SHAM-OT: Rapid Subhalo Abundance Matching with Optimal Transport

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fischbacher, Silvan, Kacprzak, Tomasz, Valle, Luis Fernando Machado Poletti, Refregier, Alexandre
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913918416322560
author Fischbacher, Silvan
Kacprzak, Tomasz
Valle, Luis Fernando Machado Poletti
Refregier, Alexandre
author_facet Fischbacher, Silvan
Kacprzak, Tomasz
Valle, Luis Fernando Machado Poletti
Refregier, Alexandre
contents Subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) is widely used for connecting galaxies to dark matter haloes. In SHAM, galaxies and (sub-)haloes are sorted according to their mass (or mass proxy) and matched by their rank order. In this work, we show that SHAM is the solution of the optimal transport (OT) problem on empirical distributions (samples or catalogues) for any metric transport cost function. In the limit of large number of samples, it converges to the solution of the OT problem between continuous distributions. We propose SHAM-OT: a formulation of abundance matching where the halo-galaxy relation is obtained as the optimal transport plan between galaxy and halo mass functions. By working directly on these (discretized) functions, SHAM-OT eliminates the need for sampling or sorting and is solved using efficient OT algorithms at negligible compute and memory cost. Scatter in the galaxy-halo relation can be naturally incorporated through regularization of the transport plan. SHAM-OT can easily be generalized to multiple marginal distributions. We validate our method using analytical tests with varying cosmology and luminosity function parameters, and on simulated halo catalogues. The efficiency of SHAM-OT makes it particularly advantageous for Bayesian inference that requires marginalization over stellar mass or luminosity function uncertainties.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_17553
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SHAM-OT: Rapid Subhalo Abundance Matching with Optimal Transport
Fischbacher, Silvan
Kacprzak, Tomasz
Valle, Luis Fernando Machado Poletti
Refregier, Alexandre
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) is widely used for connecting galaxies to dark matter haloes. In SHAM, galaxies and (sub-)haloes are sorted according to their mass (or mass proxy) and matched by their rank order. In this work, we show that SHAM is the solution of the optimal transport (OT) problem on empirical distributions (samples or catalogues) for any metric transport cost function. In the limit of large number of samples, it converges to the solution of the OT problem between continuous distributions. We propose SHAM-OT: a formulation of abundance matching where the halo-galaxy relation is obtained as the optimal transport plan between galaxy and halo mass functions. By working directly on these (discretized) functions, SHAM-OT eliminates the need for sampling or sorting and is solved using efficient OT algorithms at negligible compute and memory cost. Scatter in the galaxy-halo relation can be naturally incorporated through regularization of the transport plan. SHAM-OT can easily be generalized to multiple marginal distributions. We validate our method using analytical tests with varying cosmology and luminosity function parameters, and on simulated halo catalogues. The efficiency of SHAM-OT makes it particularly advantageous for Bayesian inference that requires marginalization over stellar mass or luminosity function uncertainties.
title SHAM-OT: Rapid Subhalo Abundance Matching with Optimal Transport
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.17553