Asymptotic cold-dark-matter power spectrum Created 2026-10-07 Updated 2026-10-14
The dimensional matter power spectrum contains a factor , rather than . The cosmological transfer function tends to one below the matter-radiation equality scale and to above it. The smooth spectrum therefore scales as at small wavenumber and at large wavenumber. The logarithmic factor records slow cold-matter growth during radiation domination. Multiplying by instead produces dimensionless matter power.
For an isotropic matter power spectrum on and zero elsewhere, put . Angular integration of the Fourier transform gives , and two integrations by parts yield the displayed answer. Its apparent origin singularity is removable, with . The sharp cutoff creates oscillatory, including negative, correlations without violating positivity of the spectrum.
The cosmological two-point correlation function measures excess pairing or correlated density fluctuations at a separation. For a statistically homogeneous and isotropic mean-zero density contrast, . For distinct points in a discrete galaxy population it instead specifies the factorial pair density, . The latter excludes self-pairs; an unsmoothed discrete-density covariance also contains a Dirac delta at zero separation. These definitions connect large-scale galaxy clustering with the matter power spectrum while keeping galaxy power spectrum shot noise separate.
The parameter is the present linear rms density contrast averaged in a spherical top-hat of comoving radius , with . Thus . It specifies an amplitude on a chosen scale rather than the complete matter power spectrum; converting cluster abundance into this parameter also requires a spectral shape and background cosmology.
Galaxy survey 2026-10-14
A galaxy survey measures positions and other properties of a selected galaxy sample. A spectroscopic survey uses cosmological redshift to estimate radial distance, with corrections for peculiar velocity. Its volume, selection, galaxy bias, and sampling determine which matter power spectrum modes can be inferred.
The Harrison-Peebles-Zeldovich spectrum is the scale-invariant primordial growing-mode spectrum: in a fixed conformal time slice before cosmological horizon crossing, the matter power spectrum is proportional to in the usual growing-mode density convention. At horizon entry , its dimensionless mass variance is independent of . This statement fixes a spectral shape, not its amplitude. Radiation domination subsequently suppresses small-scale density growth through the Mészáros effect, producing the asymptotic matter power spectrum after matter-radiation equality.
At a fixed horizon-exit e-fold count and with the later cosmology fixed, rescaling a canonical single-field inflationary potential by a positive constant leaves its potential slow-roll parameters and field solution unchanged. The slow-roll curvature power spectrum is proportional to , so the matter power spectrum scales by the same factor while its leading tilt and transfer-function shape remain unchanged. A changed specified reheating history can also shift the horizon-exit count assigned to a fixed physical wavenumber.
With the specified Fourier transform convention, the inverse is . Inserting both inverse transforms into the cosmological two-point correlation function and applying the given Dirac delta covariance yields
For an isotropic matter power spectrum, align the polar axis with . The angular integral is . Hence the isotropic cosmological correlation-power-spectrum relation is
The angular kernel is the order-zero Spherical Bessel function . At , replace it by its limit one, giving the unsmoothed variance when the integral converges. The argument assumes an ordinary integrable spectrum, or an explicitly specified distributional Fourier transform interpretation otherwise.
Apply the isotropic cosmological correlation-power-spectrum relation and put , . The band-limited linear density correlation is
Two integrations by parts give the primitive . Evaluating both endpoints yields
The apparent singularity at the origin is removable. Either the Taylor series or the original integral gives
In fact . The sharp spectral cutoff produces oscillations and negative correlations at some nonzero separations, even though the matter power spectrum is everywhere nonnegative. A covariance function need not be pointwise nonnegative; its required positivity is that of the covariance quadratic form.
Figure 1.
An abrupt cutoff in a nonnegative density power spectrum produces an oscillating correlation function
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Let be a mean-zero density contrast. For a statistically homogeneous and isotropic field, its two-point correlation function is , depending only on . For a galaxy point process the corresponding distinct-pair definition is , the excess pair probability relative to independent uniform positions. Self-pair shot noise is separated when using the density-field version.
Specify the Fourier convention by
The diagonal covariance follows from statistical homogeneity, and isotropy makes the matter power spectrum a function of alone. Substitute the inverse transforms into the correlation and integrate the delta function:
Choose the polar axis parallel to . Angular integration gives . Hence
Conversely, when the transform is defined, . The stated convention fixes every factor.
