We present a new N-body simulation from the Marenostrum Institut de Ciències de l'Espai (MICE) collaboration, the MICE Grand Challenge (MICE-GC), containing about 70 billion dark matter particles in ...a (3 Gpc h
−1)3 comoving volume. Given its large volume and fine spatial resolution, spanning over five orders of magnitude in dynamic range, it allows an accurate modelling of the growth of structure in the universe from the linear through the highly non-linear regime of gravitational clustering. We validate the dark matter simulation outputs using 3D and 2D clustering statistics, and discuss mass-resolution effects in the non-linear regime by comparing to previous simulations and the latest numerical fits. We show that the MICE-GC run allows for a measurement of the BAO feature with per cent level accuracy and compare it to state-of-the-art theoretical models. We also use sub-arcmin resolution pixelized 2D maps of the dark matter counts in the lightcone to make tomographic analyses in real and redshift space. Our analysis shows the simulation reproduces the Kaiser effect on large scales, whereas we find a significant suppression of power on non-linear scales relative to the real space clustering. We complete our validation by presenting an analysis of the three-point correlation function in this and previous MICE simulations, finding further evidence for mass-resolution effects. This is the first of a series of three papers in which we present the MICE-GC simulation, along with a wide and deep mock galaxy catalogue built from it. This mock is made publicly available through a dedicated web portal, http://cosmohub.pic.es.
We present a method to build mock galaxy catalogues starting from a halo catalogue that uses halo occupation distribution (HOD) recipes as well as the subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) technique. ...Combining both prescriptions we are able to push the absolute magnitude of the resulting catalogue to fainter luminosities than using just the SHAM technique and can interpret our results in terms of the HOD modelling. We optimize the method by populating with galaxies friends-of-friends dark matter haloes extracted from the Marenostrum Institut de Ciències de l'Espai dark matter simulations and comparing them to observational constraints. Our resulting mock galaxy catalogues manage to reproduce the observed local galaxy luminosity function and the colour–magnitude distribution as observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. They also reproduce the observed galaxy clustering properties as a function of luminosity and colour. In order to achieve that, the algorithm also includes scatter in the halo mass–galaxy luminosity relation derived from direct SHAM and a modified Navarro–Frenk–White mass density profile to place satellite galaxies in their host dark matter haloes. Improving on general usage of the HOD that fits the clustering for given magnitude limited samples, our catalogues are constructed to fit observations at all luminosities considered and therefore for any luminosity subsample. Overall, our algorithm is an economic procedure of obtaining galaxy mock catalogues down to faint magnitudes that are necessary to understand and interpret galaxy surveys.
This is the second in a series of three papers in which we present an end-to-end simulation from the MICE collaboration, the MICE Grand Challenge (MICE-GC) run. The N-body contains about 70 billion ...dark-matter particles in a (3 h
−1 Gpc)3 comoving volume spanning five orders of magnitude in dynamical range. Here, we introduce the halo and galaxy catalogues built upon it, both in a wide (5000 deg2) and deep (z < 1.4) lightcone and in several comoving snapshots. Haloes were resolved down to few 1011 h
−1 M⊙. This allowed us to model galaxies down to absolute magnitude M
r
< −18.9. We used a new hybrid halo occupation distribution and abundance matching technique for galaxy assignment. The catalogue includes the spectral energy distributions of all galaxies. We describe a variety of halo and galaxy clustering applications. We discuss how mass resolution effects can bias the large-scale two-pt clustering amplitude of poorly resolved haloes at the ≲5 per cent level, and their three-pt correlation function. We find a characteristic scale-dependent bias of ≲6 per cent across the BAO feature for haloes well above M
⋆ ∼ 1012 h
−1 M⊙ and for luminous red galaxy like galaxies. For haloes well below M
⋆ the scale dependence at 100 h
−1 Mpc is ≲2 per cent. Lastly, we discuss the validity of the large-scale Kaiser limit across redshift and departures from it towards non-linear scales. We make the current version of the lightcone halo and galaxy catalogue (MICECATv1.0) publicly available through a dedicated web portal to help develop and exploit the new generation of astronomical surveys.
Measurements of the linear growth factor D at different redshifts z are key to distinguish among cosmological models. One can estimate the derivative dD(z)/dln (1 + z) from redshift space ...measurements of the 3D anisotropic galaxy two-point correlation ξ(z), but the degeneracy of its transverse (or projected) component with galaxy bias b, i.e. ξ⊥(z) ∝ D
2(z)b
2(z), introduces large errors in the growth measurement. Here, we present a comparison between two methods which breaks this degeneracy by combining second- and third-order statistics. One uses the shape of the reduced three-point correlation and the other a combination of third-order one- and two-point cumulants. These methods use the fact that, for Gaussian initial conditions and scales larger than 20 h
−1 Mpc, the reduced third-order matter correlations are independent of redshift (and therefore of the growth factor), while the third-order galaxy correlations depend on b. We use matter and halo catalogues from the MICE-GC simulation to test how well we can recover b(z) and therefore D(z) with these methods in 3D real space. We also present a new approach, which enables us to measure D directly from the redshift evolution of the second- and third-order galaxy correlations without the need of modelling matter correlations. For haloes with masses lower than 1014
h
−1 M⊙, we find 10 per cent deviations between the different estimates of D, which are comparable to current observational errors. At higher masses, we find larger differences that can probably be attributed to the breakdown of the bias model and non-Poissonian shot noise.
