Statistical properties of the linear tidal shear

TL;DR

This paper derives exact statistical descriptions of the tidal shear field's two-point distribution in Gaussian primordial potentials, providing insights into large-scale structure formation and alignments.

Contribution

It presents a novel exact closed-form expression for the two-point distribution of shear components and eigenvalues, applicable at arbitrary separations.

Findings

Analytic expressions match numerical simulations.

Two-point distributions are well approximated by Gaussian bivariates.

Results are relevant for understanding primordial shear effects on matter distribution.

Abstract

Large-scale structures originate from coherent motions induced by inhomogeneities in the primeval gravitational potential. Here, we investigate the two-point statistics of the second derivative of the potential, the tidal shear, under the assumption of Gaussianity. We derive an exact closed form expression for the angular averaged, two-point distribution of the shear components which is valid for an arbitrary Lagrangian separation. This result is used to write down the two-point statistics of the shear eigenvalues in compact form. Next, we examine the large-scale asymptotics of the correlation of the shear eigenvalues, and the alignment of the principal axes. The analytic results are in good agreement with measurements obtained from random realizations of the gravitational potential. Finally, we show that a number of two-point distributions of the shear eigenvalues are well approximated by Gaussian bivariates over a wide range of separation and smoothing scales. We speculate that the Gaussian approximation also holds for multiple point distributions of the shear eigenvalues. It is hoped that these results will be relevant for studies aimed at describing the properties of the (evolved) matter distribution in terms of the statistics of the primordial shear field.