Covariances for cosmic shear and galaxy-galaxy lensing in the response approach

TL;DR

This paper develops a response approach using separate universe simulations to accurately calibrate super-sample covariance in cosmic shear and galaxy-galaxy lensing, improving the understanding of large-scale mode effects on small-scale clustering measurements.

Contribution

The study introduces a response-based method to calibrate super-sample covariance for projected power spectra, validated against light-cone simulations, enhancing covariance modeling in cosmological analyses.

Findings

Super-sample covariance dominates small-scale matter spectra.

Large-scale density contrast significantly impacts covariance, tidal effects are negligible.

The response approach accurately calibrates covariance with lower computational cost.

Abstract

In this study, we measure the response of matter and halo projected power spectra $P^{\rm 2D}_{\rm XY}(k)$ (X, Y are matter and/or halos), to a large-scale density contrast, $\delta_{\rm b}$, using separate universe simulations. We show that the fractional response functions, i.e., $\mathrm{d}\ln P^{\rm 2D}_{\rm XY}(k)/\mathrm{d}\delta_{\rm b}$, are identical to their respective three-dimensional power spectra within simulation measurement errors. Then, using various $N$-body simulation combinations (small-box simulations with periodic boundary conditions and sub-volumes of large-box simulations) to construct {mock observations of projected fields}, we study how super-survey modes, in both parallel and perpendicular directions to the projection direction, affect the covariance matrix of $P^{\rm 2D}_{\rm XY}(k)$, known as super-sample covariance (SSC). Our results indicate that the SSC term provides dominant contributions to the covariances of matter-matter and matter-halo spectra at small scales but does not provide significant contributions in the halo-halo spectrum. We observe that the large-scale density contrast in each redshift shell causes most of the SSC effect, and we did not observe a SSC signature arising from large-scale tidal field within the levels of measurement accuracy. We also develop a response approach to calibrate the SSC term for cosmic shear correlation function and galaxy--galaxy weak lensing, and validate the method by comparison with the light-cone ray-tracing simulations. Our method provides a reasonably accurate, albeit computationally inexpensive, way to calibrate the covariance matrix for clustering observables available from wide-area galaxy surveys.