Suppressing cosmic variance with paired-and-fixed cosmological simulations: average properties and covariances of dark matter clustering statistics

DOI: 
10.1093/mnras/staa734
Publication date: 
01/04/2020
Main author: 
Klypin, Anatoly
IAA authors: 
Prada, Francisco
Authors: 
Klypin, Anatoly;Prada, Francisco;Byun, Joyce
Journal: 
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Publication type: 
Article
Pages: 
3862
Abstract: 
Making cosmological inferences from the observed galaxy clustering requires accurate predictions for the mean clustering statistics and their covariances. Those are affected by cosmic variance - the statistical noise due to the finite number of harmonics. The cosmic variance can be suppressed by fixing the amplitudes of the harmonics instead of drawing them from a Gaussian distribution predicted by the inflation models. Initial realisations also can be generated in pairs with 180<SUP>○</SUP> flipped phases to further reduce the variance. Here, we compare the consequences of using paired-and-fixed vs Gaussian initial conditions on the average dark matter clustering and covariance matrices predicted from N-body simulations. As in previous studies, we find no measurable differences between paired-and-fixed and Gaussian simulations for the average density distribution function, power spectrum and bispectrum. Yet, the covariances from paired-and-fixed simulations are suppressed in a complicated scale- and redshift-dependent way. The situation is particularly problematic on the scales of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations where the covariance matrix of the power spectrum is lower by only ∼ 20% compared to the Gaussian realisations, implying that there is not much of a reduction of the cosmic variance. The non-trivial suppression, combined with the fact that paired-and-fixed covariances are noisier than from Gaussian simulations, suggests that there is no path towards obtaining accurate covariance matrices from paired-and-fixed simulations - result, that is theoretically expected and accepted in the field. Because the covariances are crucial for the observational estimates of galaxy clustering statistics and cosmological parameters, paired-and-fixed simulations, though useful for some applications, cannot be used for the production of mock galaxy catalogs.
Database: 
ADS
URL: 
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#abs/2020MNRAS.496.3862K/abstract
ADS Bibcode: 
2020MNRAS.496.3862K
Keywords: 
cosmology: Large-scale structure of Universe;dark matter;methods: numerical;Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics