The Impact of the Fiducial Cosmology Assumption on BAO Cosmological Parameter Inference

Abstract

Standard analysis pipelines for measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) in galaxy surveys make use of a fiducial cosmological model to guide the data compression required to transform from observed redshifts and angles to the measured angular and radial BAO peak positions. In order to remove any dependence on the fiducial cosmology from the results, all models compared to the data should mimic the compression and its dependence on the fiducial model. In practice, approximations are made when testing models: (1) There is assumed to be no residual dependence on the fiducial cosmology after reconstruction, (2) differences in the distance--redshift relationship are assumed to match a linear scaling, and (3) differences in clustering between true and fiducial models are assumed to be removed by the free parameters used to null the non-BAO signal. We test these approximations using the current standard measurement procedure with a set of halo catalogs from the {\sc Aemulus} suite of $N$-body simulations, which span a range of $w\mathrm{CDM}$ cosmological models. We focus on reconstruction of the primordial BAO and locating the BAO. For the range of $w\mathrm{CDM}$ cosmologies covered by the {\sc Aemulus} suite, we find no evidence for systematic errors in the measured BAO shift parameters ${\alpha }_{\parallel }$ and ${\alpha }_{\perp }$ to $<0.1\%$. However, the measured errors ${\sigma }_{{\alpha }_{\parallel }}$ and ${\sigma }_{{\alpha }_{\perp }}$ show a notable absolute increase by up to $+0.001$ and $+0.002$ respectively in the case that the fiducial cosmology does not match the truth. These effects on the inferred BAO scale will be important given the precision of measurements expected from future surveys including DESI, Euclid, and WFIRST.

arXiv comment14 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (64)

• emcee: The MCMC Hammer
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Planck 2013 results. XVI. Cosmological parameters
• Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Parameter Results
• Simulating the joint evolution of quasars, galaxies and their large-scale distribution
• Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large-Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies
• The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: cosmological analysis of the DR12 galaxy sample
• The 6dF Galaxy Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and the Local Hubble Constant
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Spectra and redshifts
• The Cosmic Linear Anisotropy Solving System (CLASS) II: Approximation schemes
• Baryonic Features in the Matter Transfer Function
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Power-spectrum analysis of the final dataset and cosmological implications
• Stable clustering, the halo model and nonlinear cosmological power spectra
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 Galaxy Sample
• The Clustering of the SDSS DR7 Main Galaxy Sample I: A 4 per cent Distance Measure at z=0.15
• The Rockstar Phase-Space Temporal Halo Finder and the Velocity Offsets of Cluster Cores
• The DESI Experiment Part I: Science,Targeting, and Survey Design
• Revising the Halofit Model for the Nonlinear Matter Power Spectrum
• MultiDark simulations: the story of dark matter halo concentrations and density profiles
• Power Spectrum Analysis of Three-Dimensional Redshift Surveys
• Euclid Definition Study Report
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyα forest of BOSS DR11 quasars
• Why your model parameter confidences might be too optimistic -- unbiased estimation of the inverse covariance matrix
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: The power spectrum and the matter content of the universe
• A 2% Distance to z=0.35 by Reconstructing Baryon Acoustic Oscillations - I : Methods and Application to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Quasar-Lyman $\alpha$ Forest Cross-Correlation from BOSS DR11 : Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
• The Cosmic Linear Anisotropy Solving System (CLASS) I: Overview
• Improving Cosmological Distance Measurements by Reconstruction of the Baryon Acoustic Peak
• The clustering of the SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey DR14 quasar sample: First measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations between redshift 0.8 and 2.2
• Statistical Analysis of Galaxy Surveys - I. Robust error estimation for 2-point clustering statistics
• The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: Improved Distance Measurements to z = 1 with Reconstruction of the Baryonic Acoustic Feature
• The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: mock galaxy catalogues for the BOSS Final Data Release
• The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Observational systematics and baryon acoustic oscillations in the correlation function
• The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in Fourier-space
• Measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyman-alpha Forest Fluctuations in BOSS Data Release 9
• nbodykit: an open-source, massively parallel toolkit for large-scale structure
• Baryon acoustic oscillations from the cross-correlation of Ly$\alpha$ absorption and quasars in eBOSS DR14
• The Coyote Universe II: Cosmological Models and Precision Emulation of the Nonlinear Matter Power Spectrum
• Baryon acoustic oscillations at z = 2.34 from the correlations of Ly$\alpha$ absorption in eBOSS DR14
• The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: testing the cosmological model with baryon acoustic oscillations at z=0.6
• Accurate Estimators of Correlation Functions in Fourier Space
• The Baryonic Acoustic Feature and Large-Scale Clustering in the SDSS LRG Sample
• Fast Estimators for Redshift-Space Clustering
• Modelling Baryon Acoustic Oscillations with Perturbation Theory and Stochastic Halo Biasing
• The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope: 100 Hubbles for the 2020s
• The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: BAO measurement from the LOS-dependent power spectrum of DR12 BOSS galaxies
• The SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations at redshift of 0.72 with the DR14 Luminous Red Galaxy Sample
• Reconstructing Baryon Oscillations: A Lagrangian Theory Perspective
• Measuring line-of-sight dependent Fourier-space clustering using FFTs
• The Aemulus Project I: Numerical Simulations for Precision Cosmology
• Detection of Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Features in the Large-Scale 3-Point Correlation Function of SDSS BOSS DR12 CMASS Galaxies
• Reconstructing baryon oscillations
• Low Redshift Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Measurement from the Reconstructed 6-degree Field Galaxy Survey
• Eulerian BAO Reconstructions and N-Point Statistics
• The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: theoretical systematics and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the galaxy correlation function
• Reconstruction in Fourier space
• A Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Features in the SDSS BOSS DR12 Galaxy Bispectrum
• Signatures of the Primordial Universe from Its Emptiness: Measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Minima of the Density Field
• Efficient Reconstruction of Linear Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in Galaxy Surveys
• Extending the modeling of the anisotropic galaxy power spectrum to $k=0.4h{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$
• Theoretical Systematics of Future Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Surveys
• Measuring Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from the clustering of voids
• The Impact of Wrong Assumptions in BAO Reconstruction
• A new look at lines of sight: using Fourier methods for the wide-angle anisotropic 2-point correlation function

