Cold Dark Matter II: Spatial and Velocity Statistics

James M. Gelb, Edmund Bertschinger

Published 1994-08-09Version 1

We examine high-resolution gravitational N-body simulations of the $\Omega=1$ cold dark matter (CDM) model in order to determine whether there is any normalization of the initial density fluctuation spectrum that yields acceptable results for galaxy clustering and velocities. Dense dark matter halos in the evolved mass distribution are identified with luminous galaxies; the most massive halos are also considered as sites for galaxy groups, with a range of possibilities explored for the group mass to light ratios. We verify the earlier conclusions of White et al. (1987) for the low amplitude (high bias) CDM model --- the galaxy correlation function is marginally acceptable but that there are too many galaxies. We also show that the peak biasing method does not accurately reproduce the results obtained using dense halos identified in the simulations themselves. The COBE anisotropy implies a higher normalization, resulting in problems with excessive pairwise galaxy velocity dispersion unless a strong velocity bias is present. Although we confirm the strong velocity bias of halos reported by Couchman \& Carlberg (1992), we show that the galaxy motions are still too large on small scales. We find no amplitude for which the CDM model can reconcile simultaneously the galaxy correlation function, the low pairwise velocity dispersion, and the richness distribution of groups and clusters. With the normalization implied by COBE, the CDM spectrum has too much power on small scales if $\Omega=1$.