Jun 8 – 12, 2026
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
America/Toronto timezone

A Point-Transformed Gaussian