Modeling survey-window and integral-constraint effects on PNG in the galaxy power spectrum with light-cone mocks

Abstract

We develop an analysis framework based on {\em light-cone} galaxy mock catalogs constructed from linear theory simulations in order to accurately model the impact of primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) on galaxy power spectrum on large scales. These linear light-cone catalogs properly incorporate a variety of observational and cosmological effects, including the survey window function, the redshift evolution of matter and galaxy density fields, and redshift-space distortions (RSD). When estimating the multipole moments of the power spectrum from each light-cone mock, we employ the same estimator as used in actual analyses, thereby properly accounting for the effects of the discrete Fourier transform, the line-of-sight dependence of the fields, and wide-angle RSD effects. Using light-cone mock catalogs that mimic the BOSS survey, we demonstrate that long-wavelength modes comparable to or larger than the survey window scale, namely super-survey modes, have a significant impact on the integral constraint (IC) in power spectrum measurements. In particular, we show that the analytical treatment of the survey-window convolution and IC, which has been commonly used in previous studies, begins to lose accuracy on scales of $k\lesssim k_{\rm eq}$ (the matter-radiation equality scale), and becomes invalid in the presence of PNG. The method developed in this work enables unbiased searches for PNG using the galaxy power spectrum on long-wavelength scales probed by ongoing and future wide-area galaxy surveys.