arXiv subjects

Jenny G. Sorce

Publications and source records attributed to Jenny G. Sorce.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

The short ionizing photon mean free path at z=6 in Cosmic Dawn III, a new fully-coupled radiation-hydrodynamical simulation of the Epoch of Reionization

Recent determinations of the mean free path of ionising photons (mfp) in the intergalactic medium (IGM) at $\rm z=6$ are lower than many theoretical predictions. To gain insight into this issue, we investigate the evolution of the mfp in our new massive fully coupled radiation hydrodynamics cosmological simulation of reionization: Cosmic Dawn III (CoDaIII). CoDaIII's scale ($\rm 94^3 \, cMpc^3$) and resolution ($\rm 8192^3$ grid) make it particularly suitable to study the evolution of the IGM during Reionization. The simulation was performed with RAMSES-CUDATON on Summit, and used 131072 processors coupled to 24576 GPUs, making it the largest Reionization simulation, and largest RAMSES simulation ever performed. A superior agreement with global constraints on Reionization is obtained in CoDaIII over CoDaII especially for the evolution of the neutral hydrogen fraction and the cosmic photo-ionization rate, thanks to an improved calibration, later end of reionization ($\rm z=5.6$), and higher spatial resolution. Analyzing the mfp, we find that CoDaIII reproduces the most recent observations very well, from $\rm z=6$ to $\rm z=4.6$. We show that the distribution of the mfp in CoDaIII is bimodal, with short (neutral) and long (ionized) mfp modes, respectively, due to the patchiness of reionization and the co-existence of neutral versus ionized regions during Reionization. The neutral mode peaks at sub-kpc to kpc scales of mfp, while the ionized mode peak evolves from $\rm 0.1 Mpc/h$ at $\rm z=7$ to $\sim 10$ Mpc/h at $\rm z=5.2$. Computing the mfp as the average of the ionized mode provides the best match to the recent observational determinations. The distribution reduces to a single neutral (ionized) mode at $\rm z>13$ ($\rm z<5$).

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arXiv2022

Reionization time of the Local Group and Local-Group-like halo pairs

Patchy cosmic reionization resulted in the ionizing UV background asynchronous rise across the Universe. The latter might have left imprints visible in present day observations. Several numerical simulation-based studies show correlations between reionization time and overdensities and object masses today. To remove the mass from the study, as it may not be the sole important parameter, this paper focuses solely on the properties of paired halos within the same mass range as the Milky Way. For this purpose, it uses CoDaII, a fully-coupled radiation hydrodynamics reionization simulation of the local Universe. This simulation holds a halo pair representing the Local Group, in addition to other pairs, sharing similar mass, mass ratio, distance separation and isolation criteria but in other environments, alongside isolated halos within the same mass range. Investigations of the paired halo reionization histories reveal a wide diversity although always inside-out given our reionization model. Within this model, halos in a close pair tend to be reionized at the same time but being in a pair does not bring to an earlier time their mean reionization. The only significant trend is found between the total energy at z = 0 of the pairs and their mean reionization time: pairs with the smallest total energy (bound) are reionized up to 50 Myr earlier than others (unbound). Above all, this study reveals the variety of reionization histories undergone by halo pairs similar to the Local Group, that of the Local Group being far from an average one. In our model, its reionization time is ~625 Myr against 660+/-4 Myr (z~8.25 against 7.87+/-0.02) on average.

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arXiv2022

Hermeian haloes: Field haloes that interacted with both the Milky Way and M31

The Local Group is a unique environment in which to study the astrophysics of galaxy formation. The proximity of the Milky Way and M31 enhances the frequency of interactions of the low-mass halo population with more massive dark matter haloes, which increases their concentrations and strips them of gas and other material. Some low-mass haloes pass through the haloes of the Milky Way or M31 and are either ejected into the field or exchanged between the two primary hosts. We use high resolution gas-dynamical simulations to describe a new class of field haloes that passed through the haloes of both the Milky Way and M31 at early times and are almost twice as concentrated as field haloes that do not interact with the primary pair. These 'Hermeian' haloes are distributed anisotropically at larger distances from the Local Group barycentre than the primary haloes and appear to cluster along the line connecting the Milky Way and M31. Hermeian haloes facilitate the exchange of dark matter, gas, and stars between the Milky Way and M31 and can enhance the star formation rate of the gas in the primary haloes during their interactions with them. We also show that some Hermeian haloes can host galaxies that, because they are embedded in haloes that are more concentrated than regular field haloes, are promising targets for indirect dark matter searches beyond the Milky Way virial radius and can produce signals that are competitive with those of some dwarf galaxies. Hermeian galaxies in the Local Group should be detectable by forthcoming wide-field imaging surveys.

