Vlasov-Poisson in 1D for initially cold systems: post-collapse Lagrangian perturbation theory

We study analytically the collapse of an initially smooth, cold, self-gravitating collisionless system in one dimension. The system is described as a central "S" shape in phase-space surrounded by a nearly stationary halo acting locally like a harmonic background on the S. To resolve the dynamics of the S under its self-gravity and under the influence of the halo, we introduce a novel approach using post-collapse Lagrangian perturbation theory. This approach allows us to follow the evolution of the system between successive crossing times and to describe in an iterative way the interplay between the central S and the halo. Our theoretical predictions are checked against measurements in entropy conserving numerical simulations based on the waterbag method. While our post-collapse Lagrangian approach does not allow us to compute rigorously the long term behavior of the system, i.e. after many crossing times, it explains the close to power-law behavior of the projected density observed in numerical simulations. Pushing the model at late time suggests that the system could build at some point a very small flat core, but this is very speculative. This analysis shows that understanding the dynamics of initially cold systems requires a fine grained approach for a correct description of their very central part. The analyses performed here can certainly be extended to spherical symmetry.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Phase-space structure analysis of self-gravitating collisionless spherical systems

In the mean field limit, isolated gravitational systems often evolve towards a steady state through a violent relaxation phase. One question is to understand the nature of this relaxation phase, in particular the role of radial instabilities in the establishment/destruction of the steady profile. Here, through a detailed phase-space analysis based both on a spherical Vlasov solver, a shell code and a $N$-body code, we revisit the evolution of collisionless self-gravitating spherical systems with initial power-law density profiles $\rho(r) \propto r^n$, $0 \leq n \leq -1.5$, and Gaussian velocity dispersion. Two sub-classes of models are considered, with initial virial ratios $\eta=0.5$ ("warm") and $\eta=0.1$ ("cool"). Thanks to the numerical techniques used and the high resolution of the simulations, our numerical analyses are able, for the first time, to show the clear separation between two or three well known dynamical phases: (i) the establishment of a spherical quasi-steady state through a violent relaxation phase during which the phase-space density displays a smooth spiral structure presenting a morphology consistent with predictions from self-similar dynamics, (ii) a quasi-steady state phase during which radial instabilities can take place at small scales and destroy the spiral structure but do not change quantitatively the properties of the phase-space distribution at the coarse grained level and (iii) relaxation to non spherical state due to radial orbit instabilities for $n \leq -1$ in the cool case.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 14 pages, 9 figure

Baryon Dynamics, Dark Matter Substructure, and Galaxies

By comparing a collisionless cosmological N-body simulation (DM) to an SPH simulation with the same initial conditions, we investigate the correspondence between the dark matter subhalos produced by collisionless dynamics and the galaxies produced by dissipative gas dynamics in a dark matter background. When galaxies in the SPH simulation become satellites in larger groups, they retain local dark matter concentrations (SPH subhalos) whose mass is typically five times their baryonic mass. The more massive subhalos of the SPH simulation have corresponding subhalos of similar mass and position in the DM simulation; at lower masses, there is fairly good correspondence, but some DM subhalos are in different spatial positions and some suffer tidal stripping or disruption. The halo occupation statistics of DM subhalos -- the mean number of subhalos, pairs, and triples as a function of host halo mass -- are very similar to those of SPH subhalos and SPH galaxies. Gravity of the dissipative baryon component amplifies the density contrast of subhalos in the SPH simulation, making them more resistant to tidal disruption. Relative to SPH galaxies and SPH subhalos, the DM subhalo population is depleted in the densest regions of the most massive halos. The good agreement of halo occupation statistics between the DM subhalo and SPH galaxy populations leads to good agreement of their two-point correlation functions and higher order moments on large scales. The depletion of DM subhalos in dense regions depresses their clustering at R<1 Mpc/h. In these simulations, the "conversation" between dark matter and baryons is mostly one-way, with dark matter dynamics telling galaxies where to form and how to cluster, but the "back talk" of the baryons influences small scale clustering by enhancing the survival of substructure in the densest environments.Comment: 32 pages including 16 figs. Submitted to ApJ. PDF file with higher quality versions of Figs 2 and 3 available at http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~dhw/Preprints/subhalo.pd

