Evolution of halo-halo clustering and bias in a LCDM model

TL;DR

This paper investigates the evolution of halo-halo clustering and bias in a LCDM cosmological model using high-resolution N-body simulations, providing insights into galaxy formation and structure growth across cosmic time.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed analysis of small-scale halo correlation functions and bias evolution in a high-resolution LCDM simulation, aligning results with observational data.

Findings

Halo-halo correlation function follows a power-law with slope ~1.6-1.8.

Scale-dependent bias exists at scales <7/h Mpc, consistent with hierarchical models.

Simulation results agree with galaxy clustering observations at various redshifts.

Abstract

We study the evolution of the halo-halo correlation function and bias in a LCDM model using very high-resolution N-body simulations. The high force and mass resolution allows dark matter (DM) halos to survive in the tidal fields in high-density regions and thus prevents the ambiguities related with the ``overmerging problem.'' Numbers of galaxy-size halos in cluster-like objects in our simulation are similar to the numbers of galaxies observed in real clusters. This allows us to estimate for the first time the evolution of the correlation function and bias at small (down to ~100/h kpc) scales. We compare particle distribution, dark matter correlation function, density profiles, and halo mass function produced with our N-body code and corresponding results of the AP3M simulations. We find that at all epochs the 2-point correlation function of galaxy-size halos xihh is well approximated by a power-law with slope ~1.6-1.8. The difference between the shape of xihh and the shape of the correlation function of matter results in the scale-dependent bias at scales <7/h Mpc, which we find to be a generic prediction of the hierarchical models, independent of the epoch and of the model details. We find that our results agree well with existing clustering data at different redshifts, indicating the general success of the picture of structure formation in which galaxies form inside the host DM halos. Particularly, we find an excellent agreement in both slope and the amplitude between xihh(z=0) in our simulation and the galaxy correlation function measured using the APM galaxy survey. At high redshifts, the observed clustering of the Lyman-break galaxies is also reasonably well reproduced by the models.