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arXiv2022

Scattering of Lyα Photons through the Reionizing Intergalactic Medium: I. Spectral Energy Distribution

During reionization, a fraction of galactic Ly$α$ emission is scattered in the intergalactic medium (IGM) and appears as a diffuse light extending megaparsecs from the source. We investigate how to probe the properties of the early galaxies and their surrounding IGM using this scattered light. We create a Monte Carlo algorithm to track individual photons and reproduce several test cases from previous literature. Then, we run our code on the simulated IGM of the CoDaII simulation. We find that the scattered light can leave an observable imprint on the emergent spectrum if collected over several square arcminutes. Scattering can redden the emission by increasing the path lengths of photons, but it can also make the photons bluer by upscattering them according to the peculiar motion of the scatterer. The photons emitted on the far blue side of the resonance appear more extended in both frequency and space compared to those emitted near the resonance. This provides a discriminating feature for the blueward emission, which cannot be constrained from the unscattered light coming directly from the source. The ionization state of the IGM also affects the scattered light spectrum. When the source is in a small HII region, the emission goes through more scatterings in the surrounding HI region regardless of the initial frequency and ends up more redshifted and spatially extended. This can result in a weakening of the scattered light toward high $z$ during reionization. Our results provide a framework for interpreting the scattered light to be measured by high-$z$ integral-field-unit surveys.

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arXiv2022

NIHAO-LG: The uniqueness of Local Group dwarf galaxies

Recent observational and theoretical studies of the Local Group (LG) dwarf galaxies have highlighted their unique star-formation history, stellar metallicity, gas content, and kinematics. We investigate the commonality of these features by comparing constrained LG and field central dwarf halo simulations in the Numerical Investigation of a Hundred Astrophysical Objects (NIHAO) project. Our simulations, performed with NIHAO-like hydrodynamics which track the evolution of the Milky Way (MW) and M31 along with ~100 dwarfs in the LG, reveal the total gas mass and stellar properties (velocity dispersion, evolution history, etc.) of present-day LG dwarfs to be similar to field systems. However, relative to field galaxies, LG dwarfs have more cold gas in their central parts and more metal-rich gas in the halo stemming from interactions with other dwarfs living in a high-density environment like the LG. Interestingly, the direct impact of massive MW/M31 analogues on the metallicity evolution of LG dwarfs is minimal; LG dwarfs accrete high-metallicity gas mostly from other dwarfs at late times. We have also tested for the impact of metal diffusion on the chemical evolution of LG dwarfs, and found that it does not affect the stellar or gaseous content of LG dwarfs. Our simulations suggest that the stellar components of LG dwarfs offer a unique and unbiased local laboratory for galaxy-formation tests and comparisons, especially against the overall dwarf population in the Universe.

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arXiv2022

Cold and Hot gas distribution around the Milky-Way-M31 system in the HESTIA simulations

Recent observations have revealed remarkable insights into the gas reservoir in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxy haloes. In this paper, we characterise the gas in the vicinity of Milky Way and Andromeda analogues in the HESTIA (High resolution Environmental Simulations of The Immediate Area) suite of constrained Local Group (LG) simulations. The HESTIA suite comprise of a set of three high-resolution {\sc arepo}-based simulations of the LG, run using the Auriga galaxy formation model. For this paper, we focus only on the $z = 0$ simulation datasets and generate mock skymaps along with a power spectrum analysis to show that the distributions of ions tracing low-temperature gas (HI and SiIII) are more clumpy in comparison to warmer gas tracers (OVI, OVII and OVIII). We compare to the spectroscopic CGM observations of M31 and low-redshift galaxies. HESTIA under-produces the column densities of the M31 observations, but the simulations are consistent with the observations of low-redshift galaxies. A possible explanation for these findings is that the spectroscopic observations of M31 are contaminated by gas residing in the CGM of the Milky Way.

