Bibcode
van Daalen, Marcel P.; Schaye, Joop; Booth, C. M.; Dalla Vecchia, C.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 415, Issue 4, pp. 3649-3665.
Advertised on:
8
2011
Citations
401
Refereed citations
367
Description
Upcoming weak lensing surveys, such as LSST, EUCLID and WFIRST, aim to
measure the matter power spectrum with unprecedented accuracy. In order
to fully exploit these observations, models are needed that, given a set
of cosmological parameters, can predict the non-linear matter power
spectrum at the level of 1 per cent or better for scales corresponding
to comoving wavenumbers 0.1 ≲k≲ 10 h Mpc-1. We have
employed the large suite of simulations from the OverWhelmingly Large
Simulations (OWLS) project to investigate the effects of various
baryonic processes on the matter power spectrum. In addition, we have
examined the distribution of power over different mass components, the
back-reaction of the baryons on the cold dark matter and the evolution
of the dominant effects on the matter power spectrum. We find that
single baryonic processes are capable of changing the power spectrum by
up to several tens of per cent. Our simulation that includes AGN
feedback, which we consider to be our most realistic simulation as,
unlike those used in previous studies, it has been shown to solve the
overcooling problem and to reproduce optical and X-ray observations of
groups of galaxies, predicts a decrease in power relative to a dark
matter only simulation ranging, at z= 0, from 1 per cent at k≈ 0.3 h
Mpc-1 to 10 per cent at k≈ 1 h Mpc-1 and to 30
per cent at k≈ 10 h Mpc-1. This contradicts the naive view
that baryons raise the power through cooling, which is the dominant
effect only for k≳ 70 h Mpc-1. Therefore, baryons, and
particularly AGN feedback, cannot be ignored in theoretical power
spectra for k≳ 0.3 h Mpc-1. It will thus be necessary to
improve our understanding of feedback processes in galaxy formation, or
at least to constrain them through auxiliary observations, before we can
fulfil the goals of upcoming weak lensing surveys.