Nonzero Density-Velocity Consistency Relations for Large Scale Structures.

We present exact kinematic consistency relations for cosmological structures that do not vanish at equal times and can thus be measured in surveys. These rely on cross correlations between the density and velocity, or momentum, fields. Indeed, the uniform transport of small-scale structures by long-wavelength modes, which cannot be detected at equal times by looking at density correlations only, gives rise to a shift in the amplitude of the velocity field that could be measured. These consistency relations only rely on the weak equivalence principle and Gaussian initial conditions. They remain valid in the nonlinear regime and for biased galaxy fields. They can be used to constrain nonstandard cosmological scenarios or the large-scale galaxy bias.

Merging and fragmentation in the Burgers dynamics.

We explore the noiseless Burgers dynamics in the inviscid limit, the so-called "adhesion model" in cosmology, in a regime where (almost) all the fluid particles are embedded within pointlike massive halos. Following previous works, we focus our investigations on a "geometrical" model, where the matter evolution within the shock manifold is defined from a geometrical construction. This hypothesis is at variance with the assumption that the usual continuity equation holds but, in the inviscid limit, both models agree in the regular regions. Taking advantage of the formulation of the dynamics of this "geometrical model" in terms of Legendre transforms and convex hulls, we study the evolution with time of the distribution of matter and the associated partitions of the Lagrangian and Eulerian spaces. We describe how the halo mass distribution derives from a triangulation in Lagrangian space, while the dual Voronoi-like tessellation in Eulerian space gives the boundaries of empty regions with shock nodes at their vertices. We then emphasize that this dynamics actually leads to halo fragmentations for space dimensions greater or equal to 2 (for the inviscid limit studied in this paper). This is most easily seen from the properties of the Lagrangian-space triangulation and we illustrate this process in the two-dimensional (2D) case. In particular, we explain how pointlike halos only merge through three-body collisions while two-body collisions always give rise to two new massive shock nodes (in 2D). This generalizes to higher dimensions and we briefly illustrate the three-dimensional case. This leads to a specific picture for the continuous formation of massive halos through successive halo fragmentations and mergings.

Cosmology with weak lensing surveys.

Weak gravitational lensing is responsible for the shearing and magnification of the images of high-redshift sources due to the presence of intervening mass. Since the lensing effects arise from deflections of the light rays due to fluctuations of the gravitational potential, they can be directly related to the underlying density field of the large-scale structures. Weak gravitational surveys are complementary to both galaxy surveys and cosmic microwave background observations as they probe unbiased nonlinear matter power spectra at medium redshift. Ongoing CMBR experiments such as WMAP and a future Planck satellite mission will measure the standard cosmological parameters with unprecedented accuracy. The focus of attention will then shift to understanding the nature of dark matter and vacuum energy: several recent studies suggest that lensing is the best method for constraining the dark energy equation of state. During the next 5 year period, ongoing and future weak lensing surveys such as the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM; e.g. SNAP) or the Large-aperture Synoptic Survey Telescope will play a major role in advancing our understanding of the universe in this direction. In this review article, we describe various aspects of probing the matter power spectrum and the bi-spectrum and other related statistics with weak lensing surveys. This can be used to probe the background dynamics of the universe as well as the nature of dark matter and dark energy.