Systematic Effects on the Genus Topology of Large Scale Structure of the Universe

TL;DR

This paper investigates how various systematic effects influence the topology of large-scale cosmic structures, using simulations to model deviations and improve understanding of the universe's evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of systematic effects on the genus curve in large-scale structure, identifying new terms in the Hermite series and modeling non-Gaussian deviations.

Findings

Systematic effects can be modeled by low-order Hermite polynomials.

Non-linear gravitational evolution causes amplitude drops in the genus curve.

New significant terms in the Hermite series were identified.

Abstract

Large-scale structure of the universe is a useful cosmological probe of the primordial non-Gaussianity and the expansion history of the universe because its topology does not change with time in the linear regime in the standard paradigm of structure formation. However, when the topology of iso-density contour surfaces is measured from an observational data, many systematic effects are introduced due to the finite size of pixels used to define the density field, non-linear gravitational evolution, redshift-space distortion, shot noise (discrete sampling), and bias in the distribution of the density field tracers. We study the various systematic effects on the genus curve to a great accuracy by using the Horizon Run 2 simulation of a {\Lambda}CDM cosmology. We numerically measure the genus curve from the gravitationally evolved matter and dark matter halo density fields. It is found that all the non-Gaussian deviations due to the systematic effects can be modeled by using a few low-order Hermite polynomials from H0 to H4. We compare our results with the analytic theories whenever possible, and find many new terms in the Hermite series that are making significant contributions to the non-Gaussian deviations. In particular, it is found that the amplitude drop of the genus curve due to the non-linear gravitational evolution can be accurately modeled by two terms H0 and H2 with coefficients both proportional to \sigma_0^2, the mean-square density fluctuation.