Non-linear Pairwise Velocities as a Cosmological Probe

Abstract

Peculiar velocities trace gravitational dynamics directly, complementing density-based clustering as wide-field spectroscopic surveys (DESI, Euclid, PFS) and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) measurements enter the precision era. Observational analyses of pairwise velocities and the pairwise kSZ signal remain largely restricted to linear and quasi-linear scales ($\gtrsim20-30$ $h^{-1}Mpc$), despite substantial cosmological information available at smaller separations. We present a simulation-calibrated likelihood for $v_{12}(r,a)$, built on the exact pair conservation equation and PyCAMB HMcode-2020 non-linear clustering, and validate it against the QUIJOTE and TNG300-3 suites across resolution, particle sampling, box size, and redshift. Using QUIJOTE, we show that extending the fit to non-linear scales tightens the $1\sigma$ uncertainty on $\Omega_\mathrm{m}$ and $\sigma_8$ by $74\%$ and $81\%$ at $z=0.5$ ($r_{\rm min}=4$ $h^{-1}Mpc$), and by $70\%$ and $74\%$ at $z=0$ ($r_{\rm min}=8$ $h^{-1}Mpc$), relative to the linear-regime baseline ($r_{\rm min}=50$ $h^{-1}Mpc$) (all at fixed $r_{max}=140$ $h^{-1}Mpc$); $\sigma(f\sigma_8)$ tightens by up to $86\%$, and the joint $\Omega_\mathrm{m}$-$f\sigma_8$ Figure-of-Merit improves by up to $9.1\times$ relative to the same baseline. These constraints are conditional on $h$ fixed at its QUIJOTE fiducial value, due to a near-degenerate response with $\sigma_8$; jointly sampling $h$ shifts and widens them substantially. This framework provides a validated route to exploiting that information in upcoming direct peculiar-velocity, redshift-space, and kSZ analyses.