Primordial Physics in the Nonlinear Universe: Towards particle constraints using the Weak lensing, Thermal SZ, and X-ray fields
Dhayaa Anbajagane
astro-ph.CO
Submitted: 2026-07-07
Comments: [v1]: Original submission, [v2]: Updated federal acknowledgements
Code: https://github.com/DhayaaAnbajagane/Vaanam
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: Primordial non-Gaussianities (PNGs) are a broad class of features in the initial density field that are connected to the particle physics of the early Universe.
Terminology
Abstract
Primordial non-Gaussianities (PNGs) are a broad class of features in the initial density field that are connected to the particle physics of the early Universe. Measuring the amplitude of these features directly constrains fundamental physics from these earliest epochs and lends insight into energy scales that cannot be probed with terrestrial experiments. Using a new class of simulation methods, we propagate these signatures to their impact on the formation of non-linear structure and quantify the constraining power in non-Gaussian summary statistics of weak lensing, thermal Sunyaev Zeldovich (tSZ), and X-ray surveys. We use semi-analytic baryon models that consistently include astrophysical effects across all these observables, and use foreground modeling approaches that explicitly fold in correlations between the various components. We find that the tSZ and X-ray fields have significant information about PNGs, and additionally can help self-calibrate a broad set of nuisance parameters/models by breaking parameter degeneracies. Using the second and third moments of the lensing, tSZ, and X-ray fields, we find a factor of 2 improvement in PNG constraints relative to using lensing alone. Larger improvements are expected when including more scales and other complementary summary statistics. Our multi-wavelength map maker can be found at https://github.com/DhayaaAnbajagane/Vaanam. The simulations and software pipelines used in this analysis are publicly available.
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