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Are we alone? It is a compelling question that human beings have confronted for centuries. The search for extraterrestrial life is a broad range of quests for finding the simple forms of life up to intelligent beings in the Universe. The plausible assumption is that there is a chance that intelligent life will followed by advanced civilization equipped or even dominated by artificial intelligence (AI). In this work, we categorize the advanced civilizations (on an equal footing, an AI-dominated civilization) on the Kardashev scale. We propose a new scale known as space exploration distance to measure civilization advancement. We propose a relation between this length and the Kardashev scale. Then, we suggest the idea that advanced civilizations will use primordial black holes as sources of harvesting energy. We calculate the energy harvested by calculating the space exploration distance. Finally, we propose an observational method to detect the possibility of extraterrestrial AI using Dyson spheres-like structures around primordial black holes in the Milky Way and other galaxies., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. This paper has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ)

We consider two inhomogeneous cosmological models, namely, the flat McVittie spacetime and a simple specific LTB spacetime. Relative to the world line of a reference comoving observer that remains spatially at rest, we study the local deviations of the world lines of free test particles. These local peculiar motions can be invariantly characterized within the framework of a quasi-inertial Fermi normal coordinate system established along the world line of the reference comoving observer. Peculiar motions in the two cosmological models are briefly compared and contrasted., Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures; v2: reference [53] corrected

Studying the structures (halos and galaxies) within the cosmic environments (void, sheet, filament, and node) where they reside is an ongoing attempt in cosmological studies. The link between the properties of structures and the cosmic environments may help to unravel the nature of the dark sector of the Universe. In this paper, we study the cosmic web environments from the spatial pattern perspective in the context of $ \Lambda $CDM and $ \nu \Lambda $CDM as an example of an extension to the vanilla model. To do this, we use the T-web classification method and classify the cosmic environments for the catalogues from the gevolution N-body simulations for $ \Lambda $CDM and $ \nu \Lambda $CDM cosmology. Then, we compute the first nearest neighbour cumulative distribution function, spherical contact cumulative distribution function, and $ J$-function for every cosmic environment. In the context of the standard model, the results indicate that these functions can differentiate the various cosmic environments. In association with distinguishing between extensions of the standard model of cosmologies, these functions within the cosmic environment seem beneficial as a complementary probe., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

The McVittie-Plummer spacetime is a spherically symmetric inhomogeneous cosmological model that represents a spherical star system embedded in a standard FLRW cosmological model. We study the main physical properties of this gravitational field. Regarding the interplay between the physics of the local system and the expanding background, we employ the Misner-Sharp mass-energy function to show that there is a relatively weak time-dependent general relativistic coupling between the astrophysical system and the background FLRW cosmological model. The coupling term is proportional to the inverse of the scale factor and decreases as the universe expands., Comment: 21 pages; v2: expanded version accepted for publication in ApJ; v3: typos corrected

The large-scale structure of the Universe is distributed in a cosmic web. Studying the distribution and clustering of dark matter particles and halos may open up a new horizon for studying the physics of the dark Universe. In this work, we investigate the nearest neighbour statistics and spherical contact function in cosmological models with massive neutrinos. For this task, we use the relativistic N-body code, gevolution and study particle snapshots at three different redshifts. In each snapshot, we find the halos and evaluate the letter functions for them. We show that a generic behaviour can be found in the nearest neighbour, $G(r)$, and spherical contact functions, $F(r)$, which makes these statistics promising tools to constrain the total neutrino mass., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, 2 appendices. Published in MNRAS

We explore the cosmological implications of the local limit of nonlocal gravity, which is a classical generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation within the framework of teleparallelism. An appropriate solution of this theory is the modified Cartesian flat cosmological model. The main purpose of this paper is to study linear perturbations about the orthonormal tetrad frame field adapted to the standard comoving observers in this model. The observational viability of the perturbed model is examined using all available data regarding the cosmic microwave background. The implications of the linearly perturbed modified Cartesian flat model are examined and it is shown that the model is capable of alleviating the $H_0$ tension., Comment: 37 pages, 3 figure, 1 table; v2: expanded version accepted for publication in ApJ

Within the framework of the local limit of nonlocal gravity (NLG), we investigate a class of Bianchi type I spatially homogeneous but anisotropic cosmological models. The modified field equations are presented in this case and some special solutions are discussed in detail. This modified gravity theory contains a susceptibility function S(x) such that general relativity (GR) is recovered for S = 0. In the modified anisotropic cosmological models, we explore the contribution of S(t) and its temporal derivative to the local anisotropic cosmic acceleration. The implications of our results for observational cosmology are briefly discussed., Comment: 25 pages; v2: minor improvements, invited contribution to appear in Universe