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arXiv2021

Lyman-alpha transmission properties of the intergalactic medium in the CoDaII simulation

The decline in abundance of Lyman-$α$ (Ly$α$) emitting galaxies at $z \gtrsim 6$ is a powerful and commonly used probe to constrain the progress of cosmic reionization. We use the CoDaII simulation, which is a radiation hydrodynamic simulation featuring a box of $\sim 94$ comoving Mpc side length, to compute the Ly$α$ transmission properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at $z\sim 5.8$ to $7$. Our results mainly confirm previous studies, i.e., we find a declining Ly$α$ transmission with redshift and a large sightline-to-sightline variation. However, motivated by the recent discovery of blue Ly$α$ peaks at high redshift, we also analyze the IGM transmission on the blue side, which shows a rapid decline at $z\gtrsim 6$ of the blue transmission. This low transmission can be attributed not only to the presence of neutral regions but also to the residual neutral hydrogen within ionized regions, for which a density even as low as $n_{\rm HI}\sim 10^{-9}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-3}$ (sometimes combined with kinematic effects) leads to a significantly reduced visibility. Still, we find that $\sim 1\%$ of sightlines towards $M_{\mathrm{1600AB}}\sim -21$ galaxies at $z\sim 7$ are transparent enough to allow a transmission of a blue Ly$α$ peak. We discuss our results in the context of the interpretation of observations.

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arXiv2021

I- A hydrodynamical CLONE of the Virgo cluster of galaxies to confirm observationally-driven formation scenarios

At ~16-17Mpc from us, the Virgo cluster is a formidable source of information to study cluster formation and galaxy evolution in rich environments. Several observationally-driven formation scenarios arose within the past decade to explain the properties of galaxies that entered the cluster recently and the nature of the last significant merger that the cluster underwent. Confirming these scenarios requires extremely faithful numerical counterparts of the cluster. This paper presents the first CLONE, Constrained LOcal and Nesting Environment, simulation of the Virgo cluster within a ~15Mpc radius sphere. This cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, with feedback from supernovae and active galactic nuclei, with a ~3x10^7Msun dark matter particle mass and a minimum cell size of 350pc in the zoom region, reproduces Virgo within its large scale environment unlike a random cluster simulation. Overall the distribution of the simulated galaxy population matches the observed one including M87. The simulated cluster formation reveals exquisite agreements with observationally-driven scenarios: within the last Gigayear, about 300 small galaxies (M*>10^7Msun) entered the cluster, most of them within the last 500Myr. The last significant merger event occurred about 2 Gigayears ago: a group with a tenth of the mass of today's cluster entered from the far side as viewed from the Milky Way. This excellent numerical replica of Virgo will permit studying different galaxy type evolution (jellyfish, backsplash, etc.) as well as feedback phenomena in the cluster core via unbiased comparisons between simulated and observed galaxies and hot gas phase profiles to understand this great physics laboratory.

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arXiv2020

Cosmic Dawn II (CoDa II): a new radiation-hydrodynamics simulation of the self-consistent coupling of galaxy formation and reionization

