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Creators/Authors contains: "Chen, Shi-Fan"

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  1. ABSTRACT In addition to the intrinsic clustering of galaxies themselves, the spatial distribution of galaxies observed in surveys is modulated by the presence of weak lensing due to matter in the foreground. This effect, known as magnification bias, is a significant contaminant to analyses of galaxy-lensing cross-correlations and must be carefully modelled. We present a method to estimate the magnification bias in spectroscopically confirmed galaxy samples based on finite differences of galaxy catalogues while marginalizing over errors due to finite step size. We use our estimator to measure the magnification biases of the CMASS and LOWZ samples in the SDSS BOSS galaxy survey, analytically taking into account the dependence on galaxy shape for fibre and PSF magnitudes, finding αCMASS = 2.71 ± 0.02 and αLOWZ = 2.45 ± 0.02 and quantify modelling uncertainties in these measurements. Finally, we quantify the redshift evolution of the magnification bias within the CMASS and LOWZ samples, finding a difference of up to a factor of three between the lower and upper redshift bounds for the former. We discuss how to account for this evolution in modelling and its interaction with commonly applied redshift-dependent weights. Our method should be readily applicable to upcoming surveys and we make our code publicly available as part of this work. 
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  2. Abstract We infer the growth of large scale structure over the redshift range 0.4 ≲z≲ 1 from the cross-correlation of spectroscopically calibrated Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) selected from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) legacy imaging survey with CMB lensing maps reconstructed from the latestPlanckand ACT data.We adopt a hybrid effective field theory (HEFT) model that robustly regulates the cosmological information obtainable from smaller scales, such that our cosmological constraints are reliably derived from the (predominantly) linear regime.We perform an extensive set of bandpower- and parameter-level systematics checks to ensure the robustness of our results and to characterize the uniformity of the LRG sample.We demonstrate that our results are stable to a wide range of modeling assumptions, finding excellent agreement with a linear theory analysis performed on a restricted range of scales.From a tomographic analysis of the four LRG photometric redshift bins we find that the rate of structure growth is consistent with ΛCDM with an overall amplitude that is ≃ 5-7% lower than predicted by primary CMB measurements with modest (∼ 2σ) statistical significance.From the combined analysis of all four bins and their cross-correlations withPlanckwe obtainS8= 0.765 ± 0.023, which is less discrepant with primary CMB measurements than previous DESI LRG crossPlanckCMB lensing results.From the cross-correlation with ACT we obtainS8= 0.790+0.024-0.027, while when jointly analyzingPlanckand ACT we findS8= 0.775+0.019-0.022from our data alone andσ8= 0.772+0.020-0.023with the addition of BAO data.These constraints are consistent with the latestPlanckprimary CMB analyses at the ≃ 1.6-2.2σlevel, and are in excellent agreement with galaxy lensing surveys. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2026
  3. Abstract We present theAemulusνsimulations: a suite of 150 (1.05 h-1Gpc)3N-body simulations with a mass resolution of 3.51 × 1010Ωcb/0.3  h-1Min awνCDM cosmological parameter space. The simulations have been explicitly designed to span a broad range inσ8to facilitate investigations of tension between large scale structure and cosmic microwave background cosmological probes. Neutrinos are treated as a second particle species to ensure accuracy to 0.5 eV, the maximum neutrino mass that we have simulated. By employing Zel'dovich control variates, we increase the effective volume of our simulations by factors of 10-105depending on the statistic in question. As a first application of these simulations, we build new hybrid effective field theory and matter power spectrum surrogate models, demonstrating that they achieve ≤ 1% accuracy fork≤ 1hMpc-1and 0 ≤z≤ 3, and ≤ 2% accuracy fork≤ 4hMpc-1for the matter power spectrum. We publicly release the trained surrogate models, and estimates of the surrogate model errors in the hope that they will be broadly applicable to a range of cosmological analyses for many years to come. 
