Wendy L. Freedman

Measurement of the distances to nearby galaxies have improved rapidly in recent decades. The ever-present challenge is to reduce systematic effects, especially as greater distances are probed, and the uncertainties become larger. In this paper, we combine several recent calibrations of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB) method. These calibrations are internally self-consistent at the 1% level. New Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) data provide an additional consistency check, at a (lower) 5% level of accuracy, a result of the well-documented Gaia angular covariance bias. The updated TRGB calibration applied to a distant sample of Type Ia supernovae from the Carnegie Supernova Project results in a value of the Hubble constant of Ho = 69.8 $\pm$ 0.6 (stat) $\pm$ 1.6 (sys) km/s/Mpc. No statistically significant difference is found between the value of Ho based on the TRGB and that determined from measurements of the cosmic microwave background. The TRGB results are also consistent to within 2$\sigma$ with the SHoES and Spitzer plus HST Key Project Cepheid calibrations. The TRGB results alone do not demand additional new physics beyond the standard Lambda-CDM cosmological model. They have the advantage of simplicity of the underlying physics (the core He flash) and small systematic uncertainties (from extinction, metallicity and crowding). Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of both the TRGB and Cepheids are reviewed, and prospects for addressing the current discrepancy with future Gaia, HST and JWST observations are discussed. Resolving this discrepancy is essential for ascertaining if the claimed tension in Ho between the locally-measured and the CMB-inferred value is physically motivated.

Xiaoju Xu, Saurabh Kumar, Idit Zehavi, Sergio Contreras

Understanding the impact of halo properties beyond halo mass on the clustering of galaxies (namely galaxy assembly bias) remains a challenge for contemporary models of galaxy clustering. We explore the use of machine learning to predict the halo occupations and recover galaxy clustering and assembly bias in a semi-analytic galaxy formation model. For stellar-mass selected samples, we train a Random Forest algorithm on the number of central and satellite galaxies in each dark matter halo. With the predicted occupations, we create mock galaxy catalogues and measure the clustering and assembly bias. Using a range of halo and environment properties, we find that the machine learning predictions of the occupancy variations with secondary properties, galaxy clustering and assembly bias are all in excellent agreement with those of our target galaxy formation model. Internal halo properties are most important for the central galaxies prediction, while environment plays a critical role for the satellites. Our machine learning models are all provided in a usable format. We demonstrate that machine learning is a powerful tool for modelling the galaxy-halo connection, and can be used to create realistic mock galaxy catalogues which accurately recover the expected occupancy variations, galaxy clustering and galaxy assembly bias, imperative for cosmological analyses of upcoming surveys.

Anne-Christine Davis, Scott Melville

Low-energy effective field theories containing a light scalar field are used extensively in cosmology, but often there is a tension between embedding such theories in a healthy UV completion and achieving a phenomenologically viable screening mechanism in the IR. Here, we identify the range of interaction couplings which allow for a smooth resummation of classical non-linearities (necessary for kinetic/Vainshtein-type screening), and compare this with the range allowed by unitarity, causality and locality in the underlying UV theory. The latter region is identified using positivity bounds on the $2\to2$ scattering amplitude, and in particular by considering scattering about a non-trivial background for the scalar we are able to place constraints on interactions at all orders in the field (beyond quartic order). We identify two classes of theories can both exhibit screening and satisfy existing positivity bounds, namely scalar-tensor theories of $P(X)$ or quartic Horndeski type in which the leading interaction contains an odd power of $X$. Finally, for the quartic DBI Galileon (equivalent to a disformally coupled scalar in the Einstein frame), the analogous resummation can be performed near two-body systems and imposing positivity constraints introduces a non-perturbative ambiguity in the screened scalar profile. These results will guide future searches for UV complete models which exhibit screening of fifth forces in the IR.

D. Jaffino Stargen, Kinjalk Lochan

One of the primary reasons behind the difficulty in observing the Unruh effect is that for achievable acceleration scales the finite temperature effects are significant only for the low frequency modes of the field. Since the density of field modes falls for small frequencies in free space, the field modes which are relevant for the thermal effects would be less in number to make an observably significant effect. In this work, we investigate the response of a Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to a massless scalar field which is confined in a long cylindrical cavity. The density of field modes inside such a cavity shows a {\it resonance structure} i.e. it rises abruptly for some specific cavity configurations. We show that an accelerating detector inside the cavity exhibits a non-trivial excitation and de-excitation rates for {\it small} accelerations around such resonance points. If the cavity parameters are adjusted to lie in a neighborhood of such resonance points, the (small) acceleration-induced emission rate can be made much larger than the already observable inertial emission rate. We comment on the possibilities of employing this detector-field-cavity system in the experimental realization of Unruh effect, and argue that the necessity of extremely high acceleration can be traded off in favor of precision in cavity manufacturing for realizing non-inertial field theoretic effects in laboratory settings.

James Bonifacio, Enrico Pajer, Dong-Gang Wang

Our understanding of quantum correlators in cosmological spacetimes, including those that we can observe in cosmological surveys, has improved qualitatively in the past few years. Now we know many constraints that these objects must satisfy as consequences of general physical principles, such as symmetries, unitarity and locality. Using this new understanding, we derive the most general scalar four-point correlator, i.e., the trispectrum, to all orders in derivatives for manifestly local contact interactions. To obtain this result we use techniques from commutative algebra to write down all possible scalar four-particle amplitudes without assuming invariance under Lorentz boosts. We then input these amplitudes into a contact reconstruction formula that generates a contact cosmological correlator in de Sitter spacetime from a contact scalar or graviton amplitude. We also show how the same procedure can be used to derive higher-point contact cosmological correlators. Our results further extend the reach of the boostless cosmological bootstrap and build a new connection between flat and curved spacetime physics.