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Oct 16

Measurements of the Temperature and E-mode Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background from the Full 500-square-degree SPTpol Dataset

Using the full four-year SPTpol 500 deg^2 dataset in both the 95 GHz and 150 GHz frequency bands, we present measurements of the temperature and E-mode polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), as well as the E-mode polarization auto-power spectrum (EE) and temperature-E-mode cross-power spectrum (TE) in the angular multipole range 50<ell<8000. We find the SPTpol dataset to be self-consistent, passing several internal consistency tests based on maps, frequency bands, bandpowers, and cosmological parameters. The full SPTpol dataset is well-fit by the ΛCDM model, for which we find H_0=70.48pm2.16 km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1} and Ω_m=0.271pm0.026, when using only the SPTpol data and a Planck-based prior on the optical depth to reionization. The ΛCDM parameter constraints are consistent across the 95 GHz-only, 150 GHz-only, TE-only, and EE-only data splits. Between the ell<1000 and ell>1000 data splits, the ΛCDM parameter constraints are borderline consistent at the sim2σ level. This consistency improves when including a parameter A_L, the degree of lensing of the CMB inferred from the smearing of acoustic peaks. When marginalized over A_L, the ΛCDM parameter constraints from SPTpol are consistent with those from Planck. The power spectra presented here are the most sensitive measurements of the lensed CMB damping tail to date for roughly ell > 1700 in TE and ell > 2000 in EE.

  • 62 authors
·
Aug 1, 2025

When, Why, and How CMB Compression Fails

We test when compressed CMB likelihoods can be reliably used to constrain new physics beyond ΛCDM, formulating concrete criteria for when, why, and how CMB compression fails. We derive our conclusions by exploring a broad set of models that modify different aspects of the cosmological evolution, including late-time dark-energy dynamics, non-standard late-time dark-matter evolution through interactions or decay, and dark-matter models with persistently non-standard redshift evolution. For each case, we compare the results obtained from data combinations based on the full Planck-CMB likelihood with their counterparts based on a compressed CMB likelihood calibrated in ΛCDM. We find that the compression remains accurate for late-time dark-energy extensions that preserve the dark-matter background evolution and do not introduce significant additional perturbative effects. By contrast, modifying the dark-matter evolution breaks the mapping between the present-day matter density and the matter density at the epochs relevant to the CMB, causing the compressed constraints to fail even when the modification acts exclusively at late times. In these cases, the compressed likelihood can drastically alter the geometry of the multidimensional posterior distributions, shifting their centers, producing strongly anisotropic deformations, reordering principal modes, and generating genuine mixing and rotation of their eigendirections. These multidimensional distortions propagate into substantially incorrect marginalized constraints on cosmological parameters, with differences between the full and compressed analyses reaching nearly an order of magnitude in some of the cases studied here.

  • 4 authors
·
Oct 5

DESI 2024 V: Full-Shape Galaxy Clustering from Galaxies and Quasars

We present the measurements and cosmological implications of the galaxy two-point clustering using over 4.7 million unique galaxy and quasar redshifts in the range 0.1<z<2.1 divided into six redshift bins over a sim 7,500 square degree footprint, from the first year of observations with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI Data Release 1). By fitting the full power spectrum, we extend previous DESI DR1 baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements to include redshift-space distortions and signals from the matter-radiation equality scale. For the first time, this Full-Shape analysis is blinded at the catalogue-level to avoid confirmation bias and the systematic errors are accounted for at the two-point clustering level, which automatically propagates them into any cosmological parameter. When analysing the data in terms of compressed model-agnostic variables, we obtain a combined precision of 4.7\% on the amplitude of the redshift space distortion signal reaching similar precision with just one year of DESI data than with 20 years of observation from previous generation surveys. We analyse the data to directly constrain the cosmological parameters within the LambdaCDM model using perturbation theory and combine this information with the reconstructed DESI DR1 galaxy BAO. Using a Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Gaussian prior on the baryon density parameter, and a Gaussian prior on the spectral index, we constrain the matter density is Omega_m=0.296pm 0.010 and the Hubble constant H_0=(68.63 pm 0.79)[{rm km, s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}}]. Additionally, we measure the amplitude of clustering sigma_8=0.841 pm 0.034. The DESI DR1 results are in agreement with the LambdaCDM model based on general relativity with parameters consistent with those from Planck. The cosmological interpretation of these results in combination with external datasets are presented in a companion paper.

  • 198 authors
·
Nov 18, 2024

The Foundation Supernova Survey: Measuring Cosmological Parameters with Supernovae from a Single Telescope

Measurements of the dark energy equation-of-state parameter, w, have been limited by uncertainty in the selection effects and photometric calibration of z<0.1 Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). The Foundation Supernova Survey is designed to lower these uncertainties by creating a new sample of z<0.1 SNe Ia observed on the Pan-STARRS system. Here, we combine the Foundation sample with SNe from the Pan-STARRS Medium Deep Survey and measure cosmological parameters with 1,338 SNe from a single telescope and a single, well-calibrated photometric system. For the first time, both the low-z and high-z data are predominantly discovered by surveys that do not target pre-selected galaxies, reducing selection bias uncertainties. The z>0.1 data include 875 SNe without spectroscopic classifications and we show that we can robustly marginalize over CC SN contamination. We measure Foundation Hubble residuals to be fainter than the pre-existing low-z Hubble residuals by 0.046 pm 0.027 mag (stat+sys). By combining the SN Ia data with cosmic microwave background constraints, we find w=-0.938 pm 0.053, consistent with LambdaCDM. With 463 spectroscopically classified SNe Ia alone, we measure w=-0.933pm0.061. Using the more homogeneous and better-characterized Foundation sample gives a 55% reduction in the systematic uncertainty attributed to SN Ia sample selection biases. Although use of just a single photometric system at low and high redshift increases the impact of photometric calibration uncertainties in this analysis, previous low-z samples may have correlated calibration uncertainties that were neglected in past studies. The full Foundation sample will observe up to 800 SNe to anchor the LSST and WFIRST Hubble diagrams.

  • 30 authors
·
Nov 22, 2018