Cosmic Dawn II (CoDa II) is a new, fully-coupled radiation-hydrodynamics simulation of cosmic reionization and galaxy formation and their mutual impact, to redshift $z < 6$. With $4096^3$ particles and cells in a 94 Mpc box, it is large enough to model global reionization and its feedback on galaxy formation while resolving all haloes above $10^8$ M$_{\odot}$. Using the same hybrid CPU-GPU code RAMSES-CUDATON as CoDa I in Ocvirk et al. (2016), CoDa II modified and re-calibrated the subgrid star-formation algorithm, making reionization end earlier, at $z \gtrsim 6$, thereby better matching the observations of intergalactic Lyman-alpha opacity from quasar spectra and electron-scattering optical depth from cosmic microwave background fluctuations. CoDa II predicts a UV continuum luminosity function in good agreement with observations of high-z galaxies, especially at $z = 6$. As in CoDa I, reionization feedback suppresses star formation in haloes below $\sim 2 \times 10^9$ M$_{\odot}$, though suppression here is less severe, a possible consequence of modifying the star-formation algorithm. Suppression is environment-dependent, occurring earlier (later) in overdense (underdense) regions, in response to their local reionization times. Using a constrained realization of $Λ$CDM constructed from galaxy survey data to reproduce the large-scale structure and major objects of the present-day Local Universe, CoDa II serves to model both global and local reionization. In CoDa II, the Milky Way and M31 appear as individual islands of reionization, i.e. they were not reionized by the progenitor of the Virgo cluster, nor by nearby groups, nor by each other.

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arXiv2020

The Hestia project: simulations of the Local Group

We present the Hestia simulation suite: High-resolutions Environmental Simulations of The Immediate Area, a set of cosmological simulations of the Local Group. Initial conditions constrained by the observed peculiar velocity of nearby galaxies are employed to accurately simulate the local cosmography. Halo pairs that resemble the Local Group are found in low resolutions constrained, dark matter only simulations, and selected for higher resolution magneto hydrodynamic simulation using the Arepo code. Baryonic physics follows the Auriga model of galaxy formation. The simulations contain a high resolution region of 3-5 Mpc in radius from the Local Group midpoint embedded in the correct cosmographic landscape. Within this region a simulated Local Group consisting of a Milky Way and Andromeda like galaxy forms, whose description is in excellent agreement with observations. The simulated Local Group galaxies resemble the Milky Way and Andromeda in terms of their halo mass, mass ratio, stellar disc mass, morphology separation, relative velocity, rotation curves, bulge-disc morphology, satellite galaxy stellar mass function, satellite radial distribution and in some cases, the presence of a Magellanic cloud like object. Because these simulations properly model the Local Group in their cosmographic context, they provide a testing ground for questions where environment is thought to play an important role.

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arXiv2020

The Past History of Galaxy Clusters told by their present neighbors

Galaxy clusters can play a key role in modern cosmology provided their evolution is properly understood. However, observed clusters give us only a single timeframe of their dynamical state. Therefore, finding present observable data of clusters that are well correlated to their assembly history constitutes an inestimable tool for cosmology. Former studies correlating environmental descriptors of clusters to their formation history are dominated by halo mass - environment relations. This paper presents a mass-free correlation between the present neighbor distribution of cluster-size halos and the latter mass assembly history. From the Big Multidark simulation, we extract two large samples of random halos with masses ranging from Virgo to Coma cluster sizes. Additionally, to find the main environmental culprit for the formation history of the Virgo cluster, we compare the Virgo-size halos to 200 Virgo-like halos extracted from simulations that resemble the local Universe. The number of neighbors at different cluster-centric distances permits discriminating between clusters with different mass accretion histories. Similarly to Virgo-like halos, clusters with numerous neighbors within a distance of about 2 times their virial radius experience a transition at z~1 between an active period of mass accretion, relative to the mean, and a quiet history. On the contrary, clusters with few neighbors share an opposite trend: from passive to active assembly histories. Additionally, clusters with massive companions within about 4 times their virial radius tend to have recent active merging histories. Therefore, the radial distribution of cluster neighbors provides invaluable insights into the past history of these objects.

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arXiv2020

Galactic ionising photon budget during the Epoch of Reionisation in the Cosmic Dawn II simulation

