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1. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: A Measurement of the DR6 CMB Lensing Power Spectrum and Its Implications for Structure Growth

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/acfe06  

   Qu, Frank J; Sherwin, Blake D; Madhavacheril, Mathew S; Han, Dongwon; Crowley, Kevin T; Abril-Cabezas, Irene; Ade, Peter_A R; Aiola, Simone; Alford, Tommy; Amiri, Mandana; et al (February 2024, The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract We present new measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing over 9400 deg²of the sky. These lensing measurements are derived from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) CMB data set, which consists of five seasons of ACT CMB temperature and polarization observations. We determine the amplitude of the CMB lensing power spectrum at 2.3% precision (43σsignificance) using a novel pipeline that minimizes sensitivity to foregrounds and to noise properties. To ensure that our results are robust, we analyze an extensive set of null tests, consistency tests, and systematic error estimates and employ a blinded analysis framework. Our CMB lensing power spectrum measurement provides constraints on the amplitude of cosmic structure that do not depend on Planck or galaxy survey data, thus giving independent information about large-scale structure growth and potential tensions in structure measurements. The baseline spectrum is well fit by a lensing amplitude ofA_lens= 1.013 ± 0.023 relative to the Planck 2018 CMB power spectra best-fit ΛCDM model andA_lens= 1.005 ± 0.023 relative to the ACT DR4 + WMAP best-fit model. From our lensing power spectrum measurement, we derive constraints on the parameter combination $S_8^{\mathrm{CMBL}}\equiv {\sigma }_8{\left({\mathrm{\Omega }}_m/0.3\right)}^{0.25}$ of $S_8^{\mathrm{CMBL}}=0.818\pm 0.022$ from ACT DR6 CMB lensing alone and $S_8^{\mathrm{CMBL}}=0.813\pm 0.018$ when combining ACT DR6 and PlanckNPIPECMB lensing power spectra. These results are in excellent agreement with ΛCDM model constraints from Planck or ACT DR4 + WMAP CMB power spectrum measurements. Our lensing measurements from redshiftsz∼ 0.5–5 are thus fully consistent with ΛCDM structure growth predictions based on CMB anisotropies probing primarilyz∼ 1100. We find no evidence for a suppression of the amplitude of cosmic structure at low redshifts. 

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2. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 power spectra, likelihoods and ΛCDM parameters

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/11/062  

   Louis, Thibaut; La_Posta, Adrien; Atkins, Zachary; Jense, Hidde T; Abril-Cabezas, Irene; Addison, Graeme E; Ade, Peter AR; Aiola, Simone; Alford, Tommy; Alonso, David; et al (November 2025, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics)

   Abstract We present power spectra of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy in temperature and polarization, measured from the Data Release 6 maps made from Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data. These cover 19,000 deg²of sky in bands centered at 98, 150 and 220 GHz, with white noise levels three times lower thanPlanckin polarization. We find that the ACT angular power spectra estimated over 10,000 deg², and measured to arcminute scales in TT, TE and EE, are well fit by the sum of CMB and foregrounds, where the CMB spectra are described by the ΛCDM model. Combining ACT with larger-scalePlanckdata, the joint P-ACT dataset provides tight limits on the ingredients, expansion rate, and initial conditions of the universe. We find similar constraining power, and consistent results, from either thePlanckpower spectra or from ACT combined withWMAPdata, as well as from either temperature or polarization in the joint P-ACT dataset. When combined with CMB lensing from ACT andPlanck, and baryon acoustic oscillation data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI DR1), we measure a baryon density of Ω_bh²= 0.0226 ± 0.0001, a cold dark matter density of Ω_ch²= 0.118 ± 0.001, a Hubble constant ofH₀= 68.22 ± 0.36 km/s/Mpc, a spectral index ofn_s= 0.974 ± 0.003, and an amplitude of density fluctuations ofσ₈= 0.813 ± 0.005. Including the DESI DR2 data tightens the Hubble constant toH₀= 68.43 ± 0.27 km/s/Mpc; ΛCDM parameters agree between the P-ACT and DESI DR2 data at the 1.6σlevel. We find no evidence for excess lensing in the power spectrum, and no departure from spatial flatness. The contribution from Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) anisotropy is detected at high significance; we find evidence for a tilt with suppressed small-scale power compared to our baseline SZ template spectrum, consistent with hydrodynamical simulations with feedback. 

