Redshift-space Power Spectrum Research Articles

Minimum variance estimation of galaxy power spectrum in redshift space

ABSTRACT We study an efficient way to enhance the measurability of the galaxy density and/or velocity power spectrum in redshift space. It is based on the angular decomposition with the tripolar spherical harmonic (TripoSH) basis and applicable even to galaxy distributions in wide-angle galaxy surveys. While non-trivial multipole-mode mixings are inevitable in the covariance of the Legendre decomposition coefficient commonly used in the small-angle power spectrum analysis, our analytical computation of the covariance of the TripoSH decomposition coefficient shows that such mixings are absent by virtue of high separability of the TripoSH basis, yielding the minimum variance. Via the simple signal-to-noise ratio assessment, we confirm that the detectability improvement by the TripoSH decomposition approach becomes more significant at higher multipole modes, and the hexadecapole of the density power spectrum has two orders of magnitude improvement. The TripoSH decomposition approach is expected to be applied to not only currently available survey data but also forthcoming wide-angle data, and to bring about something new or much more accurate cosmological information.

Perturbation theory approach to predict the covariance matrices of the galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum in redshift space

ABSTRACT In this paper, we predict the covariance matrices of both the power spectrum and the bispectrum, including full non-Gaussian contributions, redshift space distortions, linear bias effects, and shot-noise corrections, using perturbation theory (PT). To quantify the redshift-space distortion effect, we focus mainly on the monopole and quadrupole components of both the power and bispectra. We, for the first time, compute the 5- and 6-point spectra to predict the cross-covariance between the power and bispectra, and the autocovariance of the bispectrum in redshift space. We test the validity of our calculations by comparing them with the covariance matrices measured from the MultiDark-Patchy mock catalogues that are designed to reproduce the galaxy clustering measured from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 12. We argue that the simple, leading-order PT works because the shot-noise corrections for the Patchy mocks are more dominant than other higher order terms we ignore. In the meantime, we confirm some discrepancies in the comparison, especially of the cross-covariance. We discuss potential sources of such discrepancies. We also show that our PT model reproduces well the cumulative signal-to-noise ratio of the power spectrum and the bispectrum as a function of maximum wavenumber, implying that our PT model captures successfully essential contributions to the covariance matrices.

Consistent modeling of velocity statistics and redshift-space distortions in one-loop perturbation theory

The peculiar velocities of biased tracers of the cosmic density field contain important information about the growth of large scale structure and generate anisotropy in the observed clustering of galaxies. Using N-body data, we show that velocity expansions for halo redshift-space power spectra are converged at the percent-level at perturbative scales for most line-of-sight angles μ when the first three pairwise velocity moments are included, and that the third moment is well-approximated by a counterterm-like contribution. We compute these pairwise-velocity statistics in Fourier space using both Eulerian and Lagrangian one-loop perturbation theory using a cubic bias scheme and a complete set of counterterms and stochastic contributions. We compare the models and show that our models fit both real-space velocity statistics and redshift-space power spectra for both halos and a mock sample of galaxies at sub-percent level on perturbative scales using consistent sets of parameters, making them appealing choices for the upcoming era of spectroscopic, peculiar-velocity and kSZ surveys.

Fast calculation of the nonlinear redshift-space galaxy power spectrum including selection bias

We present a fast implementation of the next-to-leading order (1-loop) redshift-space galaxy power spectrum by using FFTlog-based methods. [V. Desjacques, D. Jeong, and F. Schmidt, JCAP 1812 (12), 035] have shown that the 1-loop galaxy power spectrum in redshift space can be computed with 28 independent loop integrals with 22 bias parameters. Analytical calculation of the angular part of the loop integrals leaves the radial part in the form of a spherical Bessel transformation that is ready to be integrated numerically by using the FFTLog transformation. We find that the original 28 loop integrals can be solved with a total of 85 unique FFTLog transformations, yet leading to a few orders of magnitude speed up over traditional multi-dimensional integration. The code used in this work is publicly available at https://github.com/JosephTomlinson/GeneralBiasPk

