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Constraining the galaxy-halo connection of infrared-selected unWISE galaxies with galaxy clustering and galaxy-CMB lensing power spectra
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Submitted 23 Mar 2022
abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review
The authors' main claim Our HOD constraints provide a detailed, quantitative understanding of how the unWISE galaxies populate the underlying dark matter halo distribution.
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We present the first detailed analysis of the connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos for the unWISE galaxy catalog -- a full-sky, infrared-selected sample built from WISE data, containing over 500 million galaxies. Using unWISE galaxy-galaxy auto-correlation and Planck CMB lensing-galaxy cross-correlation measurements down to 10 arcmin angular scales, we constrain the halo occupation distribution (HOD), a model describing how central and satellite galaxies are distributed within dark matter halos, for three unWISE} galaxy samples at mean redshifts $\bar{z} \approx 0.6$, $1.1$, and $1.5$. We constrain the characteristic minimum halo mass to host a central galaxy, $M_\mathrm{min}^\mathrm{HOD} = 1.83^{+0.41}_{-1.63} \times 10^{12} M_\odot/h$, $5.22^{+0.34}_{-4.80} \times 10^{12} M_\odot/h$, $6.60 ^{+0.30}_{-1.11} \times 10^{13} M_\odot/h$ for the unWISE samples at $\bar{z}\approx 0.6$, $1.1$, and $1.5$, respectively. We find that all three samples are dominated by central galaxies, rather than satellites. Using our constrained HOD models, we infer the effective linear galaxy bias for each unWISE sample, and find that it does not evolve as steeply with redshift as found in previous perturbation-theory-based analyses of these galaxies. We discuss possible sources of systematic uncertainty in our results, the most significant of which is the uncertainty on the galaxy redshift distribution. Our HOD constraints provide a detailed, quantitative understanding of how the unWISE galaxies populate the underlying dark matter halo distribution. These constraints will have a direct impact on future studies employing the unWISE galaxies as a cosmological and astrophysical probe, including measurements of ionized gas thermodynamics and dark matter profiles via Sunyaev-Zel'dovich and lensing cross-correlations.
background contribution method result interpretation main claim
| # | sentence | role | the authors' own work | states the main conclusion | strength |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| s0 | We present the first detailed analysis of the connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos for the unWISE galaxy catalog -- a full-sky, infrared-selected sample built from WISE data, containing over 500 million galaxies. | contribution 1.00 | 0.89 | 0.06 | asserted 1.00 |
| s1 | Using unWISE galaxy-galaxy auto-correlation and Planck CMB lensing-galaxy cross-correlation measurements down to 10 arcmin angular scales, we constrain the halo occupation distribution (HOD), a model describing how central and satellite galaxies are distributed within dark matter halos, for three unWISE} galaxy samples at mean redshifts $\bar{z} \approx 0.6$, $1.1$, and $1.5$. | method 0.93 | 0.97 | 0.09 | asserted 1.00 |
| s2 | We constrain the characteristic minimum halo mass to host a central galaxy, $M_\mathrm{min}^\mathrm{HOD} = 1.83^{+0.41}_{-1.63} \times 10^{12} M_\odot/h$, $5.22^{+0.34}_{-4.80} \times 10^{12} M_\odot/h$, $6.60 ^{+0.30}_{-1.11} \times 10^{13} M_\odot/h$ for the unWISE samples at $\bar{z}\approx 0.6$, $1.1$, and $1.5$, respectively. | result 1.00 | 0.97 | 0.24 | asserted 1.00 |
| s3 | We find that all three samples are dominated by central galaxies, rather than satellites. | result 0.98 | 0.97 | 0.29 | asserted 1.00 |
| s4 | Using our constrained HOD models, we infer the effective linear galaxy bias for each unWISE sample, and find that it does not evolve as steeply with redshift as found in previous perturbation-theory-based analyses of these galaxies. | result 0.97 | 0.96 | 0.14 | asserted 1.00 |
| s5 | We discuss possible sources of systematic uncertainty in our results, the most significant of which is the uncertainty on the galaxy redshift distribution. | limitation 1.00 | 0.73 | 0.02 | asserted 0.88 |
| s6 | Our HOD constraints provide a detailed, quantitative understanding of how the unWISE galaxies populate the underlying dark matter halo distribution. | interpretation 0.95 | 0.94 | 0.38 | asserted 1.00 |
| s7 | These constraints will have a direct impact on future studies employing the unWISE galaxies as a cosmological and astrophysical probe, including measurements of ionized gas thermodynamics and dark matter profiles via Sunyaev-Zel'dovich and lensing cross-correlations. | future work 0.64 | 0.24 | 0.11 | asserted 0.85 |
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The paper
Original abstract
We present the first detailed analysis of the connection between galaxies and their dark matter halos for the unWISE galaxy catalog -- a full-sky, infrared-selected sample built from WISE data, containing over 500 million galaxies. Using unWISE galaxy-galaxy auto-correlation and Planck CMB lensing-galaxy cross-correlation measurements down to 10 arcmin angular scales, we constrain the halo occupation distribution (HOD), a model describing how central and satellite galaxies are distributed within dark matter halos, for three unWISE} galaxy samples at mean redshifts $\bar{z} \approx 0.6$, $1.1$, and $1.5$. We constrain the characteristic minimum halo mass to host a central galaxy, $M_\mathrm{min}^\mathrm{HOD} = 1.83^{+0.41}_{-1.63} \times 10^{12} M_\odot/h$, $5.22^{+0.34}_{-4.80} \times 10^{12} M_\odot/h$, $6.60 ^{+0.30}_{-1.11} \times 10^{13} M_\odot/h$ for the unWISE samples at $\bar{z}\approx 0.6$, $1.1$, and $1.5$, respectively. We find that all three samples are dominated by central galaxies, rather than satellites. Using our constrained HOD models, we infer the effective linear galaxy bias for each unWISE sample, and find that it does not evolve as steeply with redshift as found in previous perturbation-theory-based analyses of these galaxies. We discuss possible sources of systematic uncertainty in our results, the most significant of which is the uncertainty on the galaxy redshift distribution. Our HOD constraints provide a detailed, quantitative understanding of how the unWISE galaxies populate the underlying dark matter halo distribution. These constraints will have a direct impact on future studies employing the unWISE galaxies as a cosmological and astrophysical probe, including measurements of ionized gas thermodynamics and dark matter profiles via Sunyaev-Zel'dovich and lensing cross-correlations.
