skip to main content


Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Zhai, Zhongxu"

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. Abstract

    There is untapped cosmological information in galaxy redshift surveys in the nonlinear regime. In this work, we use theAemulussuite of cosmologicalN-body simulations to construct Gaussian process emulators of galaxy clustering statistics at small scales (0.1–50h−1Mpc) in order to constrain cosmological and galaxy bias parameters. In addition to standard statistics—the projected correlation functionwp(rp), the redshift-space monopole of the correlation functionξ0(s), and the quadrupoleξ2(s)—we emulate statistics that include information about the local environment, namely the underdensity probability functionPU(s) and the density-marked correlation functionM(s). This extends the model ofAemulusIII for redshift-space distortions by including new statistics sensitive to galaxy assembly bias. In recovery tests, we find that the beyond-standard statistics significantly increase the constraining power on cosmological parameters of interest: includingPU(s) andM(s) improves the precision of our constraints on Ωmby 27%,σ8by 19%, and the growth of structure parameter,fσ8, by 12% compared to standard statistics. We additionally find that scales below ∼6h−1Mpc contain as much information as larger scales. The density-sensitive statistics also contribute to constraining halo occupation distribution parameters and a flexible environment-dependent assembly bias model, which is important for extracting the small-scale cosmological information as well as understanding the galaxy–halo connection. This analysis demonstrates the potential of emulating beyond-standard clustering statistics at small scales to constrain the growth of structure as a test of cosmic acceleration.

     
    more » « less
  2. ABSTRACT

    We measure the small-scale clustering of the Data Release 16 extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Luminous Red Galaxy sample, corrected for fibre-collisions using Pairwise Inverse Probability weights, which give unbiased clustering measurements on all scales. We fit to the monopole and quadrupole moments and to the projected correlation function over the separation range $7-60\, h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ with a model based on the aemulus cosmological emulator to measure the growth rate of cosmic structure, parametrized by fσ8. We obtain a measurement of fσ8(z = 0.737) = 0.408 ± 0.038, which is 1.4σ lower than the value expected from 2018 Planck data for a flat ΛCDM model, and is more consistent with recent weak-lensing measurements. The level of precision achieved is 1.7 times better than more standard measurements made using only the large-scale modes of the same sample. We also fit to the data using the full range of scales $0.1\text{--}60\, h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$ modelled by the aemulus cosmological emulator and find a 4.5σ tension in the amplitude of the halo velocity field with the Planck + ΛCDM model, driven by a mismatch on the non-linear scales. This may not be cosmological in origin, and could be due to a breakdown in the Halo Occupation Distribution model used in the emulator. Finally, we perform a robust analysis of possible sources of systematics, including the effects of redshift uncertainty and incompleteness due to target selection that were not included in previous analyses fitting to clustering measurements on small scales.

     
    more » « less
  3. ABSTRACT

    We perform a simulation with Galacticus, a semi-analytical galaxy formation model, to predict the number counts of H α and [O iii] emitting galaxies. With a state-of-the-art N-body simulation, UNIT, we first calibrate Galacticus with the current observation of H α luminosity function. The resulting model coupled with a dust attenuation model, can reproduce the current observations, including the H α luminosity function from HiZELS and number density from WISP. We extrapolate the model prediction to higher redshift and the result is found to be consistent with previous investigations. We then use the same galaxy formation model to predict the number counts for [O iii] emitting galaxies. The result provides further validation of our galaxy formation model and dust model. We present number counts of H α and [O iii] emission line galaxies for three different line flux limits: 5 × 10−17erg s−1 cm−2, 1 × 10−16 erg s−1 cm−2 (6.5σ nominal depth for WFIRST GRS), and 2 × 10−16 erg s−1 cm−2 (3.5σ depth of Euclid GRS). At redshift 2 < z < 3, our model predicts that WFIRST can observe hundreds of [O iii] emission line galaxies per square degree with a line flux limit of 1 × 10−16 erg s−1 cm−2. This will provide accurate measurement of large-scale structure to probe dark energy over a huge cosmic volume to an unprecedented high redshift. Finally, we compare the flux ratio of H α/[O iii] within the redshift range of 0 < z < 3. Our results show the known trend of increasing H α/[O iii] flux ratio with H α flux at low redshift, which becomes a weaker trend at higher redshifts.

     
    more » « less