measurements in the DMDR model. The maximum-posterior goodness-of-fit statistics of DMDR and ΛCDM model are comparable, indicating no preference for the DMDR cosmology over ΛCDM.
Hot, ionized gas leaves an imprint on the cosmic microwave background via the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (tSZ) effect. The cross-correlation of gravitational lensing (which traces the projected mass) ...with the tSZ effect (which traces the projected gas pressure) is a powerful probe of the thermal state of ionized baryons throughout the Universe and is sensitive to effects such as baryonic feedback. In a companion paper (Gatti et al. Phys. Rev. D 105, 123525 (2022)), we present tomographic measurements and validation tests of the cross-correlation between Galaxy shear measurements from the first three years of observations of the Dark Energy Survey and tSZ measurements from a combination of Atacama Cosmology Telescope and Planck observations. In this work, we use the same measurements to constrain models for the pressure profiles of halos across a wide range of halo mass and redshift. We find evidence for reduced pressure in low-mass halos, consistent with predictions for the effects of feedback from active Galactic nuclei. We infer the hydrostatic mass bias (B≡M500c/MSZ) from our measurements, finding B=1.8±0.1 when adopting the Planck-preferred cosmological parameters. We additionally find that our measurements are consistent with a nonzero redshift evolution of B, with the correct sign and sufficient magnitude to explain the mass bias necessary to reconcile cluster count measurements with the Planck-preferred cosmology. Our analysis introduces a model for the impact of intrinsic alignments (IAs) of galaxy shapes on the shear-tSZ correlation. We show that IA can have a significant impact on these correlations at current noise levels.
This work and its companion paper, Amon et al. Phys. Rev. D 105, 023514 (2022), present cosmic shear measurements and cosmological constraints from over 100 million source galaxies in the Dark Energy ...Survey (DES) Year 3 data. We constrain the lensing amplitude parameter S8≡σ8 Ω m / 0.3 at the 3% level in Λ CDM : S8=0.759-0.023+0.025 (68% CL). Our constraint is at the 2% level when using angular scale cuts that are optimized for the Λ CDM analysis: S8=0.772-0.017+0.018 (68% CL). With cosmic shear alone, we find no statistically significant constraint on the dark energy equation-of-state parameter at our present statistical power. We carry out our analysis blind, and compare our measurement with constraints from two other contemporary weak lensing experiments: the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) and Hyper-Suprime Camera Subaru Strategic Program (HSC). We additionally quantify the agreement between our data and external constraints from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Our DES Y3 result under the assumption of Λ CDM is found to be in statistical agreement with Planck 2018, although favors a lower S8 than the CMB-inferred value by 2.3σ (a p -value of 0.02). This paper explores the robustness of these cosmic shear results to modeling of intrinsic alignments, the matter power spectrum and baryonic physics. We additionally explore the statistical preference of our data for intrinsic alignment models of different complexity. The fiducial cosmic shear model is tested using synthetic data, and we report no biases greater than 0.3σ in the plane of S8× Ω m caused by uncertainties in the theoretical models.
ABSTRACT
We use imaging from the first three years of the Dark Energy Survey to characterize the dynamical state of 288 galaxy clusters at 0.1 ≲ z ≲ 0.9 detected in the South Pole Telescope (SPT) ...Sunyaev–Zeldovich (SZ) effect survey (SPT-SZ). We examine spatial offsets between the position of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) and the centre of the gas distribution as traced by the SPT-SZ centroid and by the X-ray centroid/peak position from Chandra and XMM data. We show that the radial distribution of offsets provides no evidence that SPT SZ-selected cluster samples include a higher fraction of mergers than X-ray-selected cluster samples. We use the offsets to classify the dynamical state of the clusters, selecting the 43 most disturbed clusters, with half of those at z ≳ 0.5, a region seldom explored previously. We find that Schechter function fits to the galaxy population in disturbed clusters and relaxed clusters differ at z > 0.55 but not at lower redshifts. Disturbed clusters at z > 0.55 have steeper faint-end slopes and brighter characteristic magnitudes. Within the same redshift range, we find that the BCGs in relaxed clusters tend to be brighter than the BCGs in disturbed samples, while in agreement in the lower redshift bin. Possible explanations includes a higher merger rate, and a more efficient dynamical friction at high redshift. The red-sequence population is less affected by the cluster dynamical state than the general galaxy population.
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