The Parameter-free Finger-of-God Model and Its Application to 21 cm Intensity Mapping

Abstract Using the galaxy catalog built from ELUCID N-body simulation and the semianalytical galaxy formation model, we have built a mock H i intensity mapping map. We have implemented the Finger-of-God (FoG) effect in the map by considering the galaxy H i gas velocity dispersion. By comparing the H i power spectrum in redshift space with a measurement from the IllustrisTNG simulation, we have found that the FoG effect can explain the discrepancy between current mock maps built from the N-body simulation and the IllustrisTNG simulation. Then we built a parameter-free FoG model and a shot-noise model to calculate the H i power spectrum. We found that our model can accurately fit both the monopole and quadrupole moments of the H i matter power spectrum. Our approach to building the mock H i intensity map and the parameter-free FoG model will be useful for upcoming 21 cm intensity mapping experiments, such as CHIME, Tianlai, BINGO, FAST, and SKA. It is also vital for studying nonlinear effects in 21 cm intensity mapping.

High mass and halo resolution from fast low resolution simulations

Generating mocks for future sky surveys requires large volumes and high resolutions, which is computationally expensive even for fast simulations. In this work we try to develop numerical schemes to calibrate various halo and matter statistics in fast low resolution simulations compared to high resolution N-body and hydrodynamic simulations. For the halos, we improve the initial condition resolution and develop a halo finder “relaxed-FoF”, where we allow different linking lengths for different halo mass and velocity dispersions. We show that our relaxed-FoF halo finder improves the common statistics, such as halo bias, halo mass function, halo auto power spectrum, cross correlation coefficient with the reference halo catalog, and halo-matter cross power spectrum. We also calibrate small-scale velocities of small halos to improve the power spectrum in redshift space. For the matter statistics, we incorporate the potential gradient descent (PGD) method into fast simulations to improve the matter distribution at nonlinear scales. By building a lightcone output, we show that the PGD method significantly improves the weak lensing convergence tomographic power spectrum. With these improvements FastPM is comparable to the high resolution full N-body simulation of the same mass resolution, with two orders of magnitude fewer time steps. These techniques can be used to improve the halo and matter statistics of FastPM simulations for mock catalogs of future surveys such as DESI and LSST.

Nonlinear contributions to angular power spectra

Future galaxy clustering surveys will probe small scales where non-linearities become important. Since the number of modes accessible on intermediate to small scales is very high, having a precise model at these scales is important especially in the context of discriminating alternative cosmological models from the standard one. In the mildly non-linear regime, such models typically differ from each other, and galaxy clustering data will become very precise on these scales in the near future. As the observable quantity is the angular power spectrum in redshift space, it is important to study the effects of non-linear density and redshift space distortion (RSD) in the angular power spectrum. We compute non-linear contributions to the angular power spectrum using a flat-sky approximation that we introduce in this work, and compare the results of different perturbative approaches with $N$-body simulations. We find that the TNS perturbative approach is significantly closer to the $N$-body result than Eulerian or Lagrangian 1-loop approximations, effective field theory of large scale structure or a halofit-inspired model. However, none of these prescriptions is accurate enough to model the angular power spectrum well into the non-linear regime. In addition, for narrow redshift bins, $\Delta z \lesssim 0.01$, the angular power spectrum acquires non-linear contributions on all scales, right down to $\ell=2$, and is hence not a reliable tool at this time. To overcome this problem, we need to model non-linear RSD terms, for example as TNS does, but for a matter power spectrum that remains reasonably accurate well into the deeply non-linear regime, such as halofit.

