Cosmology in 3-D and from the Planck spacecraft
We have entered a time of precision cosmology where our models for the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe can be tested using measurements from the ground and from spacecraft. Surveys can map the distribution of objects in space and time, while missions like Planck can examine the radiation from the earliest accessible times. The LSSVSCMB (The interplay of large scale structure and the cosmic microwave background radiation) project worked in two main domains. The first was for the development of tools for analysis of the data from the first long-term Javalambre surveys, Javalambre-Photometric Local Universe Survey (J-PLUS) and Javalambre Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS), to be carried out with The Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA) telescopes of the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre. The second was collaboration in large international projects like Planck and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). The Cosmology Group at CEFCA has been in charge of the cosmological exploitation of the surveys, within the J-PAS Collaboration. The Group has written algorithms that compute two-point galaxy statistics and are able to handle the photo-z probability density distributions as input. The Group also worked on reconstruction techniques for baryonic acoustic oscillations, and investigated the sensitivity of the Javalambre surveys to redshift space distortions. There was important activity within the Planck collaboration. The project led work on the Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect, leading to several publications. A leadership role was also taken for research into bulk flows and the kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, with two more papers published by the collaboration. Special mention is warranted of the article published in Physical Review Letters: 'Constraints on the Missing Baryon from the Kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect in Planck Data', presenting the detection of about half the previously 'missing' baryons in the universe, in the form of gas clouds surrounding halos. This has proven to be a result of high impact in cosmology that has also been widely discussed in the popular media.
Keywords
Cosmology, Planck spacecraft, universe, radiation, LSSVSCMB, Javalambre surveys