Abstract
The Physics of the Accelerating Universe Survey (PAUS) is an innovative photometric survey with 40 narrow-bands at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). The narrow-bands are spaced at 100 Å ...intervals covering the range 4500–8500 Å and, in combination with standard broad-bands, enable excellent redshift precision. This paper describes the technique, galaxy templates, and additional photometric calibration used to determine early photometric redshifts from PAUS. Using bcnz2, a new photometric redshift code developed for this purpose, we characterize the photometric redshift performance using PAUS data on the COSMOS field. Comparison to secure spectra from zCOSMOS DR3 shows that PAUS achieves σ68/(1 + $z$) = 0.0037 to iAB < 22.5 for the redshift range 0 < $z$ < 1.2, when selecting the best 50 per cent of the sources based on a photometric redshift quality cut. Furthermore, a higher photo-z precision σ68/(1 + $z$) ∼ 0.001 is obtained for a bright and high-quality selection, which is driven by the identification of emission lines. We conclude that PAUS meets its design goals, opening up a hitherto uncharted regime of deep, wide, and dense galaxy survey with precise redshifts that will provide unique insights into the formation, evolution, and clustering of galaxies, as well as their intrinsic alignments.
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we introduce the deepz deep learning photometric redshift (photo-z) code. As a test case, we apply the code to the PAU survey (PAUS) data in the COSMOS field. deepz reduces ...the σ68 scatter statistic by 50 per cent at iAB = 22.5 compared to existing algorithms. This improvement is achieved through various methods, including transfer learning from simulations where the training set consists of simulations as well as observations, which reduces the need for training data. The redshift probability distribution is estimated with a mixture density network (MDN), which produces accurate redshift distributions. Our code includes an autoencoder to reduce noise and extract features from the galaxy SEDs. It also benefits from combining multiple networks, which lowers the photo-z scatter by 10 per cent. Furthermore, training with randomly constructed coadded fluxes adds information about individual exposures, reducing the impact of photometric outliers. In addition to opening up the route for higher redshift precision with narrow bands, these machine learning techniques can also be valuable for broad-band surveys.
Aims. Our goal is to develop and test a novel methodology to compute accurate close-pair fractions with photometric redshifts. Methods. We improved the currently used methodologies to estimate the ...merger fraction fm from photometric redshifts by (i) using the full probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the sources in redshift space; (ii) including the variation in the luminosity of the sources with z in both the sample selection and the luminosity ratio constrain; and (iii) splitting individual PDFs into red and blue spectral templates to reliably work with colour selections. We tested the performance of our new methodology with the PDFs provided by the ALHAMBRA photometric survey. Results. The merger fractions and rates from the ALHAMBRA survey agree excellently well with those from spectroscopic work for both the general population and red and blue galaxies. With the merger rate of bright (MB ≤ −20−1.1z) galaxies evolving as (1 + z)n, the power-law index n is higher for blue galaxies (n = 2.7 ± 0.5) than for red galaxies (n = 1.3 ± 0.4), confirming previous results. Integrating the merger rate over cosmic time, we find that the average number of mergers per galaxy since z = 1 is Nmred = 0.57 ± 0.05 for red galaxies and Nmblue = 0.26 ± 0.02 for blue galaxies. Conclusions. Our new methodology statistically exploits all the available information provided by photometric redshift codes and yields accurate measurements of the merger fraction by close pairs from using photometric redshifts alone. Current and future photometric surveys will benefit from this new methodology.
We present UBVRIz' optical images taken with MOSAIC on the CTIO 4 m telescope of the 0.32 deg super(2) Extended Hubble Deep Field-South. This is one of four fields comprising the MUSYC survey, which ...is optimized for the study of galaxies at z = 3, active galactic nucleus (AGN) demographics, and Galactic structure. Our methods used for astrometric calibration, weighted image combination, and photometric calibration in AB magnitudes are described. We calculate corrected aperture photometry and its uncertainties and find through tests that these provide a significant improvement upon standard techniques. Our photometric catalog of 62,968 objects is complete to a total magnitude of R sub(AB) = 25, with R-band counts consistent with results from the literature. We select z 3 Lyman break galaxy (LBG) candidates from their UVR colors and find a sky surface density of 1.4 arcmin super(-2) and an angular correlation function w(f) = (2.3 c 1.0)f super(-0.8), consistent with previous findings that high-redshift Lyman break galaxies reside in massive dark matter halos. Our images and catalogs are available online.
The Physics of the Accelerating Universe (PAU) survey at the William Herschel Telescope will use a new optical camera (PAUCam) with a large set of narrow-band filters to perform a photometric galaxy ...survey with a quasi-spectroscopic redshift precision of σ(z)/(1 + z) ∼ 0.0035 and map the large-scale structure of the universe in three dimensions up to i
AB < 22.5–23.0. In this paper, we present a detailed photo-z performance study using photometric simulations for 40 equally spaced 12.5-nm-wide (full width at half-maximum) filters with an ∼25 per cent overlap and spanning the wavelength range from 450 to 850 nm, together with a ugrizY broad-band filter system. We then present the migration matrix r
ij
, containing the probability that a galaxy in a true redshift bin j is measured in a photo-z bin i, and study its effect on the determination of galaxy auto- and cross-correlations. Finally, we also study the impact on the photo-z performance of small variations of the filter set in terms of width, wavelength coverage, etc., and find a broad region where slightly modified filter sets provide similar results, with the original set being close to optimal.
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