The Excursion Set Theory of Halo Mass Functions, Halo Clustering, and Halo Growth
| dc.creator | Zentner, Andrew R. | |
| dc.date | 2006-11-14 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T10:40:50Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T10:40:50Z | |
| dc.description | I review the excursion set theory (EST) of dark matter halo formation and clustering. I recount the Press-Schechter argument for the mass function of bound objects and review the derivation of the Press-Schechter mass function in EST. The EST formalism is powerful and can be applied to numerous problems. I review the EST of halo bias and the properties of void regions. I spend considerable time reviewing halo growth in the EST. This section culminates with descriptions of two Monte Carlo methods for generating halo mass accretion histories. In the final section, I emphasize that the standard EST approach is the result of several simplifying assumptions. Dropping these assumptions can lead to more faithful predictions and a more versatile formalism. One such assumption is the constant height of the barrier for nonlinear collapse. I review implementations of the excursion set approach with arbitrary barrier shapes. An application of this is the now well-known improvement to standard EST that follows from the ellipsoidal-collapse barrier. Additionally, I emphasize that the statement that halo accretion histories are independent of halo environments is a simplifying assumption, rather than a prediction of the theory. I review the method for constructing correlated random walks of the density field in more general cases. I construct a simple toy model with correlated walks and I show that excursion set theory makes a qualitatively simple and general prediction for the relation between halo accretion histories and halo environments: regions of high density preferentially contain late-forming halos and conversely for regions of low density. I conclude with a brief discussion of this prediction in the context of recent numerical studies of the environmental dependence of halo properties. (Abridged) | |
| dc.description | 62 pages, 19 figures. Review article based on lectures given at the Sixth Summer School of the Helmholtz Institute for Supercomputational Physics. Accepted for Publication in IJMPD. Comments Welcome | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0611454 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0611454 | |
| dc.identifier | Int.J.Mod.Phys.D16:763-816,2007 | |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.1142/S0218271807010511 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/181447 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | The Excursion Set Theory of Halo Mass Functions, Halo Clustering, and Halo Growth | |
| dc.type | text |