Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT This paper explores in depth a watershed concept to partition the Universe, introduced in a previous Letter and applied to the Cosmicflows-3 observational data set. We present a series of tests conducted with cosmological dark matter simulations. In particular, we are interested in quantifying the evolution with redshift of large-scale structures when defined as segmented basins of attraction. This new dynamical definition in the field of measuring standard rulers demonstrates robustness since all basins show a density contrast δ above 1 (mean Universe density) independently of the simulation spatial resolution or the redshift. Another major finding is that density profiles of the basins show universality in slope. Consequently, there is a unique definition of what is a gravitational watershed at a large scale, which can be further used as a probe for cosmology studies.
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: California Department of Fish and Game, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe AISBL, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Institut Universitaire de France, Université de Lyon, Gauss Centre for Supercomputing, Leibniz-Gemeinschaft, Leibniz-Rechenzentrum
OpenAlex ID: W3005863574