Assessing non-linear models for galaxy clustering – II. Model validation and forecasts for Stage IV surveys

ABSTRACT Accurate modelling of non-linear scales in galaxy clustering will be crucial for data analysis of Stage IV galaxy surveys. A selection of competing non-linear models must be made based on validation studies. We provide a comprehensive set of forecasts of two different models for the halo redshift space power spectrum, namely the commonly applied TNS model and an effective field theory of large-scale structure (EFTofLSS) inspired model. Using simulation data and a least-χ2 analysis, we determine ranges of validity for the models. We then conduct an exploratory Fisher analysis using the full anisotropic power spectrum to investigate parameter degeneracies. We proceed to perform an MCMC analysis utilizing the monopole, quadrupole, and hexadecapole spectra, with a restricted range of scales for the latter in order to avoid biasing our growth rate, f, constraint. We find that the TNS model with a Lorentzian damping and standard Eulerian perturbative modelling outperforms other variants of the TNS model. Our MCMC analysis finds that the EFTofLSS-based model may provide tighter marginalized constraints on f at z = 0.5 and z = 1 than the TNS model, despite having additional nuisance parameters. However this depends on the range of scales used as well as the fiducial values and priors on the EFT nuisance parameters. Finally, we extend previous work to provide a consistent comparison between the Fisher matrix and MCMC forecasts using the multipole expansion formalism, and find good agreement between them.

Testing for gravitational preferred directions with galaxy and lensing surveys

We analyze the sensitivity of galaxy and weak-lensing surveys to detect preferred directions in the gravitational interaction. We consider general theories of gravity involving additional vector degrees of freedom with non-vanishing spatial components in the background. We use a model-independent parametrization of the perturbations equations in terms of four effective parameters, namely, the standard effective Newton constant Geff and slip parameter γ for scalar modes and two new parameters μQ and μh for vector and tensor modes respectively, which are required when preferred directions are present. We obtain the expressions for the multipole galaxy power spectrum in redshift space and for the weak-lensing shear, convergence and rotation spectra in the presence of preferred directions. By performing a Fisher matrix forecast analysis, we estimate the sensitivity of a future Euclid-like survey to detect this kind of modification of gravity. We finally compare with the effects induced by violations of statistical isotropy in the primordial power spectrum and identify the observables which could discriminate between them.

Cosmological information content in redshift-space power spectrum of SDSS-like galaxies in the quasinonlinear regime up to k=0.3 h Mpc−1

Clustering properties and peculiar velocities of halos in large-scale structure carry a wealth of cosmological information over a wide range of scales from linear to nonlinear scales. We use halo catalogs in a suite of high-resolution $N$-body simulations to construct mock catalogs of galaxies that resemble the SDSS-like luminous early-type galaxies at three redshift bins in the range $0.15\le z\le 0.7$. To do this we include 10 nuisance parameters to model variations in halo-galaxy connections for each redshift bin; the halo occupation distribution, and the spatial and velocity distributions of galaxies in the host halos. We evaluate the Fisher information matrix for the redshift-space power spectrum of SDSS-like galaxies using different sets of the mock catalogs that are generated from changes in each of model parameters; cosmological parameters ($\sigma_8$ and $\Omega_{\rm m}$), the halo-galaxy connection parameters, and the cosmological distances ($D_{\rm A}$ and $H$ parameters at each redshift bin) for modeling an apparent geometrical distortion of the redshift-space power spectrum (the Alcock-Paczynski effect). We show that combining the monopole and quadrupole power spectra of galaxies allows for accurate estimations of the cosmological parameters and the cosmological distances, even after marginalization over the halo-galaxy parameters, by lifting the parameter degeneracies that are otherwise inevitable if either of the two spectra alone is used. When including the galaxy power spectrum information up to $k=0.3\,h\,$Mpc$^{-1}$, we find about factor of 6 gain in the cosmological information content of ($\sigma_8,\Omega_{\rm m},D_{\rm A}$'s and $H$'s) compared to $k=0.2\,h\,$Mpc$^{-1}$.

