arXiv subjects

Sergei Shandarin

Publications and source records attributed to Sergei Shandarin.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Tracing the cosmic web

The cosmic web is one of the most striking features of the distribution of galaxies and dark matter on the largest scales in the Universe. It is composed of dense regions packed full of galaxies, long filamentary bridges, flattened sheets and vast low density voids. The study of the cosmic web has focused primarily on the identification of such features, and on understanding the environmental effects on galaxy formation and halo assembly. As such, a variety of different methods have been devised to classify the cosmic web -- depending on the data at hand, be it numerical simulations, large sky surveys or other. In this paper we bring twelve of these methods together and apply them to the same data set in order to understand how they compare. In general these cosmic web classifiers have been designed with different cosmological goals in mind, and to study different questions. Therefore one would not {\it a priori} expect agreement between different techniques however, many of these methods do converge on the identification of specific features. In this paper we study the agreements and disparities of the different methods. For example, each method finds that knots inhabit higher density regions than filaments, etc. and that voids have the lowest densities. For a given web environment, we find substantial overlap in the density range assigned by each web classification scheme. We also compare classifications on a halo-by-halo basis; for example, we find that 9 of 12 methods classify around a third of group-mass haloes (i.e. $M_{\rm halo}\sim10^{13.5}h^{-1}M_{\odot}$) as being in filaments. Lastly, so that any future cosmic web classification scheme can be compared to the 12 methods used here, we have made all the data used in this paper public.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

The Zeldovich & Adhesion approximations, and applications to the local universe

The Zeldovich approximation (ZA) predicts the formation of a web of singularities. While these singularities may only exist in the most formal interpretation of the ZA, they provide a powerful tool for the analysis of initial conditions. We present a novel method to find the skeleton of the resulting cosmic web based on singularities in the primordial deformation tensor and its higher order derivatives. We show that the A_3-lines predict the formation of filaments in a two-dimensional model. We continue with applications of the adhesion model to visualise structures in the local (z < 0.03) universe.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2013

The Phase-Space Structure of Cold Dark Matter in the Universe

A novel method allowing to compute density, velocity and other fields in cosmological N--body simulations with unprecedentedly high spatial resolution is described. It is based on the tessellation of the three-dimensional manifold representing cold dark matter in six-dimensional phase space. The density, velocity and other fields are computed by projecting the tessellation on configuration space. The application of this technique to cosmological N--body simulations in LambdaCDM cosmology reveals a far more elaborate cosmic web then dot plots or self--adaptive SPH. In addition, this method allows to uniquely define physical voids and identify and study the caustic surfaces directly.

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arXiv2011

The Cosmic Web, Multi-Stream Flows, and Tessellations

Understanding the structure of the matter distribution in the Universe due to the action of the gravitational instability -- the cosmic web -- is complicated by lack of direct analytic access to the nonlinear domain of structure formation. Here, we suggest and apply a novel tessellation method designed for cold dark matter (CDM) N-body cosmological simulations. The method is based on the fact that the initial CDM state can be described by a 3-D manifold (in a 6-D phase space) that remains continuous under evolution. Our technique uses the full phase space information and has no free parameters; it can be used to compute multi-stream and density fields, the main focus of this paper. Using a large-box LCDM simulation we carry out a variety of initial analyses with the technique. These include studying the correlation between multi-streaming and density, the identification of structures such as Zel'dovich pancakes and voids, and statistical measurements of quantities such as the volume fraction as a function of the number of streams -- where we find a remarkable scaling relation. Cosmological implications are briefly discussed.

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arXiv2009

Origin of the Cosmic Network: Nature vs Nurture

The large-scale structure of the Universe, as traced by the distribution of galaxies, is now being revealed by large-volume cosmological surveys. The structure is characterized by galaxies distributed along filaments, the filaments connecting in turn to form a percolating network. Our objective here is to quantitatively specify the underlying mechanisms that drive the formation of the cosmic network: By combining percolation-based analyses with N-body simulations of gravitational structure formation, we elucidate how the network has its origin in the properties of the initial density field (nature) and how its contrast is then amplified by the nonlinear mapping induced by the gravitational instability (nurture).

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

The origin of 'Great Walls'

A new semianalytical model that explains the formation and sizes of the 'great walls' - the largest structures observed in the universe is suggested. Although the basis of the model is the Zel'dovich approximation it has been used in a new way very different from the previous studies. Instead of traditional approach that evaluates the nonlinear density field it has been utilized for identification of the regions in Lagrangian space that after the mapping to real or redshift space (depending on the kind of structure is studied) end up in the regions where shell-crossing occurs. The set of these regions in Lagrangian space form the progenitor of the structure and after the mapping it determines the pattern of the structure in real or redshift space. The particle trajectories have crossed in such regions and the mapping is no longer unique there. The progenitor after mapping makes only one stream in the multi-stream flow regions therefore it does not comprise all the mass. Nevertheless, it approximately retains the shape of the structure. The progenitor of the structure in redshift space depends on a few non-Gaussian fields and also it is strongly affected by two anisotropic fields that determine the pattern of great walls as well as their huge sizes. All the fields used in the mappings are derived from the linear potential smoothed at the current scale of nonlinearity which is $R_{nl} = 2.7$ {\hmpc} for the adopted parameters of the \lcdm universe normalized to $σ_8 = 0.8$. The model predicts the existence of walls with sizes significantly greater than 500 {\hmpc} that may be found in sufficiently large redshift surveys.