Nonlocal gravity (NLG), a classical extension of Einstein's theory of gravitation, has been studied mainly in linearized form. In particular, nonlinearities have thus far prevented the treatment of cosmological models in NLG. In this essay, we discuss the local limit of NLG and apply this limit to the expanding homogenous and isotropic universe. The theory only allows spatially flat cosmological models; furthermore, de Sitter spacetime is forbidden. The components of the model will have different dynamics with respect to cosmic time as compared to the standard $\Lambda$CDM model; specifically, instead of the cosmological constant, the modified flat model of cosmology involves a dynamic dark energy component in order to account for the accelerated phase of the expansion of the universe., Comment: Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2023 Awards for Essays on Gravitation

We describe a general constitutive framework for a teleparallel extension of the general theory of relativity. This approach goes beyond the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity (TEGR) by broadening the analogy with the electrodynamics of media. In particular, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate in detail a local constitutive extension of TEGR that is the local limit of nonlocal gravity (NLG). Within this framework, we study the modified FLRW cosmological models. Of these, the most cogent turns out to be the modified Cartesian flat model which is shown to be inconsistent with the existence of a positive cosmological constant. Moreover, dynamic dark energy and other components of the modified Cartesian flat model evolve differently with the expansion of the universe as compared to the standard flat cosmological model. The observational consequences of the modified Cartesian flat model are briefly explored and it is shown that the model is capable of resolving the H_0 tension., Comment: 30 pages; v2: expanded discussion of the modified flat model regarding H_0 tension; v3: treatment expanded, presentation improved

Structures in the Universe are arranged into the cosmic web. Distributions, statistics, and evolutions of the structures can be used as probes for cosmological models. We investigate the number density of voids and dark matter halos-in-voids in the Excursion Set Theory (EST). We study the Markov and non-Markov frameworks of EST in both spherical and ellipsoidal collapse models. Afterward, we compare the number density of voids and halos-in-voids in the standard $\Lambda$CDM and the reconstructed model. The reconstructed model is a model-independent reconstruction based on background observations. This work explores the effects of the collapse model barrier in the different EST frameworks on the statistics of voids and the statistics of halos-in-voids. Finally, we find the hint that cosmological models can be distinguished by the number density of halos-in-voids in the $1.0-2.5$ redshift range. The maximum difference is observed in $z\sim1.9$., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures. Final Version. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We discuss an implementation of a deep learning framework to gain insight into dark matter (DM) structure formation. We investigate the impact of initial velocity and density field information on the construction of halo mass function (HMF) through cosmological $N$-body simulations. We train a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) on the initial snapshot of a DM-only simulation to predict the HMF that individual particles fall into at $z=0$, in the halo mass range of $10.5< \log(M / M_{\odot})<14$. Our results show a negligible improvement from including the velocity in addition to the density information when considering simulations based on ($\Lambda$CDM) with the amplitude of initial scalar perturbations $A_s = 2\times10^{-9}$. To investigate the effect of the initial velocity field in constructing the halo mass function, we increase the initial power spectrum such that we see the effect of velocities in larger halos visible to the resolution of our simulations. The CNN model trained on the simulation snapshots with large $A_s$ shows a considerable improvement in the HMF prediction when adding the velocity field information. Eventually, for the simulation with $A_s = 8 \times 10^{-8}$, the model trained with only density information shows at least $80\%$ increase in the mean squared error relative to the model with both velocity and density information, which indicates the failure of the density-only model to predict the halo mass function in this case. Our work shows the interpretability and ability of CNNs to read higher-order information from simple images, making them an excellent tool for cosmological studies., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 1 table

In non-linear scales, the matter density distribution is not Gaussian. Consequently, the widely used two-point correlation function is not adequate anymore to capture the matter density field's entire behaviour. Among all statistics beyond correlation functions, the spherical contact (or equivalently void function), and nearest neighbour distribution function seem promising tools to probe matter distribution in non-linear regime. In this work, we use halos from cosmological N-body simulations, galaxy groups from the volume-limited galaxy group and central galaxies from mock galaxy catalogues, to compare the spherical contact with the nearest neighbour distribution functions. We also calculate the J-function (or equivalently the first conditional correlation function), for different samples. Moreover, we consider the redshift evolution and mass-scale dependence of statistics in the simulations and dependence on the magnitude of volume-limited samples in group catalogues as well as the mock central galaxies. The shape of the spherical contact probability distribution function is nearly skew-normal, with skewness and kurtosis being approximately 0.5 and 3, respectively. On the other hand, the nearest neighbour probability distribution function is nearly log-normal, with logarithmic skewness and kurtosis being approximately 0.1 and 2.5, respectively. Accordingly, the spherical contact distribution function probes larger scales compared to the nearest neighbour distribution function, which is influenced by details of structures. We also find a linear relation between the mean and variance of the spherical contact probability distribution function in simulations and mock galaxies, which could be used as a distinguishing probe of cosmological models., Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, 11 tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We study primordial black holes (PBHs) formation in the excursion set theory (EST) in a vast range of PBHs masses with and without confirmed constraints on their abundance. In this work, we introduce a new concept of the first touch in the context of EST for PBHs formation. This new framework takes into account the earlier horizon reentry of smaller masses. Our study shows that in the EST, it is possible to produce PBHs in different mass range, with enhanced power spectrum, which could make up all dark matter. We also show that in a broad blue-tilted power spectrum, the production of PBHs is dominated by smaller masses. Our analysis put an upper limit $\sim\,$0.1 on the amplitude of the curvature power spectrum at length scales relevant for PBHs formation., Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The observed discrepancy of the Hubble parameter measurements in the local universe with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data may indicate a new physics. It is vital to test the alternative models that reconcile the Hubble tension with other cosmological observations in this direction. The CMB lensing is a crucial observation that relates the early universe perturbations to the matter's late-time distribution. In this work, we study the prediction of the \"u$\Lambda$CDM as a solution for $H_0$ tension for CMB lensing and the low- and high-$\ell$'s temperature (TT) power spectrum internal inconsistency. We show that this model relaxes the low- and high-$\ell$'s TT mild inconsistency and the CMB lensing tensions simultaneously. Accordingly, \"u$\Lambda$CDM having the same number of free parameters as $\Lambda$CDM with lensing amplitude $A_L$ added, has a better fit with $\Delta \chi^2=-3.3$., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D

