Browsing by Author "Bull, P"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Bayesian jackknife tests with a small number of subsets: application to HERA 21 cm power spectrum upper limits
    (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2023) Wilensky, M.J; Kennedy, F; Bull, P
    We present a Bayesian jackknife test for assessing the probability that a data set contains biased subsets, and, if so, which of the subsets are likely to be biased. The test can be used to assess the presence and likely source of statistical tension between different measurements of the same quantities in an automated manner. Under certain broadly applicable assumptions, the test is analytically tractable. We also provide an open-source code, CHIBORG, that performs both analytic and numerical computations of the test on general Gaussian-distributed data. After exploring the information theoretical aspects of the test and its performance with an array of simulations, we apply it to data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) to assess whether different sub-seasons of observing can justifiably be combined to produce a deeper 21 cm power spectrum upper limit. We find that, with a handful of exceptions, the HERA data in question are statistically consistent and this decision is justified. We conclude by pointing out the wide applicability of this test, including to CMB experiments and the H0 tension.
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    Fundamental physics with the square kilometre array
    (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Weltman, A; Bull, P; Camera, S
    The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a planned large radio interferometer designed to operate over a wide range of frequencies, and with an order of magnitude greater sensitivity and survey speed than any current radio telescope. The SKA will address many important topics in astronomy, ranging from planet formation to distant galaxies. However, in this work, we consider the perspective of the SKA as a facility for studying physics. We review four areas in which the SKA is expected to make major contributions to our understanding of fundamental physics: cosmic dawn and reionisation; gravity and gravitational radiation; cosmology and dark energy; and dark matter and astroparticle physics. These discussions demonstrate that the SKA will be a spectacular physics machine, which will provide many new breakthroughs and novel insights on matter, energy, and spacetime.
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    Observing relativistic features in large-scale structure surveys - I. Multipoles of the power spectrum
    (Oxford University Press, 2021) Bull, P; Guandalin, C; Adamek, J
    Planned efforts to probe the largest observable distance scales in future cosmological surveys are motivated by a desire to detect relic correlations left over from inflation and the possibility of constraining novel gravitational phenomena beyond general relativity (GR). On such large scales, the usual Newtonian approaches to modelling summary statistics like the power spectrum and bispectrum are insufficient, and we must consider a fully relativistic and gauge-independent treatment of observables such as galaxy number counts in order to avoid subtle biases, e.g. in the determination of the fNL parameter. In this work, we present an initial application of an analysis pipeline capable of accurately modelling and recovering relativistic spectra and correlation functions. As a proof of concept, we focus on the non-zero dipole of the redshift-space power spectrum that arises in the cross-correlation of different mass bins of dark matter haloes, using strictly gauge-independent observable quantities evaluated on the past light cone of a fully relativistic N-body simulation in a redshift bin 1.7 ≤ z ≤ 2.9.
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    Observing relativistic features in large-scale structure surveys - I. Multipoles of the power spectrum
    (Oxford University Press, 2021) Bull, P; Guandalin, C; Adamek, J
    Planned efforts to probe the largest observable distance scales in future cosmological surveys are motivated by a desire to detect relic correlations left over from inflation and the possibility of constraining novel gravitational phenomena beyond general relativity (GR). On such large scales, the usual Newtonian approaches to modelling summary statistics like the power spectrum and bispectrum are insufficient, and we must consider a fully relativistic and gauge-independent treatment of observables such as galaxy number counts in order to avoid subtle biases, e.g. in the determination of the fNL parameter. In this work, we present an initial application of an analysis pipeline capable of accurately modelling and recovering relativistic spectra and correlation functions. As a proof of concept, we focus on the non-zero dipole of the redshift-space power spectrum that arises in the cross-correlation of different mass bins of dark matter haloes, using strictly gauge-independent observable quantities evaluated on the past light cone of a fully relativistic N-body simulation in a redshift bin 1.7 ≤ z ≤ 2.9. We pay particular attention to the correct estimation of power spectrum multipoles, comparing different methods of accounting for complications such as the survey geometry (window function) and evolution/bias effects on the past light cone, and discuss how our results compare with previous attempts at extracting novel GR signatures from relativistic simulations.