Profiles of dark matter haloes at high redshift

I study the evolution of halo density profiles as a function of time in the SCDM and ΛCDM cosmologies. Following Del Popolo, I calculate the concentration parameter c = r _v / a and study its time evolution. For a given halo mass, I find that c ( z ) ∝ 1/(1+ z ) in both the ΛCDM and SCDM cosmology, in agreement with the analytic model of Bullock et al. and N -body simulations. In both models, a ( z ) is roughly constant. The present model predicts a stronger evolution of c ( z ) with respect to the Navarro, Frenk & White model. Finally I show some consequences of the results on galaxy modelling.     

Foregrounds for 21-cm observations of neutral gas at high redshift

We investigate a number of potential foregrounds for an ambitious goal of future radio telescopes such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR): spatial tomography of neutral gas at high redshift in 21-cm emission. While the expected temperature fluctuations due to unresolved radio point sources is highly uncertain, we point out that free–free emission from the ionizing haloes that reionized the Universe should define a minimal bound. This emission is likely to swamp the expected brightness temperature fluctuations, making proposed detections of the angular patchwork of 21-cm emission across the sky unlikely to be viable. Hα observations with JWST could place an upper bound on the contribution of high-redshift sources to the free–free background. An alternative approach is to discern the topology of reionization from spectral features due to 21-cm emission along a pencil-beam slice. This requires tight control of the frequency-dependence of the beam in order to prevent foreground sources from contributing excessive variance. We also investigate potential contamination by galactic and extragalactic radio recombination lines (RRLs). These are unlikely to be show-stoppers, although little is known about the distribution of RRLs away from the Galactic plane. The mini-halo emission signal is always less than that of the intergalactic medium (IGM), making mini-haloes unlikely to be detectable. If they are seen, it will be only in the very earliest stages of structure formation at high redshift, when the spin temperature of the IGM has not yet decoupled from the cosmic microwave background.     

The pairwise velocity dispersion of galaxies: effects of non-radial motions

I discuss the effect of non-radial motions on the small-scale peculiar pairwise velocity dispersions (PVD) of galaxies in a cold dark matter (CDM) model and calculate the PVD for the SCDM model by means of the refined cosmic virial theorem (CVT), taking account of non-radial motions by means of the Del Popolo & Gambera model. I compare the results of the present model with the data from Davis & Peebles, the IRAS value at 1  h ⁻¹ Mpc of Fisher et al. and Marzke et al. I show that while the SCDM model disagrees with the observed values, as pointed out by several authors, taking account of non-radial motions produces smaller values for the PVD. At r ≤1  h ⁻¹ Mpc the result is in agreement with Bartlett & Blanchard. In the light of this last paper, the result may be also read as a strong dependence of the CVT prediction on the model chosen to describe the mass distribution around galaxies, suggesting that the CVT cannot be taken as a direct evidence for a low-density Universe. Similarly to what is shown by Del Popolo & Gambera and Del Popolo et al., the agreement of our model to the observational data is because of a scale-dependent bias induced by the presence of non-radial motions. As the assumptions on which CVT is based have been questioned by several authors, I also calculated the PVD using the redshift distortion in the redshift-space correlation function, ξ _z( r _p, π), and compared it with the PVD measured from the Las Campanas Redshift Survey by Jing et al. The result confirms that non-radial motions influence the PVD making them agree better with the observed data.     

Void statistics and void galaxies in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey

In the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, we study the properties of voids and of fainter galaxies within voids that are defined by brighter galaxies. Our results are compared with simulated galaxy catalogues from the Millennium simulation coupled with a semi-analytical galaxy formation recipe. We derive the void size distribution and discuss its dependence on the faint magnitude limit of the galaxies defining the voids. While voids among faint galaxies are typically smaller than those among bright galaxies, the ratio of the void sizes to the mean galaxy separation reaches larger values. This is well reproduced in the mock galaxy samples studied. We provide analytic fitting functions for the void size distribution. Furthermore, we study the galaxy population inside voids defined by galaxies with   B _J− 5 log  h < −20  and diameter larger than  10  h ⁻¹ Mpc  . We find a clear bimodality of galaxies inside voids and in the average field but with different characteristics. The abundance of blue cloud galaxies inside voids is enhanced. There is an indication of a slight blueshift of the blue cloud. Furthermore, galaxies in void centres have slightly higher specific star formation rates as measured by the η parameter. We determine the radial distribution of the ratio of early- and late-type galaxies through the voids. We find and discuss some differences between observations and the Millennium catalogues.     

The clustering of Lyman-break galaxies

We calculate the statistical clustering of Lyman-break galaxies predicted in a selection of currently fashionable structure formation scenarios. These models are all based on the cold dark matter model, but vary in the amount of dark matter, the initial perturbation spectrum, the background cosmology and the presence or absence of a cosmological constant term. If Lyman-break galaxies form as a result of hierarchical merging, the amplitude of clustering depends quite sensitively on the minimum halo mass that can host such a galaxy. Interpretation of the recent observations by Giavalisco et al. would therefore be considerably clarified by a direct determination of the relevant halo properties. For a typical halo mass around 10¹¹  h ⁻¹ M⊙ the observations do not discriminate strongly between cosmological models, but if the appropriate mass is larger, say 10¹²  h ⁻¹ M⊙ (which seems likely on theoretical grounds), then the data strongly favour models with a low matter density.     