Numerical study of the cosmic shear

We study cosmic shear statistics using the ray-tracing simulation combined with a set of large $N$-body simulations. In this contribution, we first describe our method. Then we show some selected results especially focusing on effects of the deflection of light rays and the lens-lens coupling which are neglected in making the theoretical predictions of the cosmic shear statistics.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the XXth Moriond Astrophysics Meeting "Cosmological Physics with Gravitational Lensing", March 2000, eds. J.-P. Kneib,Y. Mellier, M. Mon, J. Tran Thanh Va

The origin and implications of dark matter anisotropic cosmic infall on ~L* haloes

We measure the anisotropy of dark matter flows on small scales in the near environment of haloes using a large set of simulations. We rely on two different approaches to quantify the anisotropy of the cosmic infall: we measure the flows at the haloes' virial radius while describing the infalling matter via fluxes through a spherical shell; we measure the spatial and kinematical distributions of satellites and substructures around haloes detected by the subclump finder ADAPTAHOP first described in the appendix. The two methods are found to be in agreement both qualitatively and quantitatively via one and two points statistics.The infall takes place preferentially in the plane perpendicular to the direction defined by the halo's spin. We computed the excess of equatorial accretion both through rings and via a harmonic expansion of the infall. The level of anisotropy of infalling matter is found to be ~15 %. The substructures have their spin orthogonal to their velocity vector in the halo's rest frame at a level of about 5%, suggestive of an image of a flow along filamentary structures which provides an explanation for the measured anisotropy. We conclude that a halo does not see its environment as an isotropic perturbation, investigate how the anisotropy is propagated inwards using perturbation theory, and discuss briefly implications for weak lensing, warps and the thickness of galactic disks

Caustics in Dark Matter Haloes

Caustics are formally singular structures, with infinite density, that form in collisionless media. The non-negligible velocity dispersion of dark matter particles renders their density finite. We evaluate the maximum density of the caustics within the framework of secondary infall model of formation of dark matter haloes. The result is then used to demonstrate that caustics can be probed by properly stacking the weak-lensing signal of about 600 haloes. CFHTLS accompanied by X-ray observations and the space-based experiments like SNAP or DUNE can provide us with the required statistics and hence a way of distinguishing between the viable dark matter particle candidates. The extension of our results to more realistic models including the effects of mergers of haloes is briefly outlined.Comment: Minor changes, two references added, 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Proc. 21st IAP Colloquium "Mass Profiles and Shapes of Cosmological Structures", Paris 4-9 July 2005, [EAS Publications Series, eds: G. Mamon, F. Combes, C. Deffayet, B. Fort

The Skeleton: Connecting Large Scale Structures to Galaxy Formation

We report on two quantitative, morphological estimators of the filamentary structure of the Cosmic Web, the so-called global and local skeletons. The first, based on a global study of the matter density gradient flow, allows us to study the connectivity between a density peak and its surroundings, with direct relevance to the anisotropic accretion via cold flows on galactic halos. From the second, based on a local constraint equation involving the derivatives of the field, we can derive predictions for powerful statistics, such as the differential length and the relative saddle to extrema counts of the Cosmic web as a function of density threshold (with application to percolation of structures and connectivity), as well as a theoretical framework to study their cosmic evolution through the onset of gravity-induced non-linearities.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; proceedings of the "Invisible Universe" 200