The Hubble tension may introduce a new course of action to revise the standard $\Lambda$CDM model to unravel dark energy and dark matter physics. The Hubble parameter can be reconstructed by late-time observations of the background evolution model independently. We relate the reconstructed Hubble parameter to the structure formation and large scale structure observables in this work. We use the excursion set theory to calculate the number density of dark matter halos and the mass function of progenitors. We obtain the results for both the Markov and non-Markov extension of the excursion set theory in the context of spherical and ellipsoidal collapse. We show that the number density of dark matter halos in the reconstructed model has approximately $\sim2\sigma$ difference in comparison to the Planck-2018 $\Lambda$CDM in the mass range of $M\gtrsim10^{12}M_{\odot}$. We also compare the dark matter halo progenitor mass function with the pair-galaxy statistics and their mass assembly history from observational data of the HST, CANDEL survey. Due to complications to distinguish the ratio of accretion and merger in mass assembly, our result on pair fraction is for illustration only. However, a $\sim5$ times more accurate observations will be promising to distinguish the reconstructed model and the Planck-2018 $\Lambda$CDM., Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM) is one of the recent models for dark matter. According to this model, dark matter is made of very light scalar particles with considerable quantum mechanical effects on the galactic scale, which solves many problems of the cold dark matter (CDM). Here we use the observed data from the rotation curve of the Milky Way (MW) Galaxy to compare the results from FDM and CDM models. We show FDM adds a local peak on the rotation curve close to the center of the bulge, where its position and amplitude depend on the mass of FDM particles. By fitting the observed rotation curve with our expectation from FDM, we find that the mass of FDM is $m = 2.5^{+3.6}_{-2.0} \times10^{-21}$eV. We note that the local peak of the rotation curve in MW can also be explained in the CDM model with an extra inner bulge model for the MW Galaxy. We conclude that the FDM model explains this peak without a need for extra structure for the bulge., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. Final published version

The galactic scale challenges of dark matter such as "missing satellite" problem and "too big to fail" problem are the main caveats of standard model of cosmology. These challenges could be solved either by implementing the complicated baryonic physics or it could be considered as an indication to a new physics beyond the standard model of cosmology. The modification of collisionless dark matter models or the standard initial conditions are two promising venues for study. In this work, we investigate the effects of the deviations from scale invariant initial curvature power spectrum on number density of dark matter halos. We develop the non-Markov extension of the excursion set theory to calculate the number density of dark matter substructures and dark matter halo progenitor mass distribution. We show that the plausible solution to "too big to fail" problem could be obtained by a Gaussian excess in initial power in the scales of $k_* \sim 3 \text{h/Mpc}$ that is related to the mass scale of $M_* \sim 10^{11} M_{\odot}$. We show that this deviation leads to the decrement of dark matter sub-halos in galactic scale, which is consistent with the current status of the non-linear power spectrum. Our proposal also has a prediction that the number density of Milky way type galaxies must be higher than the standard case., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. Final published version

One of the challenging questions in cosmology is the nature of dark matter particles. Fuzzy Dark Matter (FDM) is one of the candidates which is made of very light ($m_{FDM}\simeq 10^{-22}-10^{-21}$ eV) bosonic particles with no self-interaction. It is introduced by the motivation to solve the core-cusp problem in the galactic halos. In this work, we investigate the observational features from FDM halo collisions. Taking into account the quantum wave-length of the condensed bosonic structure, we determine the interference of the wave function of cores after collision. The fringe formation in the wave function is associated to the density contrast of the dark matter inside the colliding galaxies. The observational signatures of the fringes of the distribution of the dark matter are (i) on the lensing of the background sources, (ii) accumulation of the baryonic plasma tracking the interference of the FDM potential and (iii) excess in the X-ray emission from dense regions. Finally, we provide prospects for the observations of quantum wave features of FDM in the colliding galaxies. The NGC6240 colliding galaxy at the redshift of $z=0.024$ is a suitable candidate for this study. No signal is detected from the fringes in the Chandra data and taking into account the angular resolution of the telescope, we put constrain of $m> 7 \times10^{-23}$ eV on the mass of FDM particles., Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures. Comments are welcome