Evolution of galaxy clustering

We study the evolution of the correlation function of dark matter haloes in the CDM class of models. We show that the halo correlation function does not evolve in proportion with the correlation function of the underlying mass distribution. The earliest haloes to collapse, which correspond to rare peaks in the density field, cluster very strongly. The amplitude of the halo correlation function decreases from its initial, large, value. This decrease continues until the average peaks have collapsed, after which the amplitude grows slowly. This behaviour is shown to be generic and the epoch of minimum amplitude depends only on the rms  fluctuations in mass at the relevant scale and, to a much smaller extent, on the slope of the power spectrum at that scale. We discuss the relevance of this result for interpretation of observations of galaxy and quasar clustering.     

Fossil H ii regions: self-limiting star formation at high redshift

Recent results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ( WMAP ) satellite suggest that the intergalactic medium (IGM) was significantly reionized at redshifts as high as   z ∼ 17  . At this early epoch, the first ionizing sources probably appeared in the shallow potential wells of mini-haloes with virial temperatures   T _vir < 10⁴ K  . Once such an ionizing source turns off, its surrounding H ii region Compton cools and recombines. None the less, we show that the 'fossil' H ii regions left behind remain at high adiabats, prohibiting gas accretion and cooling in subsequent generations of mini-haloes. This greatly amplifies feedback effects explored in previous studies, and early star formation is self-limiting. We quantify this effect to show that star formation in mini-haloes cannot account for the bulk of the electron scattering opacity measured by WMAP , which must be due to more massive objects. We argue that gas entropy, rather than IGM metallicity, regulates the evolution of the global ionizing emissivity and impedes full reionization until lower redshifts. We discuss several important consequences of this early entropy floor for reionization. It reduces gas clumping, curtailing the required photon budget for reionization. An entropy floor also prevents H₂ formation and cooling, due to reduced gas densities: it greatly enhances feedback from ultraviolet photodissociation of H₂. An early X-ray background would also furnish an entropy floor to the entire IGM; thus, X-rays impede rather than enhance H₂ formation. Future 21-cm observations may probe the topology of fossil H ii regions.     

Light-cone distortion of the clustering and abundance of massive galaxies at high redshifts

Observational surveys of galaxies are not trivially related to single-epoch snapshots from computer simulations. Observationally, an increase in the distance along the line of sight corresponds to an earlier cosmic time at which the properties of the surveyed galaxy population may change. The effect of observing a survey volume along the light cone must be considered in the regime where the mass function of galaxies varies exponentially with redshift. This occurs when the haloes under consideration are rare, that is either when they are very massive or observed at high redshift. While the effect of the light cone is negligible for narrow-band surveys of Lyα emitters, it can be significant for dropout surveys of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) where the selection functions of the photometric bands are broad. Since there are exponentially more haloes at the low-redshift end of the survey, the low-redshift tail of the selection function contains a disproportionate fraction of the galaxies observed in the survey. This leads to a redshift probability distribution for the dropout LBGs with a mean less than that of the photometric selection function (PHSF) by an amount of order the standard deviation of the PHSF. The inferred mass function of galaxies is then shallower than the true mass function at a single redshift with the abundance at the high-mass end being twice or more as large as expected. Moreover, the statistical moments of the count of galaxies calculated ignoring the light-cone effect deviate from the actual values.     

The non-linear redshift-space power spectrum of galaxies

We study the power spectrum of galaxies in redshift space, with third-order perturbation theory to include corrections that are absent in linear theory. We assume a local bias for the galaxies: i.e., the galaxy density is sampled from some local function of the underlying mass distribution. We find that the effect of the non-linear bias in real space is to introduce two new features: first, there is a contribution to the power which is constant with wavenumber, whose nature we reveal as essentially a shot-noise term. In principle this contribution can mask the primordial power spectrum, and could limit the accuracy with which the latter might be measured on very large scales. Secondly, the effect of second- and third-order bias is to modify the effective bias (defined as the square root of the ratio of galaxy power spectrum to matter power spectrum). The effective bias is almost scale-independent over a wide range of scales. These general conclusions also hold in redshift space. In addition, we have investigated the distortion of the power spectrum by peculiar velocities, which may be used to constrain the density of the Universe. We look at the quadrupole-to-monopole ratio, and find that higher order terms can mimic linear theory bias, but the bias implied is neither the linear bias, nor the effective bias referred to above. We test the theory with biased N -body simulations, and find excellent agreement in both real and redshift space, providing the local biasing is applied on a scale whose fractional rms density fluctuations are < 0.5.