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3. DESI 2024 VI: cosmological constraints from the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/02/021  

   Adame, AG; Aguilar, J; Ahlen, S; Alam, S; Alexander, DM; Alvarez, M; Alves, O; Anand, A; Andrade, U; Armengaud, E; et al (February 2025, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics)

   Abstract We present cosmological results from the measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in galaxy, quasar and Lyman-αforest tracers from the first year of observations from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), to be released in the DESI Data Release 1. DESI BAO provide robust measurements of the transverse comoving distance and Hubble rate, or their combination, relative to the sound horizon, in seven redshift bins from over 6 million extragalactic objects in the redshift range 0.1 <z< 4.2. To mitigate confirmation bias, a blind analysis was implemented to measure the BAO scales. DESI BAO data alone are consistent with the standard flat ΛCDM cosmological model with a matter density Ω_m=0.295±0.015. Paired with a baryon density prior from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis and the robustly measured acoustic angular scale from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), DESI requiresH₀=(68.52±0.62) km s^-1Mpc^-1. In conjunction with CMB anisotropies fromPlanckand CMB lensing data fromPlanckand ACT, we find Ω_m=0.307± 0.005 andH₀=(67.97±0.38) km s^-1Mpc^-1. Extending the baseline model with a constant dark energy equation of state parameterw, DESI BAO alone requirew=-0.99^+0.15_-0.13. In models with a time-varying dark energy equation of state parametrised byw₀andw_a, combinations of DESI with CMB or with type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) individually preferw₀> -1 andw_a< 0. This preference is 2.6σfor the DESI+CMB combination, and persists or grows when SN Ia are added in, giving results discrepant with the ΛCDM model at the 2.5σ, 3.5σor 3.9σlevels for the addition of the Pantheon+, Union3, or DES-SN5YR supernova datasets respectively. For the flat ΛCDM model with the sum of neutrino mass ∑m_νfree, combining the DESI and CMB data yields an upper limit ∑m_ν< 0.072 (0.113) eV at 95% confidence for a ∑m_ν> 0 (∑m_ν> 0.059) eV prior. These neutrino-mass constraints are substantially relaxed if the background dynamics are allowed to deviate from flat ΛCDM. 

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4. Constraining the spatial curvature with cosmic expansion history in a cosmological model with a non-standard sound horizon

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2023/07/046  

   Stevens, Jordan; Khoraminezhad, Hasti; Saito, Shun (July 2023, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics)

   Abstract Spatial curvature is one of the most fundamental parameters in our current concordance flat ΛCDM model of the Universe. The goal of this work is to investigate how the constraint on the spatial curvature is affected by an assumption on the sound horizon scale. The sound horizon is an essential quantity to use the standard ruler from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs). As an example, we study the curvature constraint in an axion-like Early Dark Energy (EDE) model in light of recent cosmological datasets from Planck, the South Pole Telescope (SPT), and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), as well as BAO data compiled in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16. We find that, independent of the CMB datasets, the EDE model parameters are constrained only by the CMB power spectra as precisely and consistently as the flat case in previous work, even with the spatial curvature. We also demonstrate that combining CMB with BAO is extremely powerful to constrain the curvature parameter even with a reduction of the sound-horizon scale in an EDE model, resulting in Ω K = -0.0058± 0.0031 in the case of ACT+BAO after marginalizing over the parameters of the EDE model. This constraint is as competitive as the Planck+BAO result in a ΛCDM model, Ω K = -0.0001± 0.0018. 

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5. Cosmology from cross-correlation of ACT-DR4 CMB lensing and DES-Y3 cosmic shear

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3987  

   Shaikh, S; Harrison, I; van Engelen, A; Marques, G A; Abbott, T_M C; Aguena, M; Alves, O; Amon, A; An, R; Bacon, D; et al (January 2024, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   ABSTRACT Cross-correlation between weak lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and weak lensing of galaxies offers a way to place robust constraints on cosmological and astrophysical parameters with reduced sensitivity to certain systematic effects affecting individual surveys. We measure the angular cross-power spectrum between the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) DR4 CMB lensing and the galaxy weak lensing measured by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Y3 data. Our baseline analysis uses the CMB convergence map derived from ACT-DR4 and Planck data, where most of the contamination due to the thermal Sunyaev Zel’dovich effect is removed, thus avoiding important systematics in the cross-correlation. In our modelling, we consider the nuisance parameters of the photometric uncertainty, multiplicative shear bias and intrinsic alignment of galaxies. The resulting cross-power spectrum has a signal-to-noise ratio = 7.1 and passes a set of null tests. We use it to infer the amplitude of the fluctuations in the matter distribution (S8 ≡ σ8(Ωm/0.3)0.5 = 0.782 ± 0.059) with informative but well-motivated priors on the nuisance parameters. We also investigate the validity of these priors by significantly relaxing them and checking the consistency of the resulting posteriors, finding them consistent, albeit only with relatively weak constraints. This cross-correlation measurement will improve significantly with the new ACT-DR6 lensing map and form a key component of the joint 6×2pt analysis between DES and ACT. 

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