Measuring the Redshift Evolution of Clustering: the Hubble Deep Field South

We present an analysis of the evolution of galaxy clustering in the redshift interval 0<z<4.5 in the HDF-S. The HST optical data are combined with infrared ISAAC/VLT observations, and photometric redshifts are used for all the galaxies brighter than I_AB<27.5. The clustering signal is obtained in different redshift bins using two different approaches: a standard one, which uses the best redshift estimate of each object, and a second one, which takes into account the redshift probability function of each object. This second method makes it possible to improve the information in the redshift intervals where contamination from objects with insecure redshifts is important. With both methods, we find that the clustering strength up to z~3.5 in the HDF-S is consistent with the previous results in the HDF-N. While at redshift lower than z~1 the HDF galaxy population is un/anti-biased (b<1) with respect to the underlying dark matter, at high redshift the bias increases up to b~2-3, depending on the cosmological model. These results support previous claims that, at high redshift, galaxies are preferentially located in massive haloes, as predicted by the biased galaxy formation scenario. The impact of cosmic errors on our analyses has been quantified, showing that errors in the clustering measurements in the HDF surveys are indeed dominated by shot-noise in most regimes. Future observations with instruments like the ACS on HST will improve the S/N by at least a factor of two and more detailed analyses of the errors will be required. In fact, pure shot-noise will give a smaller contribution with respect to other sources of errors, such as finite volume effects or non-Poissonian discreteness effects.Comment: 17 pages Latex, with 12 PostScript figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA

Accretion, feedback and galaxy bimodality: a comparison of the GalICS semi-analytic model and cosmological SPH simulations

We compare the galaxy population of an SPH simulation to those predicted by the GalICS semi-analytic model and a stripped down version without supernova and AGN feedback. The SPH simulation and the no-feedback GalICS model make similar predictions for the baryonic mass functions of galaxies and for the dependence of these mass functions on environment and redshift. The two methods also make similar predictions for the galaxy content of dark matter haloes as a function of halo mass and for the gas accretion history of galaxies. Both the SPH and no-feedback GalICS models predict a bimodal galaxy population at z=0. The "red'' sequence of gas poor, old galaxies is populated mainly by satellite systems while, contrary to observations, the central galaxies of massive haloes lie on the "blue'' star-forming sequence as a result of continuing hot gas accretion at late times. Furthermore, both models overpredict the observed baryonic mass function, especially at the high mass end. In the full GalICS model, supernova-driven outflows reduce the masses of low and intermediate mass galaxies by about a factor of two. AGN feedback suppresses gas cooling in large haloes, producing a sharp cut-off in the baryonic mass function and moving the central galaxies of these massive haloes to the red sequence. Our results imply that the observational failings of the SPH simulation and the no-feedback GalICS model are a consequence of missing input physics rather than computational inaccuracies, that truncating gas accretion by satellite galaxies automatically produces a bimodal galaxy distribution with a red sequence, but that explaining the red colours of the most massive galaxies requires a mechanism like AGN feedback that suppresses the accretion onto central galaxies in large haloes.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRA

Cosmic variance of weak lensing surveys in the non-Gaussian regime

The results from weak gravitational lensing analyses are subject to a cosmic variance error term that has previously been estimated assuming Gaussian statistics. In this letter we address the issue of estimating cosmic variance errors for weak lensing surveys in the non-Gaussian regime. Using standard cold dark matter model ray-tracing simulations characterized by Omega_m=0.3, Omega_Lambda=0.7, h=0.7, sigma_8=1.0 for different survey redshifts z_s, we determine the variance of the two-point shear correlation function measured across 64 independent lines of sight. We compare the measured variance to the variance expected from a random Gaussian field and derive a redshift-dependent non-Gaussian calibration relation. We find that the ratio can be as high as ~30 for a survey with source redshift z_s ~ 0.5 and ~10 for z_s ~ 1. The transition scale theta_c above which the ratio is consistent with unity, is found to be theta_c ~ 20 arcmin for z_s ~ 0.5 and theta_c ~ 10 arcmin for z_s ~ 1. We provide fitting formula to our results permitting the estimation of non-Gaussian cosmic variance errors for any weak lensing analysis, and discuss the impact on current and future surveys. A more extensive set of simulations will however be required to investigate the dependence of our results on cosmology, specifically on the amplitude of clustering.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures. MNRAS Accepted versio