Super-sample covariance in simulations

Yin Li, Wayne Hu, and Masahiro Takada
Phys. Rev. D 89, 083519 – Published 8 April 2014

Abstract

Using separate universe simulations, we accurately quantify super-sample covariance (SSC), the typically dominant sampling error for matter power spectrum estimators in a finite volume, which arises from the presence of super survey modes. By quantifying the power spectrum response to a background mode, this approach automatically captures the separate effects of beat coupling in the quasilinear regime, halo sample variance in the nonlinear regime and a new dilation effect which changes scales in the power spectrum coherently across the survey volume, including the baryon acoustic oscillation scale. It models these effects at typically the few percent level or better with a handful of small volume simulations for any survey geometry compared with directly using many thousands of survey volumes in a suite of large-volume simulations. The stochasticity of the response is sufficiently small that in the quasilinear regime, SSC can be alternately included by fitting the mean density in the volume with these fixed templates in parameter estimation. We also test the halo model prescription and find agreement typically at better than the 10% level for the response.

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  • Received 8 January 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.89.083519

© 2014 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Yin Li1,2, Wayne Hu2, and Masahiro Takada3

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
  • 2Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA
  • 3Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), The University of Tokyo, Chiba 277-8583, Japan

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Vol. 89, Iss. 8 — 15 April 2014

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