The Press-Schechter formalism starts from a statistically homogeneous Gaussian initial density contrast with variance specified by its linear matter power spectrum. Average it on mass scale , usually with a spherical top-hat. Let , normalizing consistently. Assume that a region becomes a collapsed halo when its linearly extrapolated smoothed density exceeds a mass-independent linear spherical-collapse threshold in the Einstein-de Sitter approximation. This extrapolates a linear Gaussian statistic to a nonlinear collapse criterion, and ignores the detailed nonspherical dynamics.
The one-scale Gaussian upper tail only assigns half the mass to overdense regions when the variance grows without limit. The conventional factor of two is inserted to account for material in larger collapsed regions even if it falls below the threshold on a smaller scale, the cloud-in-cloud issue. A first-crossing excursion-set argument can justify that factor for an ideal sharp-k filter; it is not a theorem that an arbitrary top-hat one-scale probability alone supplies it. With this prescription, the mass fraction in objects above is
Convert mass fraction to comoving number density by assigning mass to each halo, using . This yields the Press-Schechter halo mass function
Equivalently one can use a present-extrapolated threshold and present variance; using both that threshold and an already grown variance would double-count growth. The model assumes approximate mass conservation, a smoothing-to-halo-mass assignment and a spherical universal barrier. It is an approximation to gravitational halo formation, not an exact partition of the real cosmic web.
In hierarchical formation, decreases with mass: smaller regions become nonlinear first and are subsequently incorporated into larger haloes. Define a characteristic mass by . It increases as growth proceeds, moving the exponential cutoff towards larger masses. For a scale-free spectrum with well-defined top-hat variance, , and hence . At a fixed mass, the derivative of with respect to is : rare high-mass abundances grow, while the small-mass abundance can decline as objects merge into larger systems. Thus one must not claim that every fixed-mass bin increases forever. The growth of is the scale-free characteristic mass in the Press-Schechter formalism.
For the temperature test, virial equilibrium and gas hydrostatic equilibrium give . Defining the halo radius by yields
A calibrated monotone mass-temperature relation converts the mass function to , with temperature scatter treated by convolution when necessary. The cluster temperature function normalization is strongly sensitive to the linear fluctuation amplitude: at fixed mass and spectral shape, . Rare hot clusters occupy the exponential tail, so even a modest amplitude change can produce a large abundance change. Here sigma eight is the rms linear density contrast today in an top-hat, not the full spectrum.
Compare observed cluster-temperature counts and their redshift evolution with these predictions to constrain that normalization jointly with matter density and growth. The mass-temperature calibration, selection volume, temperature scatter, nonthermal support and deviations from the ideal halo mass function limit a temperature-only inference. The abundance of rare hot clusters is a sensitive amplitude probe once their mass calibration and cosmology are specified.
Define the matter power spectrum by the Fourier transform convention
Statistical isotropy then gives
For the growing mode found above, write . At cosmological horizon entry, , so the variance contribution per logarithmic interval is proportional to . Making it independent of requires . Hence
This is the Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum. Scale invariance applies at horizon entry, not to the unprocessed density variance on a common late-time slice. In the notation , it means , with random Fourier coefficients supplying the ensemble statistics.
Neglecting the rapidly oscillating radiation source on subhorizon scales, stress-energy conservation and the trace of the Einstein field equations give
Equivalently in cosmic time, . Radiation still contributes to the background expansion, even when its perturbation source is averaged away.
Put and let be the density of either component at matter-radiation equality. Then and . With , the Friedmann equation gives
Apply the chain rule to the density equation:
Thus the Mészáros equation is
Substituting gives , so
is indeed a solution. It is approximately constant during radiation domination and grows as during matter domination. The second independent solution is
which behaves as at small . Thus smoothing radiation does not eliminate every logarithmic solution; matching through actual horizon entry fixes the combination excited.
Modes with enter after equality and retain the shape. Modes with enter during radiation domination: their horizon-entry spectrum is and they gain little growth until equality. The late matter power spectrum therefore turns over near and has a large-scale branch and a small-scale branch, with the more accurate radiation-era matching giving
Equivalently the cold-dark-matter transfer function falls approximately as , up to the logarithm. The turnover is the consequence of the Mészáros effect; it is not a change of the primordial scale-invariance condition.
