Dark Energy Survey Year 3 Results: Galaxy mock catalogs for BAO analysis

¹ Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, PO Box 1029, Blindern, 0315 Oslo, Norway
e-mail: s.i.ferrero@astro.uio.no
² Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), 08034 Barcelona, Spain
³ Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC), Campus UAB, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
⁴ Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
⁵ Department of Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
⁶ Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl-Schwarzschild Str. 1, 85741 Garching, Germany
⁷ Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁸ Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia – LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 20921-400, Brazil
⁹ Universidad de La Laguna, Dpto. Astrofísica, 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
¹⁰ Instituto de Fisica Teorica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
¹¹ Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Burnaby Road, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK
¹² School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-sen University, 2 Daxue Road, Tangjia, Zhuhai 519082, PR China
¹³ Instituto de Física Teórica, Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil
¹⁴ ICTP South American Institute for Fundamental Research, São Paulo, Brazil
¹⁵ Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
¹⁶ Port d’Informació Científica (PIC), Campus UAB, C. Albareda s/n, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
¹⁷ Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
¹⁸ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
¹⁹ Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 13083-859 Campinas, SP, Brazil
²⁰ Department of Astronomy/Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA
²¹ Departamento de Física Matemática, Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, CP 66318, São Paulo, SP 05314-970, Brazil
²² Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia, Rua General José Cristino, 77, São Cristóvão, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 20921-400, Brazil
²³ Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
²⁴ CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, 75014 Paris, France
²⁵ Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ. Paris 06, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, 75014 Paris, France
²⁶ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
²⁷ Center for Astrophysical Surveys, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1205 West Clark St., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
²⁸ Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
²⁹ Physics Department, 2320 Chamberlin Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1150 University Avenue Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1390, USA
³⁰ Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
³¹ University of Nottingham, School of Physics and Astronomy, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
³² Astronomy Unit, Department of Physics, University of Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, 34131 Trieste, Italy
³³ INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. B. Tiepolo 11, 34143 Trieste, Italy
³⁴ Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, 34014 Trieste, Italy
³⁵ Observatório Nacional, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 20921-400, Brazil
³⁶ Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
³⁷ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
³⁸ Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
³⁹ Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
⁴⁰ Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
⁴¹ Department of Physics, Stanford University, 382 Via Pueblo Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
⁴² Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, Stanford University, PO Box 2450, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
⁴³ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
⁴⁴ School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
⁴⁵ Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Scheinerstr. 1, 81679 Munich, Germany
⁴⁶ Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
⁴⁷ Australian Astronomical Optics, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia
⁴⁸ Lowell Observatory, 1400 Mars Hill Rd, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA
⁴⁹ Departamento de Física Matemática, Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, CP 66318, São Paulo, SP 05314-970, Brazil
⁵⁰ George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
⁵¹ Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, 08010 Barcelona, Spain
⁵² Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
⁵³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave W, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada
⁵⁴ Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline St. North, Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5, Canada
⁵⁵ Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
⁵⁶ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
⁵⁷ Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
⁵⁸ Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK
⁵⁹ Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Giessenbachstrasse, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁶⁰ Universitäts-Sternwarte, Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, Scheinerstr. 1, 81679 München, Germany

Received: 8 July 2021
Accepted: 28 September 2021

Abstract

The calibration and validation of scientific analysis in simulations is a fundamental tool to ensure unbiased and robust results in observational cosmology. In particular, mock galaxy catalogs are a crucial resource to achieve these goals in the measurement of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) in the clustering of galaxies. Here we present a set of 1952 galaxy mock catalogs designed to mimic the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 BAO sample over its full photometric redshift range 0.6 < z_photo < 1.1. The mocks are based upon 488 ICE-COLA fast N-body simulations of full-sky light cones and were created by populating halos with galaxies, using a hybrid halo occupation distribution – halo abundance matching model. This model has ten free parameters, which were determined, for the first time, using an automatic likelihood minimization procedure. We also introduced a novel technique to assign photometric redshift for simulated galaxies, following a two-dimensional probability distribution with VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey data. The calibration was designed to match the observed abundance of galaxies as a function of photometric redshift, the distribution of photometric redshift errors, and the clustering amplitude on scales smaller than those used for BAO measurements. An exhaustive analysis was done to ensure that the mocks reproduce the input properties. Finally, mocks were tested by comparing the angular correlation function w(θ), angular power spectrum C_ℓ, and projected clustering ξ_p(r_⊥) to theoretical predictions and data. The impact of volume replication in the estimate of the covariance is also investigated. The success in accurately reproducing the photometric redshift uncertainties and the galaxy clustering as a function of redshift render this mock creation pipeline as a benchmark for future analyses of photometric galaxy surveys.