University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The distribution of dark matter at large scales and in gravitational lenses

Wen, Di

Content Files
WEN-DISSERTATION-2020.pdf

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/109630

Description

Title
The distribution of dark matter at large scales and in gravitational lenses
Author(s)
Wen, Di
Issue Date
2020-12-03
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Kemball, Athol J
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Kemball, Athol J
Committee Member(s)
  • Fields, Brian D
  • Shen, Yue
  • Liu, Xin
Department of Study
Astronomy
Discipline
Astronomy
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2021-03-05T21:47:32Z
Keyword(s)
  • cosmology
  • dark matter
  • dark energy
  • counts-in-cells
  • large-scale structure
  • gravitational lensing
  • primordial black hole
  • flux ratio anomaly
Abstract
The nature of dark matter and dark energy is one of the most important unsolved problems in cosmology. The distribution of dark matter at cosmological scales, galactic scales and subgalactic scales all reveal complementary aspects of the physics of dark matter. The broadest set of probes for dark energy are necessary to constrain the dark energy equation of state and to distinguish dark energy models. In this thesis, I review the application of counts-in-cells probability distribution functions in measuring the clustering of large-scale structures in cosmology. I examine the counts-in-cells probability distribution functions that describe dark matter halos in the Dark Energy Universe Simulations (DEUS) and describe the measurements between redshifts $z=0$ to $z=4$ on both linear and non-linear scales. The best-fits of the gravitational quasi-equilibrium distribution (GQED), the negative binomial distribution (NBD), the Poisson-Lognormal distribution (PLN), and the Poisson-Lognormal distribution with a bias parameter (PLNB) are compared to simulations. The distributions agree reasonably well over a range of redshifts and scales. To distinguish quintessence (RPCDM) and phantom ($w$CDM) dark energy from $\Lambda$ dark energy, I present a new method that compares the model parameters of the counts-in-cells probability distribution functions. I find that the mean and variance of the halo counts-in-cells on $2-25h^{-1}$Mpc scales within a redshift range of $0.65
Graduation Semester
2020-12
Type of Resource
Thesis
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/109630
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2020 Di Wen

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Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
Graduate Theses and Dissertations at Illinois
Dissertations and Theses - Astronomy