Monthly Notices is one of the three largest general primary astronomical research publications. It is an international journal, published by the Royal Astronomical Society. This article 1 describes its publication policy and practice.

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Tables of integrals

http://inspirehep.net/record/1084324/files/arXiv:1201.2434.pdf

Observational probes of cosmic acceleration

Euclid is a European Space Agency medium-class mission selected for launch in 2020 within the cosmic vision 2015–2025 program. The main goal of Euclid is to understand the origin of the accelerated expansion of the universe. Euclid will explore the expansion history of the universe and the evolution of cosmic structures by measuring shapes and red-shifts of galaxies as well as the distribution of clusters of galaxies over a large fraction of the sky. Although the main driver for Euclid is the nature of dark energy, Euclid science covers a vast range of topics, from cosmology to galaxy evolution to planetary research. In this review we focus on cosmology and fundamental physics, with a strong emphasis on science beyond the current standard models. We discuss five broad topics: dark energy and modified gravity, dark matter, initial conditions, basic assumptions and questions of methodology in the data analysis. This review has been planned and carried out within Euclid’s Theory Working Group and is meant to provide a guide to the scientific themes that will underlie the activity of the group during the preparation of the Euclid mission.

/pdf/cosmology-and-fundamental-physics-with-the-euclid-satellite-1pi37a138r.pdf

Cosmology and Fundamental Physics with the Euclid Satellite

The remarkable Hubble Space Telescope?(HST) data sets from the CANDELS, HUDF09, HUDF12, ERS, and BoRG/HIPPIES programs have allowed us to map the evolution of the rest-frame UV luminosity function (LF) from to . We develop new color criteria that more optimally utilize the full wavelength coverage from the optical, near-IR, and mid-IR observations over our search fields, while simultaneously minimizing the incompleteness and eliminating redshift gaps. We have identified 5859, 3001, 857, 481, 217, and 6 galaxy candidates at , , , , , and , respectively, from the ?1000 arcmin2 area covered by these data sets. This sample of >10,000 galaxy candidates at is by far the largest assembled to date with HST. The selection of 4?8 candidates over the five CANDELS fields allows us to assess the cosmic variance; the largest variations are at . Our new LF determinations at and span a 6 mag baseline and reach to ?16 AB mag. These determinations agree well with previous estimates, but the larger samples and volumes probed here result in a more reliable sampling of galaxies and allow us to reassess the form of the UV LFs. Our new LF results strengthen our earlier findings to significance for a steeper faint-end slope of the UV LF at , with ? evolving from at to at (and at ), consistent with that expected from the evolution of the halo mass function. We find less evolution in the characteristic magnitude M* from to the observed evolution in the LF is now largely represented by changes in . No evidence for a non-Schechter-like form to the z ? 4?8 LFs is found. A simple conditional LF model based on halo growth and evolution in the M/L ratio of halos provides a good representation of the observed evolution.

/pdf/uv-luminosity-functions-at-redshifts-z-4-to-z-10-10-000-4lbepnh417.pdf

UV luminosity functions at redshifts z ∼ 4 to z ∼ 10: 10,000 galaxies from HST legacy fields

Thanu Padmanabhan was a renowned Indian theoretical physicist known for his research in general relativity, cosmology, and quantum gravity. In an extraordinary career spanning forty-two years, he published more than three hundred research articles, wrote ten highly successful technical and popular books, and mentored nearly thirty graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. He is best known for his deep work investigating gravitation as an emergent thermodynamic phenomenon. He was an outstanding teacher, and an indefatigable populariser of science, who travelled very widely to motivate and inspire young students. Paddy, as he was affectionately known, was also a close friend to his students and collaborators, treating them as part of his extended academic family. On September 17, 2021 Paddy passed away very unexpectedly, at the age of sixty-four and at the height of his research career, while serving as a Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. His untimely demise has come as a shock to his family and friends and colleagues. In this article, several of them have come together to pay their tributes and share their fond memories of Paddy.