Cosmic Dawn ("CoDa") II yields the first statistically-meaningful determination of the relative contribution to reionization by galaxies of different halo mass, from a fully-coupled radiation-hydrodynamics simulation of the epoch of reionization large enough ($\sim$ 100 Mpc) to model global reionization while resolving the formation of all galactic halos above $\sim 10^8 M_\odot$. Cell transmission inside high-mass haloes is bi-modal -- ionized cells are transparent, while neutral cells absorb the photons their stars produce - and the halo escape fraction $f_{esc}$ reflects the balance of star formation rate ("SFR") between these modes. The latter is increasingly prevalent at higher halo mass, driving down $f_{esc}$ (we provide analytical fits to our results), whereas halo escape luminosity, proportional to $f_{esc} \times$SFR, increases with mass. Haloes with dark matter masses within $6.10^{8} M_\odot < M_h < 3.10^{10} M_\odot$ produce $\sim 80$% of the escaping photons at z=7, when the Universe is 50% ionized, making them the main drivers of cosmic reionization. Less massive haloes, though more numerous, have low SFRs and contribute less than 10% of the photon budget then, despite their high $f_{esc}$. High mass haloes are too few and too opaque, contributing $<10$% despite their high SFRs. The dominant mass range is lower (higher) at higher (lower) redshift, as mass function and reionization advance together (e.g. at z$=8.5$, x$_{\rm HI}=0.9$, $M_h < 5.10^9 M_\odot$ haloes contributed $\sim$80%). Galaxies with UV magnitudes $M_{AB1600}$ between $-12$ and $-19$ dominated reionization between z$=6$ and 8.

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arXiv2020

Efficiently estimating mean, uncertainty and unconstrained large scale fraction of local Universe simulations with paired fixed fields

Provided a random realization of the cosmological model, observations of our cosmic neighborhood now allow us to build simulations of the latter down to the non-linear threshold. The resulting local Universe models are thus accurate up to a given residual cosmic variance. Namely some regions and scales are apparently not constrained by the data and seem purely random. Drawing conclusions together with their uncertainties involves then statistics implying a considerable amount of computing time. By applying the constraining algorithm to paired fixed fields, this paper diverts the original techniques from their first use to efficiently disentangle and estimate uncertainties on local Universe simulations obtained with random fields. Paired fixed fields differ from random realizations in the sense that their Fourier mode amplitudes are fixed and they are exactly out of phase. Constrained paired fixed fields show that only 20% of the power spectrum on large scales (> tens of megaparsecs) is purely random. Namely 80% of it is partly constrained by the large scale / small scale data correlations. Additionally, two realizations of our local environment obtained with paired fixed fields of the same pair constitute an excellent non-biased average or quasi-linear realization of the latter, namely the equivalent of hundreds of constrained simulations. The variance between these two realizations gives the uncertainty on the achievable local Universe simulations. These two simulations will permit enhancing faster our local cosmic web understanding thanks to a drastically reduced required computational time to appreciate its modeling limits and uncertainties.

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arXiv2019

Virgo: an unlikely cluster of galaxies because of its environment

Galaxy clusters constitute powerful cosmological probes thanks to comparisons between observed and simulated clusters. As such Virgo constitutes a formidable source for detailed observations facilitated by its proximity. However, the diversity of clusters complicates the comparisons on a one-to-one basis. Simulated clusters must be carefully selected, a daunting task since most properties are unknown. Alternatively, lookalikes produced in the proper large scale environment can be used. Additionally, their statistical study give access to the mean properties of the observed cluster including its most probable history as well as its deviation from an average cluster. This paper presents such a statistical study with 200 Virgo-like and 400+ cluster-size random dark matter halos. Only 18%(0.5%) of these random halos comply within 3(2)-sigma with the mean values (radius, velocity dispersion, number of substructures, spin, velocity, concentration, center of mass offset with respect to the spherical center) of Virgo halos at z=0 and abide by a similar merging history up to redshift 4. None are within 1-sigma because of environmentally induced properties (number of substructures and velocity). For further comparisons, random halos are selected to reproduce the mass distribution of the lookalikes to cancel mass bias effects. Redshift 1 appears then as a turning point: random to Virgo-like property ratios are alternatively smaller/larger than 1. This highlights the importance of studying clusters within their proper large scale environment: simulated galaxy population, grandly affected by the cluster history, can then be compared with the observed one in details. Direct lookalikes simplify grandly the challenge.