Cited by in corpus (53)

• DESI 2024 VI: Cosmological Constraints from the Measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
• The $H_0$ Olympics: A fair ranking of proposed models
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon acoustic oscillations with Lyman-$\alpha$ forests
• Interacting dark energy in the early 2020s: a promising solution to the $H_0$ and cosmic shear tensions
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: BAO and RSD measurements from anisotropic clustering analysis of the Quasar Sample in configuration space between redshift 0.8 and 2.2
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: measurement of the BAO and growth rate of structure of the luminous red galaxy sample from the anisotropic correlation function between redshifts 0.6 and 1
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: measurement of the BAO and growth rate of structure of the luminous red galaxy sample from the anisotropic power spectrum between redshifts 0.6 and 1.0
• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• DESI 2024 III: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Galaxies and Quasars
• Eppur è piatto? The cosmic chronometer take on spatial curvature and cosmic concordance
• Gravity in the Era of Equality: Towards solutions to the Hubble problem without fine-tuned initial conditions
• Cosmological parameter analyses using transversal BAO data
• Line-Intensity Mapping: Theory Review
• ShapeFit: extracting the power spectrum shape information in galaxy surveys beyond BAO and RSD
• Cosmic chronometers to calibrate the ladders and measure the curvature of the Universe. A model-independent study
• The trouble beyond $H_0$ and the new cosmic triangles
• Full-Shape Galaxy Power Spectra and the Curvature Tension
• Robustness of baryon acoustic oscillation constraints for early-Universe modifications to $\Lambda$CDM
• The Completed SDSS-IV Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: N-body Mock Challenge for the Quasar Sample
• Unveiling dark fifth forces with linear cosmology
• The completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Cosmological implications from multi-tracer BAO analysis with galaxies and voids
• CMB tensions with low-redshift $H_0$ and $S_8$ measurements: impact of a redshift-dependent type-Ia supernovae intrinsic luminosity
• Non-parametric reconstruction of the cosmological \textit{jerk} parameter
• Testing the consistency between cosmological data: the impact of spatial curvature and the dark energy EoS
• Phantom matter: a challenging solution to the cosmological tensions
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Theory and Modelling Systematics for the DESI 2024 results
• First Detection of the BAO Signal from Early DESI Data
• Cosmology Intertwined: A Review of the Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Associated with the Cosmological Tensions and Anomalies
• The Copernican principle in light of the latest cosmological data
• A model-independent reconstruction of dark sector interactions
• Optimal Reconstruction of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations for DESI 2024
• No-go guide for the Hubble tension: late-time or local-scale new physics
• TDCOSMO VI: Distance Measurements in Time-delay Cosmography under the Mass-sheet transformation
• Cosmological forecasts for future galaxy surveys with the linear point standard ruler: Toward consistent BAO analyses far from a fiducial cosmology
• Constraining f(R) models with cosmic chronometers and the HII galaxy Hubble diagram
• Fiducial-Cosmology-dependent systematics for the DESI 2024 BAO Analysis
• Blind Observers of the Sky
• Compressed baryon acoustic oscillation analysis is robust to modified-gravity models
• LADDER: Revisiting the Cosmic Distance Ladder with Deep Learning Approaches and Exploring its Applications
• A low Hubble Constant from galaxy distribution observations
• BAO cosmology in non-spatially flat background geometry from BOSS+eBOSS and lessons for future surveys
• Unphysical properties in a class of interacting dark energy models
• Dissecting kinetically coupled quintessence: phenomenology and observational tests
• Model Selection with Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyman-alpha Forest
• Beyond dark energy Fisher forecasts: how DESI will constrain LCDM and quintessence models
• Baryon acoustic scale at $z_{\eff} = 0.166$ with the SDSS blue galaxies
• Catalog-level blinding on the bispectrum for DESI-like galaxy surveys
• Cosmological constraints with the linear point from the BOSS survey
• Baryon acoustic oscillations from a joint analysis of the large-scale clustering in Fourier and configuration space
• Testing the robustness of the BAO determination in the presence of massive neutrinos
• Probing the Hubble Tension with an Infinite-Future Condition on the Hubble Parameter
• The BAO scale -- how standard is the standard ruler?
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in tomographic Angular Density and Redshift Fluctuations