We propose an analytical approach to study non-Markov random walks by employing an exact enumeration method. Using the method, we derive an exact expansion for the first-passage time (FPT) distribution for any continuous, differentiable non-Markov random walk with Gaussian or non-Gaussian multivariate distribution. As an example, we study the FPT distribution of a fractional Brownian motion with a Hurst exponent $H\in(1/2,1)$ that describes numerous non-Markov stochastic phenomena in physics, biology and geology, and for which the limit $H=1/2$ represents a Markov process., Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, 1 table and 5 appendices. Published version

The observed hemispherical power asymmetry in cosmic microwave background radiation can be explained by long wavelength mode (long-mode) modulation. In this work we study the prospect of the detection of this effect in the angular power spectrum of 21-cm brightness temperature. For this task, we study the effect of the neutral Hydrogen distribution on the angular power spectrum. This is done by formulating the bias parameter of ionized fraction to the underlying matter distribution. We also discuss the possibility that the long mode modulation is companied with a primordial non-Gaussianity of local type. In this case, we obtain the angular power spectrum with two effects of primordial non-Gaussianity and long mode modulation. Finally, we show that the primordial non-Gaussianity enhances the long mode modulated power of 21-cm signal via the non-Gaussian scale-dependent bias up to four orders of magnitude. {Accordingly, the observation of 21-cm signal with upcoming surveys such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is probably capable of detecting hemispherical power asymmetry in the context of the long mode modulation., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, final version. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

The universe in large scales is structured as a network known as cosmic web. Filaments are one of the structural components of this web, which can be introduced as a novel probe to study the formation and evolution of structures and as a probe to study the cosmological models and to address the missing baryon problem. The aim of this work is to introduce an analytical framework to study the statistics of filaments such as number density of them and also to obtain the length-mass relation. For this objective, we model filaments as collapsed objects which have an extension in one direction, accordingly we use the ellipsoidal collapse to study the evolution of an over-dense region via gravitational instability. %In this context, we consider the critical density of filament formation, which will be a crucial parameter for number density count. We find that the nonlinear density of filaments in the epoch of formation is almost mass independent and is in order of $\sim 30$. By introducing {\it{filament's extended condition}} we find a fitting function for length-mass relation. For the statistics of filaments, we propose a novel framework named excursion set of saddle points. In this approach, we count the saddle points of the density field Hessian matrix, and relate it to the count of filaments. In addition, we addressed the filament in filament problem with up-crossing approximation., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, Final Version. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

The excursion set approach is a framework for estimating how the number density of nonlinear structures in the cosmic web depends on the expansion history of the universe and the nature of gravity. A key part of the approach is the estimation of the first crossing distribution of a suitably chosen barrier by random walks having correlated steps: The shape of the barrier is determined by the physics of nonlinear collapse, and the correlations between steps by the nature of the initial density fluctuation field. We describe analytic and numerical methods for calculating such first up-crossing distributions. While the exact solution can be written formally as an infinite series, we show how to approximate it efficiently using the Stratonovich approximation. We demonstrate its accuracy using Monte-Carlo realizations of the walks, which we generate using a novel Cholesky-decomposition based algorithm, which is significantly faster than the algorithm that is currently in the literature., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We propose a cosmological model, \"u$\Lambda$CDM, based on {\it \"uber-gravity}, which is a canonical ensemble average of many theories of gravity. In this model, we have a sharp transition from (a purely) $\Lambda$CDM era to a phase in which the Ricci scalar is a constant. This transition occurs when the Ricci scalar reaches a critical scale or alternatively at a transition redshift, $z_\oplus$. We use the observations of baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) and Supernovae Ia (SNe), as well as the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data to constrain \"u$\Lambda$CDM. This yields $H_0=70.6_{-1.3}^{+1.1}$ km/s/Mpc, $\Omega_m=0.2861 \pm{0.0092} $ and $z_\oplus=0.537_{-0.375}^{+0.277}$, providing a marginally better fit with a Akaike information criterion of 0.8. %After adding in the data from BAO in the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest in quasar spectra, we get $\Delta\chi^2=-2.14$, where the best fit occurs at $H_0=71.2_{-1.5}^{+1.8}$ km/s/Mpc, $\Omega_m=0.280\pm 0.013$ and $z_{\oplus}= 0.41^{+0.31}_{-0.29}$. Therefore, \"u$\Lambda$CDM can ease the $H_0$-tension, albeit marginally, with one additional free parameter. We also provide a preliminary study of the linear perturbation theory in \"u$\Lambda$CDM which points to interesting potential {\it smoking guns} in the observations of large scales structure at $z < z_{\oplus}$., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. CMB data has been added. Title has been changed. This version is compatible with the published one in PRD. Comments are welcome

