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Title: Generating log-normal mock catalog of galaxies in redshift space

Journal Article · · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
; ; ;  [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 1, 85741 Garching (Germany)
  2. C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794 (United States)
  3. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)

We present a public code to generate a mock galaxy catalog in redshift space assuming a log-normal probability density function (PDF) of galaxy and matter density fields. We draw galaxies by Poisson-sampling the log-normal field, and calculate the velocity field from the linearised continuity equation of matter fields, assuming zero vorticity. This procedure yields a PDF of the pairwise velocity fields that is qualitatively similar to that of N-body simulations. We check fidelity of the catalog, showing that the measured two-point correlation function and power spectrum in real space agree with the input precisely. We find that a linear bias relation in the power spectrum does not guarantee a linear bias relation in the density contrasts, leading to a cross-correlation coefficient of matter and galaxies deviating from unity on small scales. We also find that linearising the Jacobian of the real-to-redshift space mapping provides a poor model for the two-point statistics in redshift space. That is, non-linear redshift-space distortion is dominated by non-linearity in the Jacobian. The power spectrum in redshift space shows a damping on small scales that is qualitatively similar to that of the well-known Fingers-of-God (FoG) effect due to random velocities, except that the log-normal mock does not include random velocities. This damping is a consequence of non-linearity in the Jacobian, and thus attributing the damping of the power spectrum solely to FoG, as commonly done in the literature, is misleading.

OSTI ID:
22667626
Journal Information:
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2017, Issue 10; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English