Excursion Set Theory for generic moving barriers and non-Gaussian initial conditions
arXiv:1007.1903 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.18078.x
Abstract
Excursion set theory, where density perturbations evolve stochastically with the smoothing scale, provides a method for computing the mass function of cosmological structures like dark matter halos, sheets and filaments. The computation of these mass functions is mapped into the so-called first-passage time problem in the presence of a moving barrier. In this paper we use the path integral formulation of the excursion set theory developed recently to analytically solve the first-passage time problem in the presence of a generic moving barrier, in particular the barrier corresponding to ellipsoidal collapse. We perform the computation for both Gaussian and non-Gaussian initial conditions. The expression of the halo mass function for the ellipsoidal collapse barrier and with non-Gaussianity is therefore obtained in a fully consistent way and it does not require the introduction of any form factor artificially derived from the Press-Schechter formalism based on the spherical collapse and usually adopted in the literature.
17 pages, 7 figures. Minor corrections to match the version published in MNRAS
References in corpus (4)
- The imprints of primordial non-gaussianities on large-scale structure: scale dependent bias and abundance of virialized objects
- Effects of Scale-Dependent Non-Gaussianity on Cosmological Structures
- The Excursion Set Theory of Halo Mass Functions, Halo Clustering, and Halo Growth
- Primordial non-gaussianity, statistics of collapsed objects, and the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect