CMB and Early Universe Research at Oxford Astrophysics 2011 - 2.014
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Oxford Physics
Abstract
We have a broad brush picture of the evolution of the Universe which has consistently stood up to experimental and observational scrutiny. With Einstein's theory of gravity we are able to explain the expansion of recession of galaxies, the presence of a residual bath of relic radiation and the rough abundances of the light elements. Within the auspices of this grant we wish to subject this model to more detailed scrutiny and in doing so, construct a detailed understanding of the physical processes that come into play on an immense range of scales. On the various largest scales, we can use the roughness in the relic radiation to extract the information about the nature of space time and energy when the Universe was in it infancy. Specifically we can now try and detect the background of ripples in space-time, called gravity waves, by looking for particular distortions in relic light. To do so, we must come up with clever algorithms that can cope with the extremely large data sets and extract weak signals. It will be necessary to separate out what is truly due to the gravity waves from other sources of radiation which will contaminate the signal. With such precise data sets, and including other cosmic observables such as the way that galaxies move towards or away from each other, it should be possible to probe and peruse our standard theory and see if there is any evidence for deviations from it. This holistic approach will also allows us to learn more about the nature of the matter and energy that fills the Universe and in particular will let us focus on the nature of the dark matter and energy. On smaller scales, we must focus on the building blocks of structure: galaxies. These are extremely complex organisms that a host a wide range of physical process from gravitational to chemical. We will tackle this problem in a variety of ways. At the smallest scales we will work with extremely accurate numerical models of how the different physical process occur and how they trigger the formation of stars. There is now compelling evidence that there very massive black holes inhabiting at the centres of galaxies. We wish to study this novel and unique observational phenomena and study its theoretical implications. In particular we wish to, once again, study how the existence of black holes drives the formation and evolution of galaxies and how their presence may be tested in a number of observational ways.
Organisations
Publications
Alonso D
(2015)
Blind foreground subtraction for intensity mapping experiments
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Alonso D
(2014)
Fast simulations for intensity mapping experiments
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Amendola L
(2013)
Cosmology and Fundamental Physics with the Euclid Satellite.
in Living reviews in relativity
André, P And Baccigalupi, C And Banday, A And Barbosa, D And Barreiro, B And Bartlett, J And Bartolo, N And Battistelli, E And Battye, R And Bendo, G And Benoît, A And Bernard, JP And Bersanelli, M And Béthermin, M And Bielewicz, P And Bonaldi, A And Bouchet, FC And Boulanger, FC And Brand, J And Bucher, M And Burigana, C And Cai, ZY And Camus, P And Casas, F And Casasola, V And Castex, G And Challinor, A And Chluba, J And Chon, G And Colafrancesco, S And Comis, B And Cuttaia, F And D'Alessandr
(2013)
The Polarized Radiation Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission
Baker T
(2013)
The parameterized post-Friedmann framework for theories of modified gravity: Concepts, formalism, and examples
in Physical Review D
Baker T
(2011)
Towards a fully consistent parametrization of modified gravity
in Physical Review D
Baker T
(2014)
New gravitational scales in cosmological surveys
in Physical Review D
Baker, T And Ferreira, PG And Skordis, C
(2013)
The Fast Route to Modified Gravitational Growth
Balthazar B
(2015)
Accelerated expansion in the effective field theory of a radiation dominated universe
in Physical Review D
Bean R
(2011)
A new golden age: testing general relativity with cosmology.
in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences
Bolejko K
(2012)
Ricci focusing, shearing, and the expansion rate in an almost homogeneous Universe
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Brown, ML And Abdalla, FB And Amara, A And Bacon, DJ And Battye, RA And Bell, MR And Beswick, RJ And Birkinshaw, M And Böhm, V And Bridle, S And Browne, IWA And Casey, CM And Demetroullas, C And Lin, TE And Ferreira, PG And Garrington, ST And Grainge, KJB And Gray, ME And Hales, CA And Harrison, I And Heavens, AF And Heymans, C And Hung, CL And Jackson, NJ And Jarvis, MJ And Joachimi, B And Kay, ST And Kitching, TD And Leahy, JP And Maartens, R And Miller, L And Muxlow, TWB And Myers, ST And Ni
(2013)
Probing the accelerating Universe with radio weak lensing in the JVLA Sky Survey
Bull P
(2015)
A CMB GIBBS SAMPLER FOR LOCALIZED SECONDARY ANISOTROPIES
in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
Bull P
(2012)
Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect as a test of general radial inhomogeneity in Lemaître-Tolman-Bondi cosmology
in Physical Review D
Bull P
(2015)
LATE-TIME COSMOLOGY WITH 21 cm INTENSITY MAPPING EXPERIMENTS
in The Astrophysical Journal
Camera S
(2013)
Cosmology on ultralarge scales with intensity mapping of the neutral hydrogen 21 cm emission: limits on primordial non-Gaussianity.
