Signatures of Light Massive Relics on nonlinear structure formation

TL;DR

This paper explores how Light Massive Relics influence small-scale nonlinear structure formation, proposing that future weak lensing surveys can distinguish these models from standard cosmology even when linear data cannot.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic simulation-based approach to study the nonlinear effects of Light Massive Relics on structure formation, extending analysis beyond linear scales.

Findings

LiMR effects on small scales differ from ΛCDM even with matched σ8.

Future weak lensing surveys can distinguish LiMR models from ΛCDM.

Different LiMR velocity distributions can be differentiated using small-scale probes.

Abstract

Cosmologies with Light Massive Relics (LiMRs) as a subdominant component of the dark sector are well-motivated from a particle physics perspective, and can also have implications for the $\sigma_8$ tension between early and late time probes of matter clustering. The effects of LiMRs on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and structure formation on large (linear) scales have been investigated extensively. In this paper, we initiate a systematic study of the effects of LiMRs on smaller, nonlinear scales using cosmological $N$-body simulations; focusing on quantities relevant for photometric galaxy surveys. For most of our study, we use a particular model of nonthermal LiMRs but the methods developed easily generalize to a large class of models of LiMRs -- we explicitly demonstrate this by considering the Dodelson-Widrow form of the velocity distribution. We find that, in general, the effects of LiMR on small scales are distinct from those of a $\Lambda$CDM universe, even when the value of $\sigma_8$ is matched between the models. We show that weak lensing measurements around massive clusters, between $\sim 0.1 h^{-1}$Mpc and $\sim 10 h^{-1}$Mpc, should have sufficient signal-to-noise in future surveys to distinguish between $\Lambda$CDM and LiMR models that are tuned to fit both CMB data and large (linear) scale structure data at late times. Furthermore, we find that different LiMR cosmologies which are indistinguishable by conventional linear probes can be distinguished by these probes if their velocity distributions are sufficiently different. LiMR models can, therefore, be best tested and constrained by jointly analyzing data from CMB and late-time structure formation on both large \textit{and} small scales.