Predicted number counts and clustering of Hi galaxies from future radio surveys

Abstract

The 21cm emission line from neutral hydrogen (HI) contained within galaxies provides a way to make accurate spectroscopic redshift determinations at radio frequencies. Large arrays such as SKA-MID will have the sensitivity required to catalogue millions of HI galaxies. The expected number counts and clustering properties of the galaxies are still quite poorly understood however, leading to uncertainties in the predicted performance of cosmological surveys. We use three different simulated galaxy catalogues to predict the properties of the HI galaxy distribution, along with estimates of the error on these predictions due to modelling uncertainty. The simulations are S${}^3$-SAX (semi-analytic models based on the Millennium dark matter-only simulation); GAEA (an updated semi-analytic model partially calibrated on hydrodynamical simulations); and IllustrisTNG (a hydrodynamical simulation). We present predictions for galaxy number counts as a function of sensitivity and redshift, and use these to forecast the cosmological performance of a proposed SKA-MID cosmological survey. The simulated predictions differ by a factor of $\sim 2$ in the number counts and around 10% in the bias at $z\sim 0.1$, yielding around 20% differences in forecast cosmological uncertainties. These differences become significantly larger at $z\gtrsim 0.4$. We also model a 'medium-deep' SKA HI galaxy survey at $z\lesssim 0.07$ by fitting a halo occupation distribution (HOD) model to angular correlation functions measured from multiple $20^{\circ }\times 20^{\circ }$ sub-fields of IllustrisTNG. This provides clustering predictions and uncertainty estimates that can be used in future forecasts.

16 pages, 12 figures. Updated following review comments, and corrected references to in-preparation work on the GAEA predictions that were previously omitted