PT Journal
AU Manera, M
   Scoccimarro, R
   Percival, WJ
   Samushia, L
   McBride, CK
   Ross, AJ
   Sheth, RK
   White, M
   Reid, BA
   Sanchez, AG
   de Putter, R
   Xu, XY
   Berlind, AA
   Brinkmann, J
   Maraston, C
   Nichol, B
   Montesano, F
   Padmanabhan, N
   Skibba, RA
   Tojeiro, R
   Weaver, BA
TI The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: a large sample of mock galaxy catalogues
SO Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JI Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc.
PY 2013
BP 1036
EP 1054
VL 428
IS 2
DI 10.1093/mnras/sts084
LA English
DE galaxies: haloes; large-scale structure of Universe
AB We present a fast method for producing mock galaxy catalogues that can be used to compute the covariance of large-scale clustering measurements and test analysis techniques. Our method populates a second-order Lagrangian perturbation theory (2LPT) matter field, where we calibrate masses of dark matter haloes by detailed comparisons with N-body simulations. We demonstrate that the clustering of haloes is recovered at similar to 10 per cent accuracy. We populate haloes with mock galaxies using a halo occupation distribution (HOD) prescription, which has been calibrated to reproduce the clustering measurements on scales between 30 and 80 h(-1) Mpc. We compare the sample covariance matrix from our mocks with analytic estimates, and discuss differences. We have used this method to make catalogues corresponding to Data Release 9 of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), producing 600 mock catalogues of the 'CMASS' galaxy sample. These mocks have enabled detailed tests of methods and errors, and have formed an integral part of companion analyses of these galaxy data.
ER