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References
How the literature uses it
8 arXiv papers cite this in 30 sentences
Papers citing it · 19 sentences without a confident label
Builds on it 1 paper
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These are the only changes in modeling the unWISE HOD between this work and Ref. [ref] .
Enhancing Measurements of the CMB Blackbody Temperature Power Spectrum by Removing CIB and Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Contamination Using External Galaxy Catalogs · unWISE HOD · 0.94
Uses its method or tool 3 papers
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In this work, we follow the HOD model of the unWISE galaxies from [ref] , with some small changes detailed in [ref].
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Furthermore, the halo model, together with the halo occupation distribution model from Ref. [ref] , also predicts the distribution of galaxies in the sky.
Dark Photons in the Radio Sky: I. Resonant Conversions in Halos · Introduction · 0.81
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We model the galaxy distribution using the halo occupation distribution (HOD) from Ref. [ref] .
Constraints on axions from patchy screening of the cosmic microwave background · Introduction · 0.93
Uses its data or values 4 papers
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For the galaxy catalog, we consider the unWISE sample [ref] as our starting point, which has been widely used as a large-scale-structure tracer for CMB lensing reconstruction and cross-correlation studies [ref] .
Enhancing Cosmological Constraints from Foreground-Cleaned CMB Maps Using Large-Scale Structure Surveys · Galaxy Catalog · 0.86
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The second upper bound comes from the truncation scale used in the best-fit HOD model for the galaxy sample considered here [ref] .
Constraints on axions from patchy screening of the cosmic microwave background · Introduction · 0.81
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Additionally, we also produce a mock map of $δ_g$ that we cross-correlate with the $γ→A'$ signal, constructed from the power spectrum of galaxies obtained from an HOD that is fit to the unWISE galaxy survey [ref] .
Dark Photons in the Radio Sky: I. Resonant Conversions in Halos · Introduction · 0.82
Cites it as background 2 papers
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A variety of previous works have attempted to constrain the relation between unWISE galaxies and dark matter, e.g. [ref] .
Kinetic Sunyaev Zel'dovich velocity reconstruction from Planck and unWISE · Modelling assumptions · 0.97
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We also note that cross-correlations between CMB lensing and tracers of the LSS (including galaxies, but also other tracers such as galaxy clusters, quasars, filaments, and galaxy groups) have recently been considered in a huge number of works, including but not limited to [ref] .
Updated neutrino mass constraints from galaxy clustering and CMB lensing-galaxy cross-correlation measurements · Introduction · 0.98
What it cites · 1 sentence without a confident label
Uses the method or tool of 1 paper
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Some of the results in this paper have been derived using the healpy and HEALPix packages [ref] .
HEALPix -- a Framework for High Resolution Discretization, and Fast Analysis of Data Distributed on the Sphere · Acknowledgements · 1.00
Uses data or values from 1 paper
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In practice, we apply a prior on the (derived) $S_8$ parameter, corresponding to the Planck 2018 best-fit 1$σ$ error bar (as before, last column of Table II [ref] ), keeping the matter density $Ω_m$ constant.
Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters · Varied-cosmology runs · 1.00
Compares with 1 paper
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The combined unWISE samples yielded a value for the combination of these parameters $S_8 = σ_8(Ω_m /0.3 )^0.5$ of $S_8=0.784 ±0.015$ (68% confidence interval), consistent with low-redshift lensing measurements [ref] , yet in moderate tension with Planck CMB results for this parameter [ref] .
Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters · Introduction · 0.97
Cites as background 1 paper
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Future work to further constrain the redshift distributions of these samples, e.g., using DESI [ref] , will be extremely useful.
The DESI Experiment, a whitepaper for Snowmass 2013 · Introduction · 0.80
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