Assessing non-linear models for galaxy clustering I: unbiased growth forecasts from multipole expansion

We assess the performance of the Taruya, Nishimichi and Saito (TNS) model for the halo redshift space power spectrum, focusing on utilising mildly non-linear scales to constrain the growth rate of structure f. Using simulations with volume and number density typical of forthcoming Stage IV galaxy surveys, we determine ranges of validity for the model at redshifts z = 0.5 and z = 1. We proceed to perform a Bayesian MCMC analysis utilising the monopole, quadrupole, and hexadecapole spectra, followed by an exploratory Fisher matrix analysis. As previously noted in other forecasts as well as in real data analyses, we find that including the hexadecapole can significantly improve the constraints. However, a restricted range of scales is required for the hexadecapole in order for the growth parameter estimation to remain unbiased, limiting the improvement. We consistently quantify these effects by employing the multipole expansion formalism in both our Fisher and MCMC forecasts.

Assessing non-linear models for galaxy clustering III: theoretical accuracy for stage IV surveys

We provide in depth MCMC comparisons of two different models for the halo redshift space power spectrum, namely a variant of the commonly applied Taruya-Nishimichi-Saito (TNS) model and an effective field theory of large scale structure (EFTofLSS) inspired model. Using many simulation realisations and Stage IV survey-like specifications for the covariance matrix, we check each model's range of validity by testing for bias in the recovery of the fiducial growth rate of structure formation. The robustness of the determined range of validity is then tested by performing additional MCMC analyses using higher order multipoles, a larger survey volume and a more highly biased tracer catalogue. We find that under all tests, the TNS model's range of validity remains robust and is found to be much higher than previous estimates. The EFTofLSS model fails to capture the spectra for highly biased tracers as well as becoming biased at lower wavenumbers when considering a very large survey volume. Further, we find that the marginalised constraints on f for all analyses are stronger when using the TNS model.

The reconstructed power spectrum in the Zeldovich approximation

Density-reconstruction sharpens the baryon acoustic oscillations signal by undoing some of the smoothing incurred by nonlinear structure formation. In this paper we present an analytical model for reconstruction based on the Zeldovich approximation, which for the first time includes a complete set of counterterms and bias terms up to quadratic order and can fit real and redshift-space data pre- and post-reconstruction data in both Fourier and configuration space over a wide range of scales. We compare our model to n-body data at z = 0 from the DarkSky simulation [1], finding sub-percent agreement in both real space and in the redshift-space power spectrum monopole out to k = 0.4 h Mpc-1, and out to k = 0.2 h Mpc-1 in the quadrupole, with comparable agreement in configuration space. We compare our model with several popular existing alternatives, updating existing theoretical results for exponential damping in wiggle/no-wiggle splits of the BAO signal and discuss the usually-ignored effect of higher bias contributions on the reconstructed signal. In the appendices, we re-derive the former within our formalism, present exploratory results on higher-order corrections due to nonlinearities inherent to reconstruction, and present numerical techniques with which to calculate the redshift-space power spectrum of biased tracers within the Zeldovich approximation.

Study on the mapping of halo clustering from real space to redshift space

The mapping of galaxy clustering from real space to redshift space introduces the anisotropic property to the measured galaxy density power spectrum in redshift space, known as the redshift space distortion (RSD) effect. The mapping formula is intrinsically non-linear, which is complicated by the higher order polynomials due to indefinite orders of cross correlations between density and velocity fields, and the Finger-of-God (FoG) effect due to the randomness of the galaxy peculiar velocity field. In previous works, we have verified the robustness of advanced TNS mapping formula in our hybrid RSD model in dark matter case, where the halo bias models are not taken into account for the halo mapping formula in redshift space. Using 100 realizations of halo catalogs in N-body simulations, we find that our halo RSD model with the known halo bias model and the effective FoG function accurately predicts the halo power spectrum measurements, within 1∼2% accuracy up to k∼ 0.2 h Mpc-1, depending on different halo masses and redshifts.