The standard model of cosmology with nearly Gaussian, isotropic, scale invariant and adiabatic initial conditions describes the cosmological observations well. However, the study of any deviation from the mentioned conditions will open up a new horizon to the physics of early universe. In this work, we study the effect of the oscillatory and step-like features in potentials of inflationary models in late time large scale structure observations. Mainly we study the matter power spectrum, number density of the structures, dark matter halo bias and specifically CMB lensing. We show that the oscillatory models can introduce some degeneracy with late time effects on BAO scale. We also conclude that high frequency oscillatory models which are favored by Planck data do not have significant effect on the non linear structure formation. Finally we show that inflationary models with step functions which deviates from the standard model in small scales $l \leq 1 Mpc$ can be constrained by future experiments via CMB lensing. We propose the idea that CMB lensing is a bias independent observation which can be used as a small scale physics probe due to distribution of the lenses in low redshifts. Meantime this model can alter the prediction of the cosmological model for the number density of small structures and can be used as a probable explanation for galactic scale crisis of $\Lambda$CDM., Comment: 23 pages, 24 figures, final version

We propose a new method to use the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich for measuring the baryon fraction in cluster of galaxies. In this proposal we need a configuration in which a supernova Type Ia resides in a brightest cluster galaxy of intermediate redshift clusters. We show this supernova Type Ia can be used to measure the bulk velocity of a galaxy cluster. We assert that the redshift range of $0.4

We contribute another anisotropy study to this field of research using Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). In this work, we utilise the power spectrum calculation method and apply it to both the current SNe Ia data and simulation. Using the Union2.1 data set at all redshifts, we compare the spectrum of the residuals of the observed distance moduli to that expected from an isotropic universe affected by the Union2.1 observational uncertainties at low multipoles. Through this comparison we find a dipolar anisotropy with tension of less that $2\sigma$ towards $l =171^\circ \pm 21^\circ$ and $b=-26^\circ \pm 28^\circ$ which is mainly induced by anisotropic spatial distribution of the SNe with $z > 0.2$ rather than being a cosmic effect. Furthermore, we find a tension of $\sim 4\sigma$ at $\ell=4$ between the two spectra. Our simulations are constructed with the characteristics of the upcoming surveys like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which shall bring us the largest SNe Ia collection to date. We make predictions for the amplitude of a possible dipolar anisotropy that would be detectable by future SNe Ia surveys., Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, final version

Excursion set theory (EST) is an analytical framework to study the large-scale structure of the Universe. EST introduces a procedure to calculate the number density of structures by relating the cosmological linear perturbation theory to the nonlinear structures in late time. In this work, we introduce a novel approach to reformulate the EST in matrix formalism. We propose that the matrix representation of EST will facilitate the calculations in this framework. The method is to discretize the two-dimensional plane of variance and density contrast of EST, where the trajectories for each point in the Universe lived there. The probability of having a density contrast in a chosen variance is represented by a probability ket. Naturally, the concept of the transition matrix pops up to define the trajectories. We also define the probability transition rate which is used to obtain the first up-crossing of trajectories and the number count of the structures. In this work we show that the discretization let us study the non-Markov processes by forcing them to look like a Wiener process. Also we discuss that the zero drift processes with Gaussian and also non-Gaussian initial conditions can be studied by this formalism. The continuous limit of the formalism is discussed, and the known Fokker-Planck dispersion equation is recovered. Finally we show that the probability of the most massive progenitors can be extracted in this framework., Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, final version

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation lensing is a promising tool to study the physics of early universe. In this work we probe the imprints of deviations from isotropy and scale invariance of primordial curvature perturbation power spectrum on CMB lensing potential and convergence. Specifically, we consider a scale-dependent hemispherical asymmetry in primordial power spectrum. We show that the CMB lensing potential and convergence and also the cross-correlation of the CMB lensing and late time galaxy convergence can probe the amplitude and the scale dependence of the dipole modulation. As another example, we consider a primordial power spectrum with local feature. We show that the CMB lensing and the cross-correlation of the CMB lensing and galaxy lensing can probe the amplitude and the shape of the local feature. We show that the cross correlation of CMB lensing convergence and galaxy lensing is capable to probe the effects of local features in power spectrum on smaller scales than the CMB lensing. Finally we showed that the current data can constrain the amplitude and moment dependence of dipole asymmetry., Comment: 18 pages, 22 figures, published in JCAP, Final Version