in Physical review letters
Clifton T
(2012)
Improved treatment of optics in the Lindquist-Wheeler models
in Physical Review D
Collaboration, PRISM And Andre, P And Baccigalupi, C And Barbosa, D And Bartlett, J And Bartolo, N And Battistelli, E And Battye, R And Bendo, G And Bernard, JP And Bersanelli, M And Bethermin, M And Bielewicz, P And Bonaldi, A And Bouchet, F And Boulanger, F And Brand, J And Bucher, M And Burigana, C And Cai, ZY And Casasola, V And Castex, G And Challinor, A And Chluba, J And Colafrancesco, S And Cuttaia, F And D'Alessandro, G And Davis, R And Avillez, MD And Bernardis, PD And Petris, MD And R
(2013)
PRISM (Polarized Radiation Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission): A White Paper on the Ultimate Polarimetric Spectro-Imaging of the Microwave and Far-Infrared Sky
Dubois Y
(2013)
Blowing cold flows away: the impact of early AGN activity on the formation of a brightest cluster galaxy progenitor
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Escamilla-Rivera C
(2012)
Tensor instability in the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld theory of gravity
in Physical Review D
Ferreira P
(2014)
Testing general relativity with cosmology: a synopsis of the parametrized post-Friedmann approach
in General Relativity and Gravitation
Ferreira P
(2013)
A few cosmological implications of tensor nonlocalities
in Physical Review D
Hlozek R
(2015)
A search for ultralight axions using precision cosmological data
in Physical Review D
Lagos M
(2014)
Noether identities and gauge fixing the action for cosmological perturbations
in Physical Review D
Lagos M
(2014)
Cosmological perturbations in massive bigravity
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Macaulay E
(2012)
Power spectrum estimation from peculiar velocity catalogues Power spectra from peculiar velocity catalogues
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Marsh D
(2012)
Cosmology of axions and moduli: A dynamical systems approach
in Physical Review D
Marsh D
(2012)
Ultralight axions: Degeneracies with massive neutrinos and forecasts for future cosmological observations
in Physical Review D
Marsh D
(2013)
Axiverse cosmology and the energy scale of inflation
in Physical Review D
Marsh D
(2014)
Quintessence in a quandary: Prior dependence in dark energy models
in Physical Review D
Marsh DJ
(2014)
Tensor interpretation of BICEP2 results severely constrains axion dark matter.
in Physical review letters
Noller J
(2014)
Relativistic scalar fields and the quasistatic approximation in theories of modified gravity
in Physical Review D
Noller J
(2014)
Interacting spin-2 fields in the Stückelberg picture
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Noller, J And Braun-Bates, FV And Ferreira, PG
(2013)
Relativistic scalar fields and the quasi-static approximation in theories of modified gravity
Powell L
(2013)
Enhancing and inhibiting star formation: high-resolution simulation studies of the impact of cold accretion, mergers and feedback on individual massive galaxies
in Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
Scargill J
(2012)
Cosmology with Eddington-inspired gravity
in Physical Review D
Scargill J
(2014)
Cycles of interactions in multi-gravity theories
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Winther H
(2015)
Fast route to nonlinear clustering statistics in modified gravity theories
in Physical Review D
Zuntz J
(2012)
Ambiguous tests of general relativity on cosmological scales
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
| Description | We would highlight three key findings from the work supported by this grant: A) with the ACT telescope, Dunkley was able to produce some of the highest sensitivity and precision maps of the cosmic microwave background; amongst other things this lead to a completely independent CMB focused constraint of dark energy as well as the first detections of cross correlations with other astrophysical sources. B) Ferreira developed the first high Einstein-Boltzman solver (a numerical algorithm for calculating observables in the large scale structure of the universe) which can be used to study the cosmological effects of ultra-light axions. This solvers has been used to calculate the most accurate constraints of ultra-ligh axions to date on cosmological scales. C) Ferreira completed the first stage of the formalism for constraining general relativity on cosmological scales. |
| Exploitation Route | Our results have been used by other groups in a number of ways: to improve constraints on cosmological parameters, to develop methods for detecting new signals in cosmological data, to explore alternatives to "conventional" proposals of dark matter, to design observational and analysis strategies for up and coming surveys like Euclid and LSST. |
| Sectors | Education |