Large-scale non-Gaussian mass function and halo bias: tests on N-body simulations

Feb, 2009
11 pages
Published in:
  • Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 398 (2009) 321-332
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Abstract: (arXiv)
The description of the abundance and clustering of halos for non-Gaussian initial conditions has recently received renewed interest, motivated by the forthcoming large galaxy and cluster surveys which can potentially yield constraints of order unity on the non-Gaussianity parameter f_{NL}. We present tests on N-body simulations of analytical formulae describing the halo abundance and clustering for non-Gaussian initial conditions. We calibrate the analytic non-Gaussian mass function of Matarrese et al. (2000) and LoVerde et al. (2007) and the analytic description of clustering of halos for non-Gaussian initial conditions on N-body simulations. We find that correcting for non-spherical collapse dynamics yields excellent agreement between the simulations and analytic predictions. The effect can be summarized by the substitution delta_c -->delta_c sqrt{q} where q ~0.75 in the non-Gaussian mass function, and we propose the substitution delta_c --> delta_c q in the non-Gaussian halo bias. We discuss the implications of this correction on present and forecasted primordial non-Gaussianity constraints. We confirm that the non-Gaussian halo bias offers a robust and highly competitive test of primordial non-Gaussianity.