Artifacts in Halo Shapes: Imprints of the Initial Condition

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Yu, Yu, Chen, Zhao
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Yu, Yu
Chen, Zhao
author_facet Yu, Yu
Chen, Zhao
contents Grid type pre-initial conditions are commonly used to initialize particle positions in cosmological simulations. While these conditions are known to produce noticeable numerical artifacts in void regions, their impact on halo properties has generally been assumed to be negligible. In this work, we employ multiple simulations to demonstrate that grid initialization induces statistically significant artifacts in halo shapes, despite the modest absolute amplitude ($\sim 1\%$) making them unimportant for most cosmological studies. We identify a redshift-dependent artificial alignment pattern: at low redshifts ($z<2$), halo shapes preferentially orient away from the simulation box's Cartesian axes, whereas their constituent particles initially exhibit alignment with these axes. We propose a mathematical hypothesis to explain this flipping behavior.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_16745
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Artifacts in Halo Shapes: Imprints of the Initial Condition
Yu, Yu
Chen, Zhao
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Grid type pre-initial conditions are commonly used to initialize particle positions in cosmological simulations. While these conditions are known to produce noticeable numerical artifacts in void regions, their impact on halo properties has generally been assumed to be negligible. In this work, we employ multiple simulations to demonstrate that grid initialization induces statistically significant artifacts in halo shapes, despite the modest absolute amplitude ($\sim 1\%$) making them unimportant for most cosmological studies. We identify a redshift-dependent artificial alignment pattern: at low redshifts ($z<2$), halo shapes preferentially orient away from the simulation box's Cartesian axes, whereas their constituent particles initially exhibit alignment with these axes. We propose a mathematical hypothesis to explain this flipping behavior.
title Artifacts in Halo Shapes: Imprints of the Initial Condition
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16745