Cross correlation of the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe signal (ISW) with the galaxy distribution in late time is a promising tool for constraining the dark energy properties. Here, we study the effect of dark energy clustering on the ISW-galaxy cross correlation and demonstrate the fact that the bias parameter between the distribution of the galaxies and the underlying dark matter introduces a degeneracy and complications. We argue that as the galaxy's host halo formation time is different from the observation time, we have to consider the evolution of the halo bias parameter. It will be shown that any deviation from $\Lambda$CDM model will change the evolution of the bias as well. Therefore, it is deduced that the halo bias depends strongly on the sub-sample of galaxies which is chosen for cross correlation and that the joint kernel of ISW effect and the galaxy distribution has a dominant effect on the observed signal. In this work, comparison is made specifically between the clustered dark energy models using two samples of galaxies. The first one is a sub-sample of galaxies from Sloan Digital Sky Survey, chosen with the r-band magnitude $18 < r < 21$ and the dark matter halo host of mass $M \sim10^{12}M_{\odot}$ and formation redshift of $z_{f}\sim 2.5$. The second one is the sub-sample of Luminous Red galaxies with the dark matter halo hosts of mass $M \sim 10^{13}M_{\odot}$ and formation redshift of $z_{f}\sim 2.0$. Using the evolved bias we improve the $\chi^2$ for the $\Lambda$CDM which reconciles the $\sim$1$\sigma$-2$\sigma$ tension of the ISW-galaxy signal with $\Lambda$CDM prediction.[abridged], Comment: 21 pages, 20 figures and 1 table. Published in JCAP, final version. Extensive discussion is added in Section V

In this work we address the issue of peculiar velocity measurement in a perturbed Friedmann universe using the deviations from measured luminosity distances of standard candles from background FRW universe. We want to show and quantify the statement that in intermediate redshifts ($0.5< z < 2$), deviations from the background FRW model are not uniquely governed by peculiar velocities. Luminosity distances are modified by gravitational lensing. We also want to indicate the importance of relativistic calculations for peculiar velocity measurement at all redshifts. For this task we discuss the relativistic correction on luminosity distance and redshift measurement and show the contribution of each of the corrections as lensing term, peculiar velocity of the source and Sachs-Wolfe effect. Then we use the SNe Ia sample of Union 2, to investigate the relativistic effects we consider. We show that, using the conventional peculiar velocity method, that ignores the lensing effect, will result in an overestimate of the measured peculiar velocities at intermediate redshifts. Here we quantify this effect. We show that at low redshifts the lensing effect is negligible compare to the effect of peculiar velocity. From the observational point of view, we show that the uncertainties on luminosity of the present SNe Ia data prevent us from precise measuring the peculiar velocities even at low redshifts ($z<0.2$)., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 27, 1850019 (2018)

We propose a new probe to test the nature of gravity at various redshifts through large-scale cosmological observations. We use our void catalog, extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, DR10), to trace the distribution of matter along the lines of sight to SNe Ia that are selected from the Union 2 catalog. We study the relation between SNe Ia luminosities and convergence and also the peculiar velocities of the sources. We show that the effects, on SNe Ia luminosities, of convergence and of peculiar velocities predicted by the theory of general relativity and theories of modified gravities are different and hence provide a new probe of gravity at various redshifts. We show that the present sparse large-scale data does not allow us to determine any statistically- significant deviation from the theory of general relativity but future more comprehensive surveys should provide us with means for such an exploration., Comment: Essay received honorable mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2014 essay competition. To appear in IJMPD. 10 pages, 2 figures

We study the predictions of anomalous inflationary models on the abundance of structures in large scale structure observations. The anomalous features encoded in primordial curvature perturbation power spectrum are (a): localized feature in momentum space, (b): hemispherical asymmetry and (c): statistical anisotropies. We present a model-independent expression relating the number density of structures to the changes in the matter density variance. Models with localized feature can alleviate the tension between observations and numerical simulations of cold dark matter structures on galactic scales as a possible solution to the missing satellite problem. In models with hemispherical asymmetry we show that the abundance of structures becomes asymmetric depending on the direction of observation to sky. In addition, we study the effects of scale-dependent dipole amplitude on the abundance of structures and, using the quasars data, we find the upper bound $n_A<0.6$ for the spectral index of the dipole asymmetry. In all cases there is a critical mass scale $M_c$ in which for $M M_c)$ the enhancement in variance induced from anomalous feature decreases (increases) the abundance of dark matter structures in Universe., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, published in JCAP, Final Version

The observed hemispherical asymmetry in CMB map can be explained by modulation from a long wavelength super horizon mode which non-linearly couples to the CMB modes. We address the criticism in [1] about the role of non-Gaussianities in squeezed and equilateral configurations in generating hemispherical asymmetry from the long mode modulation. We stress that the modulation is sensitive to the non-Gaussianity in the squeezed limit. In addition, we demonstrate the validity of our approach in providing a consistency condition relating the amplitude of dipole asymmetry to f_{NL} in the squeezed limit., Comment: References added, JCAP published version

