No Arabic abstract
We study the two-dimensional topology of the galactic distribution when projected onto two-dimensional spherical shells. Using the latest Horizon Run 4 simulation data, we construct the genus of the two-dimensional field and consider how this statistic is affected by late-time nonlinear effects -- principally gravitational collapse and redshift space distortion (RSD). We also consider systematic and numerical artifacts such as shot noise, galaxy bias, and finite pixel effects. We model the systematics using a Hermite polynomial expansion and perform a comprehensive analysis of known effects on the two-dimensional genus, with a view toward using the statistic for cosmological parameter estimation. We find that the finite pixel effect is dominated by an amplitude drop and can be made less than $1%$ by adopting pixels smaller than $1/3$ of the angular smoothing length. Nonlinear gravitational evolution introduces time-dependent coefficients of the zeroth, first, and second Hermite polynomials, but the genus amplitude changes by less than $1%$ between $z=1$ and $z=0$ for smoothing scales $R_{rm G} > 9 {rm Mpc/h}$. Non-zero terms are measured up to third order in the Hermite polynomial expansion when studying RSD. Differences in shapes of the genus curves in real and redshift space are small when we adopt thick redshift shells, but the amplitude change remains a significant $sim {cal O}(10%)$ effect. The combined effects of galaxy biasing and shot noise produce systematic effects up to the second Hermite polynomial. It is shown that, when sampling, the use of galaxy mass cuts significantly reduces the effect of shot noise relative to random sampling.
High peaks in weak lensing (WL) maps originate dominantly from the lensing effects of single massive halos. Their abundance is therefore closely related to the halo mass function and thus a powerful cosmological probe. On the other hand, however, besides individual massive halos, large-scale structures (LSS) along lines of sight also contribute to the peak signals. In this paper, with ray tracing simulations, we investigate the LSS projection effects. We show that for current surveys with a large shape noise, the stochastic LSS effects are subdominant. For future WL surveys with source galaxies having a median redshift $z_{mathrm{med}}sim1$ or higher, however, they are significant. For the cosmological constraints derived from observed WL high peak counts, severe biases can occur if the LSS effects are not taken into account properly. We extend the model of citet{Fan2010} by incorporating the LSS projection effects into the theoretical considerations. By comparing with simulation results, we demonstrate the good performance of the improved model and its applicability in cosmological studies.
It is known that the large-scale structure (LSS) mapped by a galaxy redshift survey is subject to distortions by the galaxies peculiar velocities. Besides the signatures generated in common N-point statistics, such as the anisotropy in the galaxy 2-pt correlation function, the peculiar velocities also induce distinct features in LSSs morphological properties, which are fully described by four Minkowski functionals (MFs), i.e., the volume, surface area, mean curvature and Euler characteristic (or genus). In this work, by using large suite of N-body simulations, we present and analyze these important features in the MFs of LSS on both (quasi-)linear and non-linear scales. With a focus on non-linear scale, we identify the features uniquely induced by the fingers-of-God effect that show up only on non-linear scales, especially in the surface-area weighted mean curvature in high density threshold regions. We also find the MFs may give competitive constraints on cosmological parameters compared to the power spectrum. These results are important for cosmological applications of MFs of LSS, and probablly open up a new way to study the peculiar velocity field itself.
Recent wide-field imaging observations of the X-ray luminous cluster RDCSJ1252.9-2927 at z=1.24 uncovered several galaxy groups that appear to be embedded in filamentary structure extending from the cluster core. We make a spectroscopic study of the galaxies in these groups using GMOS on Gemini-South and FORS2 on VLT with the aim of determining if these galaxies are physically associated to the cluster. We find that three groups contain galaxies at the cluster redshift and that they are probably bound to the cluster. This is the first confirmation of filamentary structure as traced by galaxy groups at z>1. We then use several spectral features in the FORS2 spectra to determine the star formation histories of group galaxies. We find a population of relatively red star-forming galaxies in the groups that are absent from the cluster core. While similarly red star forming galaxies can also be found in the field, the average strength of the hd line is systematically weaker in group galaxies. Interestingly, these groups at z=1.2 are in an environment in which the on-going build-up of red sequence is happening. The unusual line strengths can be explained by star formation that is heavily obscured by dust. We hypothesize that galaxy-galaxy interactions, which is more efficient in the group environment, is the mechanism that drives these dust obscured star formation. The hypothesis can be tested by obtaining spectral observations in the near-IR, high resolution imaging observations and observations in the mid-IR.
In this paper we investigate the impact that realistic scale-dependence systematic effects may have on cosmic shear tomography. We model spatially varying residual ellipticity and size variations in weak lensing measurements and propagate these through to predicted changes in the uncertainty and bias of cosmological parameters. We show that the survey strategy - whether it is regular or randomised - is an important factor in determining the impact of a systematic effect: a purely randomised survey strategy produces the smallest biases, at the expense of larger parameter uncertainties, and a very regularised survey strategy produces large biases, but unaffected uncertainties. However, by removing, or modelling, the affected scales (l-modes) in the regular cases the biases are reduced to negligible levels. We find that the integral of the systematic power spectrum is not a good metric for dark energy performance, and we advocate that systematic effects should be modelled accurately in real space, where they enter the measurement process, and their effect subsequently propagated into power spectrum contributions.
We aim to identify and quantify the effects of the satellite distribution around a sample of galaxies in the Catalogue of Isolated Galaxies (CIG), as well as the effects of the Large Scale Structure (LSS) using the SDSS-DR9. To recover the physically bound galaxies we focus on the satellites which are within the escape speed of each CIG galaxy. We also propose a more conservative method using the stacked Gaussian distribution of the velocity difference of the neighbours. The tidal strengths affecting the primary galaxy are estimated to quantify the effects of the local and LSS environments. We also define the projected number density parameter at the 5$^{rm th}$ nearest neighbour to characterise the LSS around the CIG galaxies. Out of the 386 CIG galaxies considered in this study, at least 340 (88% of the sample) have no physically linked satellite. Out of the 386 CIG galaxies, 327 (85% of the sample) have no physical companion within a projected distance of 0.3 Mpc. The CIG galaxies are distributed following the LSS of the local Universe, although presenting a large heterogeneity in their degree of connection with it. A clear segregation appears between early-type CIG galaxies with companions and isolated late-type CIG galaxies. Isolated galaxies are in general bluer, with likely younger stellar populations and rather high star formation with respect to older, redder CIG galaxies with companions. Reciprocally, the satellites are redder and with an older stellar populations around massive early-type CIG galaxies, while they have a younger stellar content around massive late-type CIG galaxies. This suggests that the CIG is composed of a heterogeneous population of galaxies, sampling from old to more recent, dynamical systems of galaxies.