Radio-optical synergies at high redshift to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity

Abstract

We apply the multi-tracer technique to test the possibility of improved constraints on the amplitude of local primordial non-Gaussianity, $f_{\mathrm{NL}}$, in the cosmic large-scale structure. A precise measurement of $f_{\mathrm{NL}}$ is difficult because the effects of non-Gaussianity mostly arise on the largest scales, which are heavily affected by the low statistical sampling commonly referred to as cosmic variance. The multi-tracer approach suppresses cosmic variance and we implement it by combining the information from next-generation galaxy surveys in the optical/near-infrared band and neutral hydrogen (HI) intensity mapping surveys in the radio band. High-redshift surveys enhance the precision on $f_{\mathrm{NL}}$, due to the larger available volume, and HI intensity mapping surveys can naturally reach high redshifts. In order to extend the redshift coverage of a galaxy survey, we consider different emission-line galaxy populations, focusing on the H$α$ line at low redshift and on oxygen lines at higher redshift. By doing so, we cover a wide redshift range $1 \lesssim z \lesssim 4$. To assess the capability of our approach, we implement a synthetic-data analysis by means of Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling of the (cosmological+nuisance) parameter posterior, to evaluate the constraints on $f_{\mathrm{NL}}$ obtained in different survey configurations. We find significant improvements from the multi-tracer technique: the full data set leads to a precision of $σ(f_{\mathrm{NL}}) < 1$.