We study the time variation of the apparent flux of cosmological point sources due to the transient weak lensing by dark matter microhaloes. Assuming a transverse motion of microhaloes with respect to our line of sight, we derive the correspondence between the temporal power spectrum of the weak lensing magnification, and the spatial power spectrum of density on small scales. Considering different approximations for the small scale structure of dark matter, we predict the apparent magnitude of cosmological point sources to vary by as much as $10^{-4}-10^{-3}$, due to this effect, within a period of a few months. This red photometric noise has an almost perfect gaussian statistics, to one part in $\sim 10^4$. We also compare the transient weak lensing power spectrum with the background effects such as the stellar microlensing on cosmological scales. A quasar lensed by a galaxy or cluster like SDSSJ1004+4112 strong lensing system, with multiple images, is a suitable system for this study as: (i) using the time-delay method between different images, we can remove the intrinsic variations of the quasar, and (ii) strong lensing enhances signals from the transient weak lensing. We also require the images to form at large angular separations from the center of the lensing structure, in order to minimize contamination by the stellar microlensing. With long-term monitoring of quasar strong lensing systems with a 10-meter class telescope, we can examine the existence of dark microhaloes as the building blocks of dark matter structures. Failure to detect this signal may either be caused by a breakdown of cold dark matter (CDM) hierarchy on small scales, or rather interpreted as evidence against CDM paradigm, e.g. in favor of modified gravity models., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures

In this work we study the simultaneous effect of primordial non-Gaussianity and the modification of the gravity in $f(R)$ framework on large scale structure observations. We show that non-Gaussianity and modified gravity introduce a scale dependent bias and growth rate functions. The deviation from $\Lambda$CDM in the case of primordial non-Gaussian models is in large scales, while the growth rate deviates from $\Lambda$CDM in small scales for modified gravity theories. We show that the redshift space distortion can be used to distinguish positive and negative $f_{NL}$ in standard background, while in $f(R)$ theories they are not easily distinguishable. The galaxy power spectrum is generally enhanced in presence of non-Gaussianity and modified gravity. We also obtain the scale dependence of this enhancement. Finally we define galaxy growth rate and galaxy growth rate bias as new observational parameters to constrain cosmology., Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, published in JCAP, Final Version

The observed dipole asymmetry in Cosmic Microwave Background radiation may have originated from the modulations of super-horizon long wavelength modes. In this work we unveil different aspects of asymmetries generated from the long wavelength mode modulations. We show that the same mechanism which leads to the observed CMB power spectrum dipole asymmetry from the long mode modulations also yields dipole asymmetry in (a): tensor perturbations power spectrum and (b): the halo bias parameter. These are different phenomena relevant to different cosmological histories but both share the same underlying mechanism in generating asymmetries in the sky. We obtain the set of consistency conditions relating the amplitude of dipole asymmetries generated on tensor perturbations and halo bias parameter to the amplitude of dipole asymmetry generated on CMB power spectrum. In addition, we show that this mechanism does not produce dipole asymmetry in acceleration expansion in $\Lambda CDM$ universe because the super-horizon curvature perturbation is conserved in this background., Comment: V2: Discussions improved, the analysis of dipole asymmetry in dark energy is revised

In this paper we provide a consistency relation between the amplitude of the hemispherical bipolar asymmetry, $A$, and the amplitude of the primordial non-Gaussianity in the squeezed limit, $f_{NL}$, as $|A| \lesssim 10^{-1} f_{NL}$. We demonstrate that this consistency condition is at work for any model of inflation in which the curvature perturbations is sourced by a single light field with the Bunch-Davies initial condition, irrespective of the number of inflation fields which contribute to the background inflationary expansion. As a non-trivial example, we show that observable hemispherical asymmetry can be generated in single field non-attractor inflationary models. We also study hemispherical asymmetry generated in the models of multiple fields inflation. We show that $A$ is controlled by the weighted sum of non-Gaussianity contribution from each field. In particular, we show that observable hemispherical asymmetry can be generated in models where inhomogeneities are generated from a light scalar field modulating the surface of end of inflation., Comment: V2: discussions improved, Eqs. (48) and (49) added, new references added

In this work we study the large scale structure bias in models of anisotropic inflation. We use the Peak Background Splitting method in Excursion Set Theory to find the scale-dependent bias. We show that the amplitude of the bias is modified by a direction- dependent factor. In the specific anisotropic inflation model which we study, the scale- dependent bias vanishes at leading order when the long wavelength mode in squeezed limit is aligned with the anisotropic direction in the sky. We also extend the scale-dependent bias formulation to the general situations with primordial anisotropy. We find some selection rules indicating that some specific parts of a generic anisotropic bispectrum is picked up by the bias parameter. We argue that the anisotropic bias is mainly sourced by the angle between the anisotropic direction and the long wavelength mode in the squeezed limit., Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, published in JCAP, Final Version

