Computation of the Halo Mass Function Using Physical Collapse Parameters: Application to Non-Standard Cosmologies

Dec 4, 2013
23 pages
Published in:
  • JCAP 10 (2014) 077
  • Published: Oct 30, 2014
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Abstract: (IOP)
In this article we compare the halo mass function predicted by the excursion set theory with a drifting diffusive barrier against the results of N-body simulations for several cosmological models. This includes the standard ΛCDM case for a large range of halo masses, models with different types of primordial non-Gaussianity, and the Ratra-Peebles quintessence model of Dark Energy. We show that in all those cosmological scenarios, the abundance of dark matter halos can be described by a drifting diffusive barrier, where the two parameters describing the barrier have physical content. In the case of the Gaussian ΛCDM, the statistics are precise enough to actually predict those parameters at different redshifts from the initial conditions. Furthermore, we found that the stochasticity in the barrier is non-negligible making the simple deterministic spherical collapse model a bad approximation even at very high halo masses. We also show that using the standard excursion set approach with a barrier inspired by peak patches leads to inconsistent predictions of the halo mass function.
Note:
  • 25 pages, 12 figures
  • cosmological simulations
  • cluster counts
  • inflation
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