Cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe

The existence of ‘peculiar’ velocities due to the formation of cosmic structure marks a point of discord between the real universe and the usually assumed Friedmann–Lemaítre–Robertson–Walker metric, which accomodates only the smooth Hubble expansion on large scales. In the standard ΛCDM model framew...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mohayaee, R, Rameez, M, Sarkar, S
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: MDPI 2024
_version_ 1811140492527665152
author Mohayaee, R
Rameez, M
Sarkar, S
author_facet Mohayaee, R
Rameez, M
Sarkar, S
author_sort Mohayaee, R
collection OXFORD
description The existence of ‘peculiar’ velocities due to the formation of cosmic structure marks a point of discord between the real universe and the usually assumed Friedmann–Lemaítre–Robertson–Walker metric, which accomodates only the smooth Hubble expansion on large scales. In the standard ΛCDM model framework, Type Ia supernovae data are routinely “corrected” for the peculiar velocities of both the observer and the supernova host galaxies relative to the cosmic rest frame, in order to infer evidence for acceleration of the expansion rate from their Hubble diagram. However, observations indicate a strong, coherent local bulk flow that continues outward without decaying out to a redshift 𝑧≳0.1, contrary to the ΛCDM expectation. By querying the halo catalogue of the Dark Sky Hubble-volume N-body simulation, we find that an observer placed in an unusual environment like our local universe should see correlations between supernovae in the JLA catalogue that are 2–8 times stronger than seen by a typical or Copernican observer. This accounts for our finding that peculiar velocity corrections have a large impact on the value of the cosmological constant inferred from supernova data. We also demonstrate that local universe-like observers will infer a downward biased value of the clustering parameter 𝑆8 from comparing the density and velocity fields. More realistic modelling of the peculiar local universe is thus essential for correctly interpreting cosmological data.
first_indexed 2024-09-25T04:22:51Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:e576ae65-49ce-4971-a01b-45e8b3bedeef
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-09-25T04:22:51Z
publishDate 2024
publisher MDPI
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:e576ae65-49ce-4971-a01b-45e8b3bedeef2024-08-16T15:57:22ZCosmological inference from within the peculiar local universeJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:e576ae65-49ce-4971-a01b-45e8b3bedeefEnglishSymplectic ElementsMDPI2024Mohayaee, RRameez, MSarkar, SThe existence of ‘peculiar’ velocities due to the formation of cosmic structure marks a point of discord between the real universe and the usually assumed Friedmann–Lemaítre–Robertson–Walker metric, which accomodates only the smooth Hubble expansion on large scales. In the standard ΛCDM model framework, Type Ia supernovae data are routinely “corrected” for the peculiar velocities of both the observer and the supernova host galaxies relative to the cosmic rest frame, in order to infer evidence for acceleration of the expansion rate from their Hubble diagram. However, observations indicate a strong, coherent local bulk flow that continues outward without decaying out to a redshift 𝑧≳0.1, contrary to the ΛCDM expectation. By querying the halo catalogue of the Dark Sky Hubble-volume N-body simulation, we find that an observer placed in an unusual environment like our local universe should see correlations between supernovae in the JLA catalogue that are 2–8 times stronger than seen by a typical or Copernican observer. This accounts for our finding that peculiar velocity corrections have a large impact on the value of the cosmological constant inferred from supernova data. We also demonstrate that local universe-like observers will infer a downward biased value of the clustering parameter 𝑆8 from comparing the density and velocity fields. More realistic modelling of the peculiar local universe is thus essential for correctly interpreting cosmological data.
spellingShingle Mohayaee, R
Rameez, M
Sarkar, S
Cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe
title Cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe
title_full Cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe
title_fullStr Cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe
title_full_unstemmed Cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe
title_short Cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe
title_sort cosmological inference from within the peculiar local universe
work_keys_str_mv AT mohayaeer cosmologicalinferencefromwithinthepeculiarlocaluniverse
AT rameezm cosmologicalinferencefromwithinthepeculiarlocaluniverse
AT sarkars cosmologicalinferencefromwithinthepeculiarlocaluniverse