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Title: Simulating the large-scale structure of HI intensity maps

Journal Article · · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
; ; ; ; ;  [1]
  1. ETH Zurich, Institute for Astronomy, Department of Physics, Wolfgang Pauli Strasse 27, 8093 Zurich (Switzerland)

Intensity mapping of neutral hydrogen (HI) is a promising observational probe of cosmology and large-scale structure. We present wide field simulations of HI intensity maps based on N-body simulations of a 2.6 Gpc / h box with 2048{sup 3} particles (particle mass 1.6 × 10{sup 11} M{sub ⊙} / h). Using a conditional mass function to populate the simulated dark matter density field with halos below the mass resolution of the simulation (10{sup 8} M{sub ⊙} / h < M{sub halo} < 10{sup 13} M{sub ⊙} / h), we assign HI to those halos according to a phenomenological halo to HI mass relation. The simulations span a redshift range of 0.35 ∼< z ∼< 0.9 in redshift bins of width Δ z ≈ 0.05 and cover a quarter of the sky at an angular resolution of about 7'. We use the simulated intensity maps to study the impact of non-linear effects and redshift space distortions on the angular clustering of HI. Focusing on the autocorrelations of the maps, we apply and compare several estimators for the angular power spectrum and its covariance. We verify that these estimators agree with analytic predictions on large scales and study the validity of approximations based on Gaussian random fields, particularly in the context of the covariance. We discuss how our results and the simulated maps can be useful for planning and interpreting future HI intensity mapping surveys.

OSTI ID:
22524970
Journal Information:
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 03; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English