Showing papers by "Anatoly Klypin published in 2012"

Halo concentrations in the standard Λ cold dark matter cosmology

Abstract: We study the concentration of dark matter haloes and its evolution in N-body simulations of the standard Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology. The results presented in this paper are based on four large N-body simulations with ∼10 billion particles each: the Millennium-I and -II, Bolshoi and MultiDark simulations. The MultiDark (or BigBolshoi) simulation is introduced in this paper. This suite of simulations with high mass resolution over a large volume allows us to compute with unprecedented accuracy the concentration over a large range of scales (about six orders of magnitude in mass), which constitutes the state of the art of our current knowledge on this basic property of dark matter haloes in the ΛCDM cosmology. We find that there is consistency among the different simulation data sets, despite the different codes, numerical algorithms and halo/subhalo finders used in our analysis. We confirm a novel feature for halo concentrations at high redshifts: a flattening and upturn with increasing mass. The concentration c(M, z) as a function of mass and the redshift and for different cosmological parameters shows a remarkably complex pattern. However, when expressed in terms of the linear rms fluctuation of the density field σ(M, z), the halo concentration c(σ) shows a nearly universal simple U-shaped behaviour with a minimum at a well-defined scale at σ∼ 0.71. Yet, some small dependences with redshift and cosmology still remain. At the high-mass end (σ < 1), the median halo kinematic profiles show large signatures of infall and highly radial orbits. This c–σ(M, z) relation can be accurately parametrized and provides an analytical model for the dependence of concentration on halo mass. When applied to galaxy clusters, our estimates of concentrations are substantially larger – by a factor up to 1.5 – than previous results from smaller simulations, and are in much better agreement with results of observations.

Consistent Trees: Gravitationally Consistent Halo Catalogs and Merger Trees for Precision Cosmology

Abstract: We present a new algorithm for generating merger trees and halo catalogs which explicitly ensures consistency of halo properties (mass, position, and velocity) across time steps. Our algorithm has demonstrated the ability to improve both the completeness (through detecting and inserting otherwise missing halos) and purity (through detecting and removing spurious objects) of both merger trees and halo catalogs. In addition, our method is able to robustly measure the self-consistency of halo finders; it is the first to directly measure the uncertainties in halo positions, halo velocities, and the halo mass function for a given halo finder based on consistency between snapshots in cosmological simulations. We use this algorithm to generate merger trees for two large simulations (Bolshoi and Consuelo) and evaluate two halo finders (ROCKSTAR and BDM). We find that both the ROCKSTAR and BDM halo finders track halos extremely well; in both, the number of halos which do not have physically consistent progenitors is at the 1%-2% level across all halo masses. Our code is publicly available at http://code.google.com/p/consistent-trees. Our trees and catalogs are publicly available at http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/Bolshoi/.

ERRATUM: “DARK MATTER DECAY AND ANNIHILATION IN THE LOCAL UNIVERSE: CLUES FROM FERMI ” (2011, ApJ, 726, L6)

Abstract: We present all-sky simulated Fermi maps of γ -rays from dark matter (DM) decay and annihilation in the local universe. The DM distribution is obtained from a constrained cosmological simulation of the neighboring large-scale structure provided by the CLUES project. The DM fields of density and density squared are then taken as an input for the Fermi observation simulation tool to predict the γ -ray photon counts that Fermi would detect in 5 years of an all-sky survey for given DM models. Signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) sky maps have also been obtained by adopting the current Galactic and isotropic diffuse background models released by the Fermi Collaboration. We point out the possibility for Fermi to detect a DM γ -ray signal in local extragalactic structures. In particular, we conclude here that Fermi observations of nearby clusters (e.g., Virgo and Coma) and filaments are expected to give stronger constraints on decaying DM compared to previous studies. As an example, we find a significant S/N in DM models with a decay rate fitting the positron excess as measured by PAMELA. This is the first time that DM filaments are shown to be promising targets for indirect detection of DM. On the other hand, the prospects for detectability of annihilating DM in local extragalactic structures are less optimistic even with extreme cross-sections. We make the DM density and density squared maps publicly available online.