We present a comparison of major methodologies of fast generating mock halo or galaxy catalogues. The comparison is done for two-point and the three-point clustering statistics. The reference catalogues are drawn from the BigMultiDark N-body simulati
on. Both friend-of-friends (including distinct halos only) and spherical overdensity (including distinct halos and subhalos) catalogs have been used with the typical number density of a large-volume galaxy surveys. We demonstrate that a proper biasing model is essential for reproducing the power spectrum at quasilinear and even smaller scales. With respect to various clustering statistics a methodology based on perturbation theory and a realistic biasing model leads to very good agreement with N-body simulations. However, for the quadrupole of the correlation function or the power spectrum, only the method based on semi-N-body simulation could reach high accuracy (1% level) at small scales, i.e., r<25 Mpc/h or k>0.15 h/Mpc. Full N-body solutions will remain indispensable to produce reference catalogues. Nevertheless, we have demonstrated that the far more efficient approximate solvers can reach a few percent accuracy in terms of clustering statistics at the scales interesting for the large-scale structure analysis after calibration with a few reference N-body calculations. This makes them useful for massive production aimed at covariance studies, to scan large parameter spaces, and to estimate uncertainties in data analysis techniques, such as baryon acoustic oscillation reconstruction, redshift distortion measurements, etc.
Future dark energy experiments will require better and more accurate theoretical predictions for the baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) signature in the spectrum of cosmological perturbations. Here, we use large N-body simulations of the LambdaCDM
Planck cosmology to study any possible systematic shifts and damping in BAO due to the impact of nonlinear gravitational growth of structure, scale dependent and non-local bias, and redshift-space distortions. The effect of cosmic variance is largely reduced by dividing the tracer power spectrum by that from a BAO-free simulation starting with the same phases. This permits us to study with unprecedented accuracy (better than 0.02% for dark matter and 0.07% for low-bias halos) small shifts of the pristine BAO wavenumbers towards larger k, and non-linear damping of BAO wiggles in the power spectrum of dark matter and halo populations in the redshift range z=0-1. For dark matter, we provide an accurate parametrization of the evolution of alpha as a function of the linear growth factor D(z). For halo samples, with bias ranging from 1.2 to 2.8, we measure a typical BAO shift of ~0.25%, observed in real-space, which does not show an appreciable evolution with redshift within the uncertainties. Moreover, we report a constant shift as a function of halo bias. We find a different evolution of the damping of the acoustic feature in all halo samples as compared to dark matter with haloes suffering less damping, and also find some weak dependence on bias. A larger BAO shift and damping is measured in redshift-space which can be well explained by linear theory due to redshift-space distortions. A clear modulation in phase with the acoustic scale is observed in the scale-dependent halo bias due to the presence of the baryonic acoustic oscillations.
With the largest spectroscopic galaxy survey volume drawn from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), we can extract cosmological constraints from the measurements of redshift and geometric distortions at quasi-linear scales (e.
g. above 50 $h^{-1}$Mpc). We analyze the broad-range shape of the monopole and quadrupole correlation functions of the BOSS Data Release 12 (DR12) CMASS galaxy sample, at the effective redshift $z=0.59$, to obtain constraints on the Hubble expansion rate $H(z)$, the angular-diameter distance $D_A(z)$, the normalized growth rate $f(z)sigma_8(z)$, and the physical matter density $Omega_mh^2$. We obtain robust measurements by including a polynomial as the model for the systematic errors, and find it works very well against the systematic effects, e.g., ones induced by stars and seeing. We provide accurate measurements ${D_A(0.59)r_{s,fid}/r_s$ $rm Mpc$, $H(0.59)r_s/r_{s,fid}$ $km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1}$, $f(0.59)sigma_8(0.59)$, $Omega_m h^2}$ = ${1427pm26$, $97.3pm3.3$, $0.488 pm 0.060$, $0.135pm0.016}$, where $r_s$ is the comoving sound horizon at the drag epoch and $r_{s,fid}=147.66$ Mpc is the sound scale of the fiducial cosmology used in this study. The parameters which are not well constrained by our galaxy clustering analysis are marginalized over with wide flat priors. Since no priors from other data sets, e.g., cosmic microwave background (CMB), are adopted and no dark energy models are assumed, our results from BOSS CMASS galaxy clustering alone may be combined with other data sets, i.e., CMB, SNe, lensing or other galaxy clustering data to constrain the parameters of a given cosmological model. The uncertainty on the dark energy equation of state parameter, $w$, from CMB+CMASS is about 8 per cent. The uncertainty on the curvature fraction, $Omega_k$, is 0.3 per cent. We do not find deviation from flat $Lambda$CDM.