The Life and Science of Thanu Padmanabhan

Constraints on cosmological parameters are often distilled from sky surveys by ﬁtting templates to summary statistics of the data that are motivated by a ﬁducial cosmological model. However, recent work has shown how to estimate the distance scale using templates that are more generic: the basis functions used are not explicitly tied to any one cosmological model. We describe a Bayesian framework for (i) determining how many basis functions to use and (ii) comparing one basis set with another. Our formulation provides intuition into how (a) one’s degree of belief in diﬀerent basis sets, (b) the fact that the choice of priors depends on basis set, and (c) the data set itself, together determine the derived constraints. We illustrate our framework using measurements in simulated datasets before applying it to real data.

/pdf/bayesian-evidence-comparison-for-distance-scale-estimates-2cxcdbdl.pdf

Bayesian evidence comparison for distance scale estimates

We develop a framework for self-consistently extracting cosmological information from the clustering of tracers in redshift space, $\textit{without}$ relying on model-dependent templates to describe the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature. Our approach uses the recently proposed Laguerre reconstruction technique for the BAO feature and its linear point $r_{\rm LP}$, and substantially extends it to simultaneously model the multipoles $\ell=0,2,4$ of the anisotropic galaxy 2-point correlation function (2pcf). The approach is `model-agnostic': it assumes that the non-linear growth of structure smears the BAO feature by an approximately Gaussian kernel with a smearing scale $\sigma_{\rm v}$, but does not assume any fiducial cosmology for describing the shape of the feature itself. Using mock observations for two realistic survey configurations assuming $\Lambda$ cold dark matter ($\Lambda$CDM), combined with Bayesian parameter inference, we show that the linear point $r_{\rm LP}$ and smearing scale $\sigma_{\rm v}$ can be accurately recovered by our method in both existing and upcoming surveys. The precision of the recovery of $r_{\rm LP}$ is always better than $1\%$, while $\sigma_{\rm v}$ can be recovered with $\lesssim10\%$ uncertainty provided the linear galaxy bias $b$ is separately constrained, e.g., using weak lensing observations. Our method is also sensitive to the linear growth rate $f$, albeit with larger uncertainties and systematic errors, especially for upcoming surveys such as DESI. We discuss how our model can be modified to improve the recovery of $f$, such that the resulting constraints on $\{f,\sigma_{\rm v},r_{\rm LP}\}$ can potentially be used as a test of cosmological models including and beyond $\Lambda$CDM.

Model-agnostic cosmological constraints from the baryon acoustic oscillation feature in redshift space

Mass accretion rates and multiscale halo environment in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies

We present constraints on models of the galaxy distribution in the cosmic web using a magnitude limited sample from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey. We model the redshift-space behaviour of the 2-point correlation function (2pcf) and the recently proposed Voronoi volume function (VVF) -- which includes information beyond 2-point statistics. We extend the standard halo occupation distribution model by introducing extra satellite degrees of freedom, and also by including two assembly bias parameters, $\alpha_{\rm cen}$ and $\alpha_{\rm sat}$, which respectively correlate the occupation numbers of central and satellite galaxies with their host halo's tidal environment. We measure $\alpha_{\rm sat}=1.44^{+0.25}_{-0.43}$ and $\alpha_{\rm cen}=-0.79^{+0.29}_{-0.11}$ using a combination of 2pcf and VVF measurements. These represent a detection of assembly bias at the 3.3$\sigma$ (2.4$\sigma$) significance level for satellite (central) galaxies, a result that remains robust to possible anisotropies in the halo-centric distribution of satellites as well as technicalities of estimating the data covariance. We show that the growth rate ($f\sigma_8$) deduced using models with assembly bias is about 7\% (i.e. $1.5\sigma$) lower than if assembly bias is ignored. Projecting $f\sigma_8$ onto the $\Omega_m$-$\sigma_8$ plane, we find that the model constraints without assembly bias overlap with Planck expectations, but that allowing assembly bias introduces significant tension with Planck, preferring either a lower $\Omega_m$ or a lower $\sigma_8$. We also study the effect of assembly bias on the weak lensing signal. While the all-galaxy lensing signal is unaffected, both central and satellite sub-populations individually show significantly different signals in the presence of assembly bias. [abridged]

Aseem Paranjape

Papers

The Life and Science of Thanu Padmanabhan

Bayesian evidence comparison for distance scale estimates

Model-agnostic cosmological constraints from the baryon acoustic oscillation feature in redshift space

Mass accretion rates and multiscale halo environment in cold and warm dark matter cosmologies

Impact of tidal environment on galaxy populations using GAMA