Open AccessNon‐local scaling in two‐dimensional gravitational clustering
Author(s) -
Munshi Dipak,
Chiang LungYih,
Coles Peter,
Melott Adrian L.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.1998.01313.x
Subject(s) - physics , scaling , statistical physics , cluster analysis , spectral density , correlation function (quantum field theory) , function (biology) , probability density function , focus (optics) , quantum mechanics , statistics , optics , geometry , mathematics , evolutionary biology , dielectric , biology
Using an ensemble of high‐resolution 2D numerical simulations, we explore the scaling properties of cosmological density fluctuations in the non‐linear regime. We study the scaling behaviour of the usual N ‐point volume‐averaged correlations, but also examine the scaling of the entire probability density function (PDF) of the fluctuations. We focus on two important issues: (i) whether the scaling behaviour of 2D clustering is consistent with what one infers from radial collapse arguments; and (ii) whether there is any evidence from these high‐resolution simulations that a regime of stable clustering is ever entered. We find that the answers are (i) yes and (ii) no. We further find that the behaviour of the highly non‐linear regime in these simulations suggests the existence of a regime in which the correlation function is independent of the initial power spectrum.