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arXiv2008

The Aspen--Amsterdam Void Finder Comparison Project

Despite a history that dates back at least a quarter of a century studies of voids in the large--scale structure of the Universe are bedevilled by a major problem: there exist a large number of quite different void--finding algorithms, a fact that has so far got in the way of groups comparing their results without worrying about whether such a comparison in fact makes sense. Because of the recent increased interest in voids, both in very large galaxy surveys and in detailed simulations of cosmic structure formation, this situation is very unfortunate. We here present the first systematic comparison study of thirteen different void finders constructed using particles, haloes, and semi--analytical model galaxies extracted from a subvolume of the Millennium simulation. The study includes many groups that have studied voids over the past decade. We show their results and discuss their differences and agreements. As it turns out, the basic results of the various methods agree very well with each other in that they all locate a major void near the centre of our volume. Voids have very underdense centres, reaching below 10 percent of the mean cosmic density. In addition, those void finders that allow for void galaxies show that those galaxies follow similar trends. For example, the overdensity of void galaxies brighter than $m_B = -20 $ is found to be smaller than about -0.8 by all our void finding algorithms.

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arXiv2007

Dark matter caustics and the enhancement of self-annihilation flux

Cold dark matter haloes are populated by caustics, which are yet to be resolved in N-body simulations or observed in the Universe. Secondary infall model provides a paradigm for the study of caustics in "typical" haloes assuming that they have had no major mergers and have grown only by smooth accretion. This is a particular characteristic of the smallest dark matter haloes of about 10^{-5} Mo, which although "atypical" contain no substructures and could have survived until now with no major mergers. Thus using this model as the first guidline, we evaluate the neutralino self-annihilation flux for these haloes. Our results show that caustics could leave a distinct sawteeth signature on the differential and cumulative fluxes coming from the outer regions of these haloes. The total annihilation signal from the regions away from the centre can be boosted by about forty percents.

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arXiv2005

Caustics in Dark Matter Haloes

Caustics are formally singular structures, with infinite density, that form in collisionless media. The non-negligible velocity dispersion of dark matter particles renders their density finite. We evaluate the maximum density of the caustics within the framework of secondary infall model of formation of dark matter haloes. The result is then used to demonstrate that caustics can be probed by properly stacking the weak-lensing signal of about 600 haloes. CFHTLS accompanied by X-ray observations and the space-based experiments like SNAP or DUNE can provide us with the required statistics and hence a way of distinguishing between the viable dark matter particle candidates. The extension of our results to more realistic models including the effects of mergers of haloes is briefly outlined.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2005

Gravitational cooling and density profile near caustics in collisionless dark matter haloes

Cold dark matter haloes are populated by high-density structures with sharply-peaked profiles known as caustics which have not yet been resolved by 3-dimensional numerical simulations. Here, we derive semi-analytic expressions for the density profiles near caustics in haloes which form by self-similar accretions of dark matter with infinitesimal velocity dispersion. A simple rescaling shows that similarly to the case of absolutely cold medium these profiles are universal: they are valid for all caustics and irrespective of physical parameters of the halo. We derive the maximum density of the caustics and show that it depends on the velocity dispersion and the caustic location. We show that both the absolute and relative thickness of the caustic monotonically decrease toward the center of the halo while the maximum density grows. This indicates that the radial component of the thermal velocities decreases in the inner streams, i.e. the collisionless medium cools down in the radial direction descending to the center of the halo. Finally, we demonstrate that there can be a significant contribution to the emission measure from dark matter particle annihilation in the caustics.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2005

Shapes and Sizes of Voids in the LCDM Universe: Excursion Set Approach

We study the global distribution and morphology of dark matter voids in a LCDM universe using density fields generated by N-body simulations. Voids are defined as isolated regions of the low-density excursion set specified via density thresholds, the density thresholds being quantified by the corresponding filling factors, i.e., the fraction of the total volume in the excursion set. Our work encompasses a systematic investigation of the void volume function, the volume fraction in voids, and the fitting of voids to corresponding ellipsoids and spheres. We emphasize the relevance of the percolation threshold to the void volume statistics of the density field both in the high redshift, Gaussian random field regime, as well as in the present epoch. By using measures such as the Inverse Porosity, we characterize the quality of ellipsoidal fits to voids, finding that such fits are a poor representation of the larger voids that dominate the volume of the void excursion set.

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