The Aemulus Project. I. Numerical Simulations for Precision Cosmology

Abstract The rapidly growing statistical precision of galaxy surveys has led to a need for ever more precise predictions of the observables used to constrain cosmological and galaxy formation models. The primary avenue through which such predictions will be obtained is suites of numerical simulations. These simulations must span the relevant model parameter spaces, be large enough to obtain the precision demanded by upcoming data, and be thoroughly validated in order to ensure accuracy. In this paper, we present one such suite of simulations, forming the basis for the Aemulus Project, a collaboration devoted to precision emulation of galaxy survey observables. We have run a set of 75 (1.05 h −1 Gpc)3 simulations with mass resolution and force softening of and 20 h −1 kpc, respectively, in 47 different wCDM cosmologies spanning the range of parameter space allowed by the combination of recent cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillation, and Type Ia supernova results. We present convergence tests of several observables including spherical overdensity halo mass functions, galaxy projected correlation functions, galaxy clustering in redshift space, and matter and halo correlation functions and power spectra. We show that these statistics are converged to 1% (2%) or to the sample variance of the statistic, whichever is larger, for halos with more than 500 (200) particles, respectively, and scales of r > 200 h −1 kpc in real space or k ∼ 3 h Mpc−1 in harmonic space for z ≤ 1. We find that the dominant source of uncertainty comes from varying the particle loading of the simulations. This leads to large systematic errors for statistics using halos with fewer than 200 particles and scales smaller than k ∼ 4 h Mpc−1. We provide the halo catalogs and snapshots detailed in this work to the community at https://AemulusProject.github.io.

Exploring redshift-space distortions in large-scale structure

We explore and compare different ways large-scale structure observables in redshift-space and real space can be connected. These include direct computation in Lagrangian space, moment expansions and two formulations of the streaming model. We derive for the first time a Fourier space version of the streaming model, which yields an algebraic relation between the real- and redshift-space power spectra which can be compared to earlier, phenomenological models. By considering the redshift-space 2-point function in both configuration and Fourier space, we show how to generalize the Gaussian streaming model to higher orders in a systematic and computationally tractable way. We present a closed-form solution to the Zeldovich power spectrum in redshift space and use this as a framework for exploring convergence properties of different expansion approaches. While we use the Zeldovich approximation to illustrate these results, much of the formalism and many of the relations we derive hold beyond perturbation theory, and could be used with ingredients measured from N-body simulations or in other areas requiring decomposition of Cartesian tensors times plane waves. We finish with a discussion of the redshift-space bispectrum, bias and stochasticity and terms in Lagrangian perturbation theory up to 1-loop order.

Time-dependent fluctuations in the metagalactic photoionization background

We present a formalism for computing time-dependent fluctuations in the cosmological photoionizing radiation background, extending background fluctuations models beyond the steady-state approximation. We apply this formalism to estimate fluctuations in the HI LyA flux redshift space power spectrum and its spatial correlation function at redshifts 2<z<4, assuming the photoionization background is dominated by Quasi-stellar Objects (QSOs) and/or galaxies. We show the shot noise in the power spectrum due to discrete sources is strongly suppressed relative to the steady-state value at low wavenumbers by a factor proportional to the lifetime of the sources, and that this suppression may be used to constrain QSO lifetimes. The total HI LyA power spectrum including shot noise is affected at tens of percent on short scales, and by as much as an order of magnitude or more on scales exceeding the mean free path. The spatial correlation function is similarly found to be sensitive to the shot noise, although moderately insensitive to the effects of time-dependence on the non-shotnoise contribution. Photoionization rate fluctuations substantially modify the shape of the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation peak in the correlation function, including a small increase in its position that must be accounted for to avoid biasing estimates of cosmological parameters based on the peak position. We briefly investigate solving the full frequency dependent equation, finding that it agrees with the frequency-independent to better than percent accuracy. Simple formulas are provided for the power spectrum of fluctuations in the photoionization rate that approximate the full computations.