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arXiv2019

Propagation of UHECRs in the local Universe and origin of cosmic magnetic fields

We simulate the propagation of cosmic rays at ultra-high energies, $\gtrsim 10^{18}$ eV, in models of extragalactic magnetic fields in constrained simulations of the local Universe. We investigate the impact of different magneto-genesis scenarios, both, primordial and astrophysical, on the propagation of cosmic rays. Our study shows that different scenarios of magneto-genesis do not have a large impact on the anisotropy measurements. The distribution of nearby sources causes anisotropy at very high energies, independent of the magnetic field model. We compare our results to the dipole signal measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory. All our models could reproduce the observed dipole amplitude with a pure iron injection composition. This is due to clustering of secondary nuclei in direction of nearby sources of heavy nuclei. A light injection composition is disfavoured by the non-observation of anisotropy at energies of 4 - 8 EeV.

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arXiv2018

The Three Hundred project: a large catalogue of theoretically modelled galaxy clusters for cosmological and astrophysical applications

We introduce the THE THREE HUNDRED project, an endeavour to model 324 large galaxy clusters with full-physics hydrodynamical re-simulations. Here we present the data set and study the differences to observations for fundamental galaxy cluster properties and scaling relations. We find that the modelled galaxy clusters are generally in reasonable agreement with observations with respect to baryonic fractions and gas scaling relations at redshift z = 0. However, there are still some (model-dependent) differences, such as central galaxies being too massive, and galaxy colours (g - r) being bluer (about 0.2 dex lower at the peak position) than in observations. The agreement in gas scaling relations down to 10^{13} h^{-1} M_{\odot} between the simulations indicates that particulars of the sub-grid modelling of the baryonic physics only has a weak influence on these relations. We also include - where appropriate - a comparison to three semi-analytical galaxy formation models as applied to the same underlying dark-matter-only simulation. All simulations and derived data products are publicly available.

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arXiv2018

Bayesian group finder based on marked point processes. Method and feasibility study using the 2MRS data set

Galaxy groups and clusters are formidable cosmological probes. They permit the studying of the environmental effects on galaxy formation. A reliable detection of galaxy groups is an open problem and is important for ongoing and future cosmological surveys. We propose a probabilistic galaxy group detection algorithm based on marked point processes with interactions. The pattern of galaxy groups in a catalogue is seen as a random set of interacting objects. The positions and the interactions of these objects are governed by a probability density. The estimator of the unknown cluster pattern is given by the configuration of objects maximising the proposed probability density. Adopting the Bayesian framework, the proposed probability density is maximised using a simulated annealing algorithm. The method provides "for free" additional information such as the probabilities that a point or two points in the observation domain belong to the cluster pattern, respectively. These supplementary tools allow the construction of tests and techniques to validate and to refine the detection result. To test the feasibility of the proposed methodology, we applied it to the well-studied 2MRS data set. Compared to previously published Friends-of-Friends (FoF) group finders, the proposed Bayesian group finder gives overall similar results. The proposed Bayesian group finder is tested on a galaxy redshift survey, but more detailed analyses are needed to understand the actual capabilities of the algorithm regarding upcoming cosmological surveys. The presented mathematical framework permits adapting it easily for other data sets (in astronomy and in other fields of sciences). In cosmology, one promising application is the detection of galaxy groups in photometric galaxy redshift surveys, while taking into account the full photometric redshift posteriors. (abridged)

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arXiv2018

The quasi-linear nearby Universe

The local Universe provides a unique opportunity for testing cosmology and theories of structure formation. To facilitate this opportunity we present a new method for the reconstruction of the quasi-linear matter density and velocity fields from galaxy peculiar velocities and apply it to the Cosmicflows-2 data. The method consists of constructing an ensemble of cosmological simulations, constrained by the standard cosmological model and the observational data. The quasi-linear density field is the geometric mean and variance of the fully non-linear density fields of the simulations. The main nearby clusters (Virgo, Centaurus, Coma), superclusters (Shapley, Perseus-Pisces) and voids (Dipole Repeller) are robustly reconstructed. Galaxies are born biased with respect to the underlying dark matter distribution. Using our quasi-linear framework we demonstrate that the luminosity-weighted density field derived from the 2M++ redshift compilations is non-linearly biased with respect to the matter density field. The bias diminishes in the linear regime.

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