Halo Exclusion Criteria Impacts Halo Statistics

Abstract

Every halo finding algorithm must make a critical yet relatively arbitrary choice: it must decide which structures are parent halos, and which structures are sub-halos of larger halos. We refer to this choice as $percolation$. We demonstrate that the choice of percolation impacts the statistical properties of the resulting halo catalog. Specifically, we modify the halo-finding algorithm $\mathtt{ROCKSTAR}$ to construct four different halo catalogs from the same simulation data, each with identical mass definitions, but different choice of percolation. The resulting halos exhibit significant differences in both halo abundance and clustering properties. Differences in the halo mass function reach $10\%$ for halos of mass $10^{13}{h}^{-1}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$, larger than the few percent precision necessary for current cluster abundance experiments such as the Dark Energy Survey. Comparable differences are observed in the large-scale clustering bias, while differences in the halo--matter correlation function reach $40\%$ on translinear scales. These effects can bias weak-lensing estimates of cluster masses at a level comparable to the statistical precision of current state-of-the-art experiments.

arXiv comment8 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (27)

• The cosmological simulation code GADGET-2
• Statistical Properties of X-ray Clusters: Analytic and Numerical Comparisons
• Halo Models of Large Scale Structure
• Toward a halo mass function for precision cosmology: the limits of universality
• The Rockstar Phase-Space Temporal Halo Finder and the Velocity Offsets of Cluster Cores
• Rotation-Dependent Catastrophic Disruption of Gravitational Aggregates
• Dependence of the outer density profiles of halos on their mass accretion rate
• The splashback radius as a physical halo boundary and the growth of halo mass
• Halo mass function: Baryon impact, fitting formulae and implications for cluster cosmology
• Cosmological Constraints from a Combination of Galaxy Clustering and Lensing -- I. Theoretical Framework
• Splashback in accreting dark matter halos
• Structure Finding in Cosmological Simulations: The State of Affairs
• Mass Function Predictions Beyond LCDM
• Detection of the Splashback Radius and Halo Assembly bias of Massive Galaxy Clusters
• The Aemulus Project I: Numerical Simulations for Precision Cosmology
• The Aemulus Project II: Emulating the Halo Mass Function
• The splashback radius of halos from particle dynamics. II. Dependence on mass, accretion rate, redshift, and cosmology
• The Halo Boundary of Galaxy Clusters in the SDSS
• The Splashback Feature around DES Galaxy Clusters: Galaxy Density and Weak Lensing Profiles
• The splashback radius of halos from particle dynamics. I. The SPARTA algorithm
• Lensing Constraints on the Mass Profile Shape and the Splashback Radius of Galaxy Clusters
• Assembly Bias and Splashback in Galaxy Clusters
• Measurement of the Splashback Feature around SZ-selected Galaxy Clusters with DES, SPT and ACT
• The Splashback Radius of Planck-SZ clusters
• Weak lensing constraints on splashback around massive clusters
• A Method for Measuring the Bias of High-Redshift Galaxies from Cosmic Variance
• The clustering amplitude of X-ray selected AGN at z=0.8: Evidence for a negative dependence on accretion luminosity

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cosmological Constraints from Cluster Abundances and Weak Lensing
• Large-scale dark matter simulations
• Cosmology with the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope -- Multi-Probe Strategies
• Limitations to the "basic'' HOD model and beyond
• On the impact of baryons on the halo mass function, bias, and cluster cosmology
• The halo model for cosmology: a pedagogical review
• Testing one-loop galaxy bias: Power spectrum
• Flybys, orbits, splashback: subhalos and the importance of the halo boundary
• Aemulus $\nu$: Precise Predictions for Matter and Biased Tracer Power Spectra in the Presence of Neutrinos
• A Redefinition of the Halo Boundary Leads to a Simple yet Accurate Halo Model of Large Scale Structure
• Exploring the contamination of the DES-Y1 Cluster Sample with SPT-SZ selected clusters
• The splashback radius of halos from particle dynamics: III. Halo catalogs, merger trees, and host-subhalo relations
• Clusters Have Edges: The Projected Phase SpaceStructure of SDSS redMaPPer Clusters
• An Analytic Hybrid Halo + Perturbation Theory Model for Small-scale Correlators: Baryons, Halos, and Galaxies
• A Better Way to Define Dark Matter Haloes
• A physical and concise halo model based on the depletion radius
• An Empirical Model For Intrinsic Alignments: Insights From Cosmological Simulations
• The effect of finite halo size on the clustering of neutral hydrogen
• Secondary halo bias through cosmic time II: Reconstructing halo properties using clustering information
• Einasto profile as the halo model solution coupled to the depletion radius
• The power spectrum of galaxies from large to small scales: a line-intensity mapping perspective
• Distinguishing Orbiting and Infalling Dark Matter Particles with Machine Learning