In the standard Cold Dark Matter (CDM) theory for understanding the formation of structure in the universe, there exists a tight connection between the properties of dark matter (DM) haloes, and their formation epochs. Such relation can be expressed
in terms of a single key parameter, namely the halo concentration. In this work, we examine the median concentration-mass relation, c(M), at present time, over more than 20 orders of magnitude in halo mass, i.e., from tiny Earth-mass microhalos up to galaxy clusters. The c(M) model proposed by Prada et al. (2012), which links the halo concentration with the r.m.s. amplitude of matter linear fluctuations, describes remarkably well all the available N-body simulation data down to ~10^(-6) Msun microhalos. A clear fattening of the halo concentration-mass relation towards smaller masses is observed, that excludes the commonly adopted power-law c(M) models, and stands as a natural prediction for the CDM paradigm. We provide a parametrization for the c(M) relation that works accurately for all halo masses. This feature in the c(M) relation at low masses has decisive consequences e.g. for gamma-ray DM searches, as it implies more modest boosts of the DM annihilation flux due to substructure, i.e., ~35 for galaxy clusters and ~15 for galaxies like our own, as compared to those huge values adopted in the literature that rely on such power-law c(M) extrapolations. We provide a parametrization of the boosts that can be safely used for dwarfs to galaxy cluster-size halos.
We present results on the clustering of 282,068 galaxies in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) sample of massive galaxies with redshifts 0.4<z<0.7 which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III project. Our results cover a large ra
nge of scales from ~0.5 to ~90 Mpc/h. We compare these estimates with the expectations of the flat LCDM cosmological model with parameters compatible with WMAP7 data. We use the MultiDark cosmological simulation together with a simple halo abundance matching technique, to estimate galaxy correlation functions, power spectra, abundance of subhaloes and galaxy biases. We find that the LCDM model gives a reasonable description to the observed correlation functions at z~0.5, which is a remarkably good agreement considering that the model, once matched to the observed abundance of BOSS galaxies, does not have any free parameters. However, we find a deviation (>~10%) in the correlation functions for scales less than ~1 Mpc/h and ~10-40 Mpc/h. A more realistic abundance matching model and better statistics from upcoming observations are needed to clarify the situation. We also estimate that about 12% of the galaxies in the abundance-matched sample are satellites inhabiting central haloes with mass M>~1e14 M_sun/h. Using the MultiDark simulation we also study the real space halo bias b(r) of the matched catalogue finding that b=2.00+/-0.07 at large scales, consistent with the one obtained using the measured BOSS projected correlation function. Furthermore, the linear large-scale bias depends on the number density n of the abundance-matched sample as b=-0.048-(0.594+/-0.02)*log(n/(h/Mpc)^3). Extrapolating these results to BAO scales we measure a scale-dependent damping of the acoustic signal produced by non-linear evolution that leads to ~2-4% dips at ~3 sigma level for wavenumbers k>~0.1 h/Mpc in the linear large-scale bias.
We study the concentration of dark matter halos and its evolution in N-body simulations of the standard LCDM cosmology. The results presented in this paper are based on 4 large N-body simulations with about 10 billion particles each: the Millennium-I
and II, Bolshoi, and MultiDark simulations. The MultiDark (or BigBolshoi) simulation is introduced in this paper. This suite of simulations with high mass resolution over a large volume allows us to compute with unprecedented accuracy the concentration over a large range of scales (about six orders of magnitude in mass), which constitutes the state-of-the-art of our current knowledge on this basic property of dark matter halos in the LCDM cosmology. We find that there is consistency among the different simulation data sets. We confirm a novel feature for halo concentrations at high redshifts: a flattening and upturn with increasing mass. The concentration c(M,z) as a function of mass and the redshift and for different cosmological parameters shows a remarkably complex pattern. However, when expressed in terms of the linear rms fluctuation of the density field sigma(M,z), the halo concentration c(sigma) shows a nearly-universal simple U-shaped behaviour with a minimum at a well defined scale at sigma=0.71. Yet, some small dependences with redshift and cosmology still remain. At the high-mass end (sigma < 1) the median halo kinematic profiles show large signatures of infall and highly radial orbits. This c-sigma(M,z) relation can be accurately parametrized and provides an analytical model for the dependence of concentration on halo mass. When applied to galaxy clusters, our estimates of concentrations are substantially larger -- by a factor up to 1.5 -- than previous results from smaller simulations, and are in much better agreement with results of observations. (abridged)
We explore the possibility of a local origin for ultra high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). Using the catalogue of Karachentsev et al. including nearby galaxies with distances less than 10Mpc (Local Volume), we search for a correlation with the sample o
f UHECR events released so far by the Pierre Auger collaboration. The counterpart sample selection is performed with variable distance and luminosity cuts which extract the most likely sources in the catalogue. The probability of chance correlation after penalizing for scans is 0.96%, which corresponds to a correlation signal of 2.6sigma. We find that the parameters that maximize the signal are psi=3.0deg, D_{max}=4Mpc and M_B=-15 for the maximum angular separation between cosmic rays and galaxy sources, maximum distance to the source, and sources brighter than B-band absolute magnitude respectively. This implies a preference for the UHECRs arrival directions to be correlated with the nearest and most luminous galaxies in the Local Volume. We note that nearby galaxies with D<10Mpc show a similar correlation with UHECRs as compared to that found by The Pierre Auger Collaboration using active galactic nuclei (AGNs) within 70-100Mpc instead of local galaxies, although less than 20% of cosmic ray events are correlated to a source in our study. However, the observational evidence for mixed composition in the high-energy end of the cosmic ray spectrum supports the possibility of a local origin for UHECRs, as CNO nuclei can travel only few Mpc without strong attenuation by the GZK effect, whereas the observed suppression in the energy spectrum would require more distant sources in the case of pure proton composition interacting with the CMB.
We present number counts, luminosity functions (LFs) and luminosity densities of galaxies obtained using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Sixth Data Release in all SDSS photometric bands. Thanks to the SDSS DR6, galaxy statistics have increased by a fact
or of ~9 in the u-band and by a factor of ~4-5 in the rest of the SDSS bands with respect to the previous work of Blanton et al. (2003b). In addition, we have achieved a high redshift completeness in our galaxy samples. Firstly, by making use of the survey masks, provided by the NYU-VAGC DR6, we have been able to define an area on the sky of high angular redshift completeness. Secondly, we guarantee that brightness-dependent redshift incompleteness is small within the magnitude ranges that define our galaxy samples. With these advances, we have estimated very accurate SDSS DR6 LFs in both the bright and the faint end. In the {0.1}^r-band, our SDSS DR6 luminosity function is well fitted by a Schechter LF with parameters Phi_{*}=0.90 +/- 0.07$, M_{*}-5log_{10}h=-20.73 +/- 0.04 and alpha=-1.23 +/- 0.02. As compared with previous results, we find some notable differences. In the bright end of the {0.1}^u-band luminosity function we find a remarkable excess, of ~1.7 dex at M_{{0.1}^u}=-20.5, with respect to the best-fit Schechter LF. This excess weakens in the {0.1}^g-band, fading away towards the very red {0.1}^z-band. A preliminary analysis on the nature of this bright-end bump reveals that it is mostly comprised of active galaxies and QSOs. It seems, therefore, that an important fraction of this exceeding luminosity may come from nuclear activity. In the faint end of the SDSS DR6 luminosity functions, where we can reach 1-1.5 magnitudes deeper than the previous SDSS LF estimation, we obtain a steeper slope [ABRIDGED].
Virial mass is used as an estimator for the mass of a dark matter halo. However, the commonly used constant overdensity criterion does not reflect the dynamical structure of haloes. Here we analyze dark matter cosmological simulations in order to obt
ain properties of haloes of different masses focusing on the size of the region with zero mean radial velocity. Dark matter inside this region is stationary, and thus the mass of this region is a much better approximation for the virial mass.
