Cosmological simulations for precision dark energy measurements with wide field galaxy surveys

Placeholder Show Content

Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Current and upcoming cosmological surveys are turning their eyes towards the late time universe in an attempt to answer fundamental questions about its composition and the physical laws that govern it. Given the non-linear nature of the observables studied by these surveys, perturbative modeling approaches have limited faculty. Thus, non-perturbative simulation approaches are necessary in order to connect theory with observation and harness the statistical power contained in the deluge of data that will be collected in the coming years. In this thesis, I discuss a number of efforts, all centered around using simulations to interpret data and aid analyses with wide field galaxy surveys. The first part of this thesis will focuses on a model for galaxy formation based on the evolution of dark matter halos and subhalos in high resolution N-body simulations, and its extension to large volume, low resolution lightcone simulations. I then show the application of this model to the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the most precise weak lensing survey to date. In particular, I present the suite of simulations that I created with this model and show that it agrees well with the first year of DES (DES Y1) data. I will then demonstrate how this suite was used to test the analysis choices made in the DES Y1 analysis of weak lensing and galaxy clustering. Finally, I discuss an effort to use cosmological simulations as models for highly non-linear observables in galaxy surveys. First I will present a well validated suite of simulations suitable for this type of modeling, which efficiently spans a large cosmological parameter space. I will then overview the models that we built from these simulations, and the outlook for applying them to upcoming data in order to use it to its fullest capacity.

Description

Type of resource text
Form electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource
Extent 1 online resource.
Place California
Place [Stanford, California]
Publisher [Stanford University]
Copyright date 2019; ©2019
Publication date 2019; 2019
Issuance monographic
Language English

Creators/Contributors

Author DeRose, Joseph William
Degree supervisor Wechsler, Risa H. (Risa Heyrman)
Thesis advisor Wechsler, Risa H. (Risa Heyrman)
Thesis advisor Abel, Tom G, 1970-
Thesis advisor Allen, Steven W. (Steven Ward)
Degree committee member Abel, Tom G, 1970-
Degree committee member Allen, Steven W. (Steven Ward)
Associated with Stanford University, Department of Physics.

Subjects

Genre Theses
Genre Text

Bibliographic information

Statement of responsibility Joseph William DeRose.
Note Submitted to the Department of Physics.
Thesis Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019.
Location electronic resource

Access conditions

Copyright
© 2019 by Joseph William DeRose
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Also listed in

Loading usage metrics...