We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 (DR11) sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < $$z$$ < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc³ and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, r_d, which has a value of r_d,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find D_V = (1264 ± 25 Mpc)(r_d/r_d,fid) at $$z$$ = 0.32 and D_V = (2056 ± 20 Mpc)(r_d/r_d,fid) at $$z$$ = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at $$z$$ = 0.57 of D_A = (1421 ± 20 Mpc)(r_d/r_d,fid) and H = (96.8 ± 3.4 km s⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹)(r_d,fid/r_d). Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant.

We present measurements of galaxy clustering from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I

We present an updated global fit of neutrino oscillation data in the simplest three-neutrino framework. In the present study we include up-to-date analyses from a number of experiments. Concerning the atmospheric and solar sectors, besides the data considered previously, we give updated analyses of IceCube DeepCore and Sudbury Neutrino Observatory data, respectively. We have also included the latest electron antineutrino data collected by the Daya Bay and RENO reactor experiments, and the long-baseline T2K and NOνA measurements, as reported in the Neutrino 2020 conference. All in all, these new analyses result in more accurate measurements of θ₁₃, θ₁₂, $$ \Delta {m}_{21}^2 $$Δ m 21 2 and $$ \left|\Delta {m}_{31}^2\right| $$Δ m 31 2 . The best fit value for the atmospheric angle θ₂₃ lies in the second octant, but first octant solutions remain allowed at ∼ 2.4σ. Regarding CP violation measurements, the preferred value of δ we obtain is 1.08π (1.58π) for normal (inverted) neutrino mass ordering. The global analysis still prefers normal neutrino mass ordering with 2.5σ statistical significance. This preference is milder than the one found in previous global analyses. These new results should be regarded as robust due to the agreement found between our Bayesian and frequentist approaches. Taking into account only oscillation data, there is a weak/moderate preference for the normal neutrino mass ordering of 2.00σ. While adding neutrinoless double beta decay from the latest Gerda, CUORE and KamLAND-Zen results barely modifies this picture, cosmological measurements raise the preference to 2.68σ within a conservative approach. A more aggressive data set combination of cosmological observations leads to a similar preference for normal with respect to inverted mass ordering, namely 2.70σ. This very same cosmological data set provides 2σ upper limits on the total neutrino mass corresponding to Σm_ν< 0.12 (0.15) eV in the normal (inverted) neutrino mass ordering scenario. The bounds on the neutrino mixing parameters and masses presented in this up-to-date global fit analysis include all currently available neutrino physics inputs.

The answer is yes. We indeed find that interacting dark energy can alleviate the current tension on the value of the Hubble constant $H_0$ between the cosmic microwave background anisotropies constraints obtained from the Planck satellite and the recent direct measurements reported by Riess et al. 2016. The combination of these two data sets points toward a nonzero dark matter-dark energy coupling $\xi$ at more than two standard deviations, with $\xi =-0.26_{-0.12}^{+0.16}$ at 95% C.L., i.e. with a moderate evidence for interacting dark energy with an odds ratio of $6:1$ respect to a non interacting cosmological constant. However the $H_0$ tension is better solved when the equation of state of the interacting dark energy component is allowed to freely vary, with a phantomlike equation of state $w=-1.185\pm 0.064$ (at 68% C.L.), ruling out the pure cosmological constant case, $w=-1$, again at more than two standard deviations. When Planck data are combined with external datasets, as BAO, JLA Supernovae Ia luminosity distances, cosmic shear or lensing data, we find perfect consistency with the cosmological constant scenario and no compelling evidence for a dark matter-dark energy coupling.

Using some of the latest cosmological data sets publicly available, we derive the strongest bounds in the literature on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, $M_{\nu }$, within the assumption of a background flat $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ cosmology. In the most conservative scheme, combining Planck cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data, as well as the up-to-date constraint on the optical depth to reionization ($\tau$), the tightest 95% confidence level upper bound we find is $M_{\nu }<0.151\mathrm{eV}$. The addition of Planck high-$\ell$ polarization data, which, however, might still be contaminated by systematics, further tightens the bound to $M_{\nu }<0.118\mathrm{eV}$. A proper model comparison treatment shows that the two aforementioned combinations disfavor the inverted hierarchy at $\sim 64\%\mathrm{C}.\mathrm{L}.$ and $\sim 71\%\mathrm{C}.\mathrm{L}.$, respectively. In addition, we compare the constraining power of measurements of the full-shape galaxy power spectrum versus the BAO signature, from the BOSS survey. Even though the latest BOSS full-shape measurements cover a larger volume and benefit from smaller error bars compared to previous similar measurements, the analysis method commonly adopted results in their constraining power still being less powerful than that of the extracted BAO signal. Our work uses only cosmological data; imposing the constraint $M_{\nu }>0.06\mathrm{eV}$ from oscillations data would raise the quoted upper bounds by $\mathcal{O}(0.1\sigma )$ and would not affect our conclusions.