A relativistic signature in large-scale structure

Abstract

In General Relativity, the constraint equation relating metric and density perturbations is inherently nonlinear, leading to an effective non-Gaussianity in the dark matter density field on large scales-even if the primordial metric perturbation is Gaussian. Intrinsic non-Gaussianity in the large-scale dark matter overdensity in GR is real and physical. However, the variance smoothed on a local physical scale is not correlated with the large-scale curvature perturbation, so that there is no relativistic signature in the galaxy bias when using the simplest model of bias. It is an open question whether the observable mass proxies such as luminosity or weak lensing correspond directly to the physical mass in the simple halo bias model. If not, there may be observables that encode this relativistic signature. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.