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  4. Abstract We present a new method for consistent, joint analysis of the pre- and post-reconstruction galaxy two-point functions of the BOSS survey. The post-reconstruction correlation function is used to accurately measure the distance-redshift relation and expansion history, while the pre-reconstruction power spectrum multipoles constrain the broad-band shape and the rate-of-growth of large-scale structure. Our technique uses Lagrangian perturbation theory to self-consistently work at the level of two-point functions, i.e. directly with the measured data, without approximating the constraints with summary statistics normalized by the drag scale. Combining galaxies across the full redshift range and both hemispheres we constrain Ω m  = 0.303 ± 0.0082, H 0  = 69.23 ± 0.77 and σ 8  = 0.733 ± 0.047 within the context of ΛCDM. These constraints are consistent both with the Planck primary CMB anisotropy data and recent cosmic shear surveys. 
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  5. Abstract The Lyα forest provides one of the best means of mapping large-scale structure at high redshift, including our tightest constraint on the distance-redshift relation before cosmic noon. We describe how the large-scale correlations in the Lyα forest can be understood as an expansion in cumulants of the optical depth field, which itself can be related to the density field by a bias expansion. This provides a direct connection between the observable and the statistics of the matter fluctuations which can be computed in a systematic manner. We discuss the way in which complex, small-scale physics enters the predictions, the origin of the much-discussed velocity bias and the `renormalization' of the large-scale bias coefficients. Our calculations are within the context of perturbation theory, but we also make contact with earlier work using the peak-background split. Using the structure of the equations of motion we demonstrate, to all orders in perturbation theory, that the large-scale flux power spectrum becomes the linear spectrum times the square of a quadratic in the cosine of the angle to the line of sight. Unlike the case of galaxies, both the isotropic and anisotropic pieces receive contributions from small-scale physics. 
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  6. Abstract We present a high-significance cross-correlation of CMB lensing maps from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) Data Release 6 (DR6) with luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) Legacy Survey spectroscopically calibrated by DESI. We detect this cross-correlation at a significance of 38σ; combining our measurement with thePlanck Public Release 4 (PR4) lensing map, we detect the cross-correlation at 50σ. Fitting this jointly with the galaxy auto-correlation power spectrum to break the galaxy bias degeneracy withσ8, we perform a tomographic analysis in four LRG redshift bins spanning 0.4 ≤z≤ 1.0 to constrain the amplitude of matter density fluctuations through the parameter combinationS8×8m/ 0.3)0.4. Prior to unblinding, we confirm with extragalactic simulations that foreground biases are negligible and carry out a comprehensive suite of null and consistency tests. Using a hybrid effective field theory (HEFT) model that allows scales as small askmax= 0.6 h/ Mpc, we obtain a 3.3% constraint onS8×8m/ 0.3)0.4= 0.792+0.024-0.028from ACT data, as well as constraints onS8×(z) that probe structure formation over cosmic time.Our result is consistent with the early-universe extrapolation from primary CMB anisotropies measured byPlanck PR4 within 1.2σ. Jointly fitting ACT andPlanck lensing cross-correlations we obtain a 2.7% constraint ofS8×= 0.776+0.019-0.021, which is consistent with the Planck early-universe extrapolation within 2.1σ, with the lowest redshift bin showing the largest difference in mean. The latter may motivate further CMB lensing tomography analyses atz< 0.6 to assess the impact of potential systematics or the consistency of the ΛCDM model over cosmic time. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available December 1, 2025
  7. ABSTRACT We implement a model for the two-point statistics of biased tracers that combines dark matter dynamics from N-body simulations with an analytic Lagrangian bias expansion. Using Aemulus, a suite of N-body simulations built for emulation of cosmological observables, we emulate the cosmology dependence of these non-linear spectra from redshifts z = 0 to z = 2. We quantify the accuracy of our emulation procedure, which is sub-per cent at $$k=1\, h \,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$$ for the redshifts probed by upcoming surveys and improves at higher redshifts. We demonstrate its ability to describe the statistics of complex tracer samples, including those with assembly bias and baryonic effects, reliably fitting the clustering and lensing statistics of such samples at redshift z ≃ 0.4 to scales of $$k_{\rm max} \approx 0.6\, h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$$. We show that the emulator can be used for unbiased cosmological parameter inference in simulated joint clustering and galaxy–galaxy lensing analyses with data drawn from an independent N-body simulation. These results indicate that our emulator is a promising tool that can be readily applied to the analysis of current and upcoming data sets from galaxy surveys. 
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