Covariances of Galaxy Stellar Mass Functions and Correlation Functions

TL;DR

This paper calculates detailed covariance matrices for galaxy stellar mass functions and correlation functions across various redshifts, accounting for large-scale structure, clustering, and shot noise, aiding galaxy formation modeling.

Contribution

It provides comprehensive covariance matrices for galaxy stellar mass functions and correlation functions, including all major sources of uncertainty, for the first time across a wide redshift range.

Findings

Covariance matrices include large-scale structure, clustering, and shot noise contributions.

Matrices are made publicly available for galaxy formation model constraints.

Analysis spans from redshift 0 to approximately 4.

Abstract

We compute covariance matrices for many observed estimates of the stellar mass function of galaxies from $z=0$ to $z\approx 4$, and for one estimate of the projected correlation function of galaxies split by stellar mass at $z\lesssim 0.5$. All covariance matrices include contributions due to large scale structure, the preference for galaxies to be found in groups and clusters, and for shot noise. These covariance matrices are made available for use in constraining models of galaxy formation and the galaxy-halo connection.