Galaxy surveys provide salient insights into the cosmic evolution of the universe. In this thesis, we present three research projects relevant to galaxy surveys. These include the development of the instrumentation and the construction of a mock galax...
Galaxy surveys provide salient insights into the cosmic evolution of the universe. In this thesis, we present three research projects relevant to galaxy surveys. These include the development of the instrumentation and the construction of a mock galaxy catalog for the All-sky SPECtroscopic survey of the nearby universe (A-SPEC), which are essential steps for the survey in its planning phase. We also study dark energy using the cosmic density field derived from galaxy survey data. The three main chapters of this thesis are as follows.
First, we present the design and the experimental result of the metrology system for the fiber-fed K-SPEC multi-object spectrograph. The metrology system serves as an explicit tool for monitoring the positions of the optical fibers. This system enables us to correct positional errors of the robotic positioners within $\sim5~\mu\mathrm{m}$ accuracy, thus maximizing the throughput of galaxy light. We study the coordinate transform equation between the focal plane and the metrology camera plane. We also conduct experiments measuring the positions of the fibers installed on a focal plate prototype. While the performance of the metrology system will be carefully examined during the commissioning planned in January 2026, our system is capable of measuring fiber positions with $\sim5~\mu\mathrm{m}$ precision.
Secondly, we present a mock galaxy catalog for A-SPEC, constructed from our own N-body simulation along with the Machine-assisted Semi-Simulation Model \citep{JK2019}. The model is trained on the cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulation IllustrisTNG to predict baryonic properties of subhaloes from dark-matter-only features. We apply the model to an N-body simulation tailored to satisfy the requirements of A-SPEC. The resulting mock galaxy catalog reproduces the luminosity-dependent clustering of the target galaxies when tuned to match the number density.
Finally, we present the cross-correlation between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and a galaxy density field that traces the cosmic infrared background (CIB). We adopt a galaxy density map derived as part of $100~\micron$ CIB reconstruction \citep{Chiang2023}. The density map is composed of $\sim600$ million galaxies extending to $z\approx2.4$. We also make use of the $k$-Nearest Neighbor statistic to maximize the signal. We detect a positive correlation signal with $\chi^2\approx72.5$ across 45 bins, rejecting the null hypothesis at the level of $p \approx 5.8\times10^{-3}$. The strength of the cross-correlation signal in the data is $A_{k\mathrm{NN}}=1.04\pm0.21~(4.9\sigma)$ relative to the $\Lambda\mathrm{CDM}$ mock data that include the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe and Rees-Sciama effects. The detection significance is $\sim30\%$ higher than from a classical two-point analysis. We also find a weak preference of $w>-1$ from tomographic cross-correlation.
This thesis serves as an overview of galaxy survey in its early phase, from the design of instrumentation to the forecast of the survey product. The thesis also shows how information can be effectively extracted from galaxy density field using alternative statistics beyond classical two-point statistics.