The impact of systematic uncertainties in N-body simulations on the precision cosmology from galaxy clustering: A halo model approach

Abstract

Dark matter N-body simulations provide a powerful tool to model the clustering of galaxies and help interpret the results of galaxy redshift surveys. However, the galaxy properties predicted from N-body simulations are not necessarily representative of the observed galaxy populations; for example, theoretical uncertainties arise from the absence of baryons in N-body simulations. In this work, we assess how the uncertainties in N-body simulations impact the cosmological parameters inferred from galaxy redshift surveys. Applying the halo model framework, we find that the velocity bias of galaxies in modelling the redshift-space distortions is likely to be the predominant source of systematic bias. For a deep, wide survey like BigBOSS, current 10 per cent uncertainties in the velocity bias limit kmax to 0.14 h Mpc-1. In contrast, we find that the uncertainties related to the density profiles and the galaxy occupation statistics lead to relatively insignificant systematic biases. Therefore, the ability to calibrate the velocity bias accurately - from observations as well as simulations - will likely set the ultimate limit on the smallest length scale that can be used to infer cosmological information from galaxy clustering. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.