One of the open questions of modern cosmology is the nature and properties of the Dark Matter halo and its substructures. In this work we study the gravitational effect of dark matter substructures on pulsar timing observations. Since millisecond pulsars are stable and accurate emitters, they have been proposed as plausible astrophysical tools to probe the gravitational effects of dark matter structures. We study this effect on pulsar timing through Shapiro time delay (or Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect) and Doppler effects statistically, showing that the latter dominates the signal. For this task, we relate the power spectrum of pulsar frequency change to the matter power spectrum on small scales, which we compute using the stable clustering hypothesis. We compare this power spectrum with the reach of current and future observations of pulsar timing designed for gravitational wave (GW) detection. Our results show that while current observations are unable to detect these signals, the sensitivity of the upcoming Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is only a factor of few weaker than our optimistic predictions., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Final Version

In this work, we study the large scale structure formation in the modified gravity in the framework of Palatini formalism and compare the results with the equivalent smooth dark energy models as a tool to distinguish between these models. Through the inverse method, we reconstruct the dynamics of universe, modified gravity action and the structure formation indicators like the screened mass function and gravitational slip parameter. Consequently, we extract the matter density power spectrum for these two models in the linear regime and show that the modified gravity and dark energy models predictions are slightly different from each other at large scales. It is also shown that the growth index in the modified gravity unlike to the dark energy models is a scale dependent parameter. We also compare the results with those from the modified gravity in the metric formalism. The modification on the structure formation can also change the CMB spectrum at large scales however due to the cosmic variance it is hard to detect this signature. We show that a large number of SNIa data in the order of 2000 will enable us to reconstruct the modified gravity action with a suitable confidence level and test the cosmic acceleration models by the structure formation., Comment: 33 pages, 21 figures, accepted in JCAP

We introduce in $f(R)$ gravity--Palatini formalism the method of inverse problem to extract the action from the expansion history of the universe. First, we use an ansatz for the scale factor and apply the inverse method to derive an appropriate action for the gravity. In the second step we use the Supernova Type Ia data set from the Union sample and obtain a smoothed function for the Hubble parameter up to the redshift~1.7. We apply the smoothed Hubble parameter in the inverse approach and reconstruct the corresponding action in $f(R)$ gravity. In the next step we investigate the viability of reconstruction method, doing a Monte-Carlo simulation we generate synthetic SNIa data with the quality of union sample and show that roughly more than 1500 SNIa data is essential to reconstruct correct action. Finally with the enough SNIa data, we propose two diagnosis in order to distinguish between the $\Lambda$CDM model and an alternative theory for the acceleration of the universe., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev. D

{\bf{CONTEXT}}: In this work we propose a modified gravity action $f(R)=(R^n-R^n_{0})^{1/n}$ with two free parameters of $n$ and $R_{0}$ and derive the dynamics of a universe for this action in the Palatini formalism. {\bf {AIM}}: We do a cosmological comparison of this model with observed data to find the best parameters of a model in a flat universe. {\bf{METHOD}}: To constrain the free parameters of model we use SNIa type Ia data in two sets of gold and union samples, CMB-shift parameter, baryon acoustic oscillation, gas mass fraction in cluster of galaxies, and large-scale structure data. {\bf {RESULT}}: The best fit from the observational data results in the parameters of model in the range of $n=0.98^{+0.08}_{-0.08}$ and $\Omega_M = 0.25_{+0.1}^{-0.1}$ with one sigma level of confidence where a standard $\Lambda$CDM universe resides in this range of solution. PACS numbers: 04.50.+h, 95.36.+x, 98.80.-k, Comment: 16 pages, 17 figures

In this work we study the dynamics of universe in $f(R)=\sqrt{R^2-R_{0}^2}$ modified gravity with Palatini formalism. We use data from recent observations as Supernova Type Ia (SNIa) Gold sample and Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) data, size of baryonic acoustic peak from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the position of the acoustic peak from the CMB observations and large scale structure formation (LSS) from the 2dFGRS survey to put constraint on the parameters of the model. To check the consistency of this action, we compare the age of old cosmological objects with the age of universe. In the combined analysis with the all the observations, we find the parameters of model as $R_0=6.192_{-0.177}^{+0.167}\times H_0^2$ and $\Omega_m=0.278_{-0.278}^{+0.273}$., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures

Here in this work we propose a modified gravity with the action of $f(R) = \sqrt{R^2 - R_0^2}$ instead of Einstein-Hilbert action to describe the late time acceleration of the universe. We obtain the equation of the modified gravity both in the metric and Palatini formalisms. An asymptotic solution of gravity equations corresponding to a constant Ricci scalar causes a late time acceleration of the universe. We do a conformal transformation in the action of the modified gravity and obtain the equivalent minimally coupled scalar-tensor gravity. The equivalent Brans-Dicke gravity of this model is also studied. To examine this model with the observation, the perihelion Precession of the Mercury is compared with our prediction and we put an upper constraint of $R_0