Large Scale Structure in Redshift Space

The mapping of dark matter clustering from real space to redshift space introduces the anisotropic property to the measured density power spectrum in redshift space, known as the redshift space distortion effect. The mapping formula is intrinsically non-linear, which is complicated by the higher order polynomials due to indefinite cross correlations between the density and velocity fields, and the Finger–of–God effect due to the randomness of the peculiar velocity field. Whilst the full higher order polynomials remain unknown, the other systematics can be controlled consistently within the same order truncation in the expansion of the mapping formula, as shown in this paper. The systematic due to the unknown non–linear density and velocity fields is removed by separately measuring all terms in the expansion directly using simulations. The uncertainty caused by the velocity randomness is controlled by splitting the FoG term into two pieces, 1) the “one–point” FoG term being independent of the separation vector between two different points, and 2) the “correlated” FoG term appearing as an indefinite polynomials which is expanded in the same order as all other perturbative polynomials. We introduce the recent progress on understanding this mapping, and the application for the future analysis to reveal the nature of cosmic acceleration.

Hybrid modeling of redshift space distortions

The observed power spectrum in redshift space appears distorted due to the peculiar motion of galaxies, known as redshift-space distortions (RSD). While all the effects in RSD are accounted for by the simple mapping formula from real to redshift spaces, accurately modeling redshift-space power spectrum is rather difficult due to the non-perturbative properties of the mapping. Still, however, a perturbative treatment may be applied to the power spectrum at large-scales, and on top of a careful modeling of the Finger-of-God effect caused by the small-scale random motion, the redshift-space power spectrum can be expressed as a series of expansion which contains the higher-order correlations of density and velocity fields. In our previous work [JCAP 8 (Aug., 2016) 050], we provide a perturbation-theory inspired model for power spectrum in which the higher-order correlations are evaluated directly from the cosmological N-body simulations. Adopting a simple Gaussian ansatz for Finger-of-God effect, the model is shown to quantitatively describe the simulation results. Here, we further push this approach, and present an accurate power spectrum template which can be used to estimate the growth of structure as a key to probe gravity on cosmological scales. Based on the simulations, we first calibrate the uncertainties and systematics in the pertrubation theory calculation in a fiducial cosmological model. Then, using the scaling relations, the calibrated power spectrum template is applied to a different cosmological model. We demonstrate that with our new template, the best-fitted growth functions are shown to reproduce the fiducial values in a good accuracy of 1% at k<0.18 Mpc-1 for cosmologies with different Hubble parameters.

EFT of large scale structures in redshift space

We further develop the description of redshift space distortions within the Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structures. First, we generalize the counterterms to include the effect of baryonic physics and primordial non-Gaussianity. Second, we evaluate the IR-resummation of the dark matter power spectrum in redshift space. This requires us to identify a controlled approximation that makes the numerical evaluation straightforward and efficient. Third, we compare the predictions of the theory at one loop with the power spectrum from numerical simulations up to $\ell=6$. We find that the IR-resummation allows us to correctly reproduce the BAO peak. The $k$-reach, or equivalently the precision for a given $k$, depends on additional counterterms that need to be matched to simulations. Since the non-linear scale for the velocity is expected to be longer than the one for the overdensity, we consider a minimal and a non-minimal set of counterterms. The quality of our numerical data makes it hard to firmly establish the performance of the theory at high wavenumbers. Within this limitation, we find that the theory at redshift $z=0.56$ and up to $\ell=2$ matches the data to percent level approximately up to $k \sim 0.13 \, h { \rm Mpc^{-1}}$ or $k \sim 0.18 \, h { \rm Mpc^{-1}}$, depending on the number of counterterms used, with potentially large improvement over former analytical techniques.