The Mass Function of Dark Halos in Superclusters and Voids

TL;DR

This paper extends the Press-Schechter theory to include large-scale structures like superclusters and voids, allowing for better understanding of halo distributions influenced by background density variations.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism incorporating statistical constraints to account for large-scale structures in the mass function of dark halos, enabling analysis of boundary effects and background perturbations.

Findings

Presence of non-virialized LSS causes observable deviations in the mass function.

The formalism links LSS parameters to features like mean overdensity and shape.

Method to recover background perturbation parameters from observational data.

Abstract

A modification of the Press-Schechter theory allowing for presence of a background large-scale structure (LSS) - a supercluster or a void, is proposed. The LSS is accounted as the statistical constraints in form of linear functionals of the random overdensity field. The deviation of the background density within the LSS is interpreted in a pseudo-cosmological sense. Using the constraints formalism may help us to probe non-trivial spatial statistics of haloes, e.g. edge and shape effects on boundaries of the superclusters and voids. Parameters of the constraints are connected to features of the LSS: its mean overdensity, a spatial scale and a shape, and spatial momenta of higher orders. It is shown that presence of a non-virialized LSS can lead to an observable deviation of the mass function. This effect is exploited to build a procedure to recover parameters of the background perturbation from the observationally estimated mass function.