Choose the Fourier transform convention
Statistical homogeneity makes the Fourier covariance diagonal, and isotropy makes the matter power spectrum depend only on . The two-point correlation function follows by inserting the transform and using this covariance:
Integrating the polar angle relative to gives . Hence
The inverse isotropic transform is whenever these transforms exist, with distributions or regularization otherwise.
For a spherical average of comoving radius , the spherical top-hat window function is
At a fixed epoch let . The scale-free smoothed density variance is
Thus the RMS fractional mass fluctuation scales as ; the RMS mass fluctuation itself scales as at fixed epoch.
The comoving Poisson equation gives . For the growing irrotational mode the linearized cosmological continuity equation gives , where . The averaged-potential and bulk-velocity variances are therefore
For a single Cartesian component of the isotropic bulk velocity, divide its variance by three. Rescaling gives
These are dimensional scaling laws, with an important convergence qualification. Since at small and has large- envelope , the density average converges for , the absolute potential average for , and the bulk velocity for . No one unbroken power law makes all three absolute averages finite on the entire range . In particular, long-wavelength modes can dominate the potential. Physical infrared/ultraviolet cutoffs, potential differences, or fluctuation amplitudes in a band around resolve the relevant divergences; with cutoffs the simple powers need not describe the full integrated variance. The scale-free potential and bulk-flow variance laws should be understood with these conditions, not as a claim that divergent RMS integrals are finite.
A useful decomposition of the linear matter power spectrum, absorbing the Fourier normalization into its amplitude, is
Here is the cold-dark-matter transfer function and the linear growth factor. On scales entering the horizon after matter-radiation equality, , so with near one. Modes entering during radiation domination undergo suppressed growth relative to later entrants, producing a turnover near the equality scale and, well above it, . Thus the linear spectrum asymptotes approximately to . Baryon acoustic oscillations superpose a weak oscillatory pattern. At sufficiently short scales nonlinear gravitational instability invalidates this linear extrapolation.
Figure 1.
Schematic matter power spectrum with equality turnover, baryon oscillations and approximate observational scale ranges
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The plotted curve illustrates the shape rather than a precision cosmological fit; the bands are overlapping approximate scale sensitivities, not sharp experiment boundaries. Cosmic microwave background anisotropies constrain primordial amplitudes and transfer physics on very large through acoustic scales; converting them to a late-time matter spectrum requires a cosmological model. Galaxy redshift surveys constrain approximately –, with galaxy bias and redshift-space distortions modeled. Peculiar velocities constrain large-scale mass fluctuations; cluster abundances constrain the fluctuation normalization near cluster scales. Weak gravitational lensing measures projected matter on intermediate and smaller scales. The Lyman-alpha forest extends constraints to roughly –a few at high redshift, requiring gas, temperature and ionizing-background modeling. These are complementary measurements of the underlying spectrum rather than interchangeable direct Fourier measurements.
The matter fraction controls the equality turnover. From and the Friedmann equation at equality,
The measured background radiation fixes , so the physical turnover scale measures approximately . In units its location mainly constrains ; independent knowledge of is needed to extract . Standard radiation content gives the useful estimate , approximately for , .
The cosmological baryon density sets the inertia of the pre-decoupling photon–baryon fluid and changes its sound horizon and the oscillation pattern. The oscillation contrast and broadband suppression depend on the baryon fraction ; the acoustic positions depend on the sound horizon and the distance conversion. The cosmic microwave background peak-height pattern independently constrains . Combining these with the equality scale and a distance or Hubble constant determination permits estimates of both requested density fractions. Spectral tilt, neutrino free streaming, galaxy bias and nonlinear evolution must be fitted rather than assigning every shape change to baryons. The acoustic signature was already observed in the 2005 galaxy correlation measurement; the first-year microwave-background parameter analysis demonstrates the complementary parameter constraints.
Separate the observables before combining their parameter constraints. The baryon fraction is included within total matter: for the benchmark, , rather than adding to a second time. With , the physical density combinations are
For baryons, Big Bang nucleosynthesis predicts primordial light-element abundances as a function of the baryon-to-photon ratio; deuterium is especially sensitive. Independently, baryon inertia changes the relative heights of compressional and rarefaction peaks in the cosmic microwave background through the baryon loading parameter. Agreement of these two physical-density estimates supports a baryon abundance near the quoted value. For example, the three-year WMAP cosmological analysis found in its fitted model.
For total matter, matter-radiation equality affects the microwave-background peak pattern and fixes a characteristic turnover in the matter power spectrum. galaxy clustering therefore constrains matter density, with corrections for galaxy bias and peculiar-velocity distortions. Cluster baryon fractions combine observed gas and stars with total masses inferred dynamically or by gravitational lensing; comparison with the cosmic baryon fraction also constrains . Galactic rotation, cluster dynamics and gravitational lensing give independent evidence that visible baryons alone cannot supply the gravitating mass. The precise estimate comes from quantitative joint fits, rather than from a rotation curve by itself. Different 2006 data combinations gave somewhat different best fits, so is a rounded benchmark rather than a universal exact fit.
For a cosmological constant, standardized high-redshift Type Ia supernovae measure the shape of the luminosity-distance relation. In a flat matter-vacuum model,
The observed supernova dimming relative to simple decelerating matter models favours late accelerated expansion. The original evidence is given by Riess and collaborators' 1998 supernova analysis. Combining the distance curve with matter constraints selects a positive vacuum fraction close to the quoted benchmark; it gives .
For curvature, the angular scale of the Cosmic microwave background acoustic peaks compares the sound horizon with the angular diameter distance to last scattering. This strongly constrains spatial geometry, but curvature and late-time expansion parameters can partly compensate one another. Independent distances, notably baryon acoustic oscillations and supernova distances, help break that degeneracy. The 2005 SDSS acoustic-peak detection supplies a low-redshift standard ruler complementary to the microwave-background ruler. In combination, these observations support near-flat geometry and the closure relation .
The benchmark is supported by mutually constraining abundance, clustering, angular-scale and distance measurements. Its uncertainties are correlated and depend on model assumptions. An exactly zero curvature parameter has no meaningful percentage error; observational evidence establishes consistency with zero and an absolute uncertainty, not a literal fractional accuracy better than ten per cent on zero.
Let be the matter power spectrum in the normalization of the question. The Harrison-Peebles-Zeldovich spectrum gives before entry. Using the order-of-magnitude cosmological horizon crossing criterion , rather than tracking a wavelength factor of , gives
The mass-fluctuation variance on radius is therefore
independent of wavenumber. Equal logarithmic ranges of scales enter with comparable dimensionless fluctuation strength. This is the scale invariance encoded by the HPZ spectrum; it is not the claim that the dimensional matter power spectrum is independent of at a fixed time.
First consider . Such a mode remains outside the horizon through matter-radiation equality, grows as on both sides, and keeps the same matter-era growth after entry. Squaring this growth preserves the shape of the HPZ spectrum:
up to a scale-independent matching coefficient.
For , entry occurs in radiation domination at , with . The density amplitude then grows only logarithmically until equality. Thus
During matter domination, the matter-era linear growth factor of the density is , so its square multiplies the matter power spectrum:
The turnover at records whether a mode entered during radiation domination. Earlier-entering small-scale modes miss the rapid growth and receive only the logarithmic Mészáros effect. This is the origin of the logarithmic small-scale matter transfer. The formula is a large- asymptote: the additive constant in the logarithmic solution and smooth equality matching must be retained near , where the spectrum does not vanish.
Multiplying by gives the small-scale mass-fluctuation variance
This gives the requested estimate for modes entering before equality, with the logarithm replaced by a smooth order-one factor in the transition region. On comoving scale , unit variance today requires
For a numerical illustration faithful to this question's flat, matter-plus-radiation background, take and , hence rather than the appropriate to a vacuum-dominated model. Part 1(b), now with , gives . In this two-component model the same integral is valid all the way to today, giving
With , and . Therefore , corresponding to a horizon-entry root-mean-square fluctuation of roughly . A very small primordial amplitude, of order in this schematic normalization, can reach unit small-scale variance by today. Factors from the Fourier convention, smoothing window and equality matching preclude a precise normalization here. The calculation marks the onset of nonlinear structure formation, where extrapolating the linear solution ceases to be valid. For a universe with late vacuum domination, one must replace the matter-only growth law by its actual growth factor before making a numerical inference.