CosmoCoffee

Hi Antony,

If I want to change the primordial power spectrum, is it correct that I just change the file power_tilt.f90? I have to make sure that the functional form of primordial power spectrum (i.e. the standard A_s,n_s, n_run, A_T, n_T parametrization) is not assumed anywhere else.

Of course to modify the parametrization, I have to add new parameters to cosmomc. But that's another issue, which I clearly know how to do.

Thanks a lot!

Zhiqi

Yes, CAMB's InitialPower module determines the power spectrum, by default implemented in power_tilt.f90. Only smoothness properties are assumed elsewhere.

If I remember correctly, at some point the Ly-alpha module assumes that there is A_s, n_s only. But you should ask Pat McDonald about this..

The LyaF constraint in the standard version of CosmoMC assumes that the deviations of the power spectrum from LambdaCDM can be described by a change in the amplitude and effective slope of the power spectrum on scales within about an order of magnitude of k=1 h/Mpc.

My original measurement, which Anze Slosar has a CosmoMC patch implementing, included (relatively weak) constraints on the effective running of the slope on this scale. The standard CosmoMC version just drops this dimension (presumably for ease of implementation of a fortran version), which isn't as accurate, but shouldn't be too bad.

So the assumption isn't that the primordial power spectrum is described by A_s, n_s, (+possibly alpha_s), it is just that it is relatively smooth near k=1 h/Mpc. For example, you can *not* use the standard version for Warm Dark Matter, where the power spectrum is sharply truncated at some scale to which the LyaF is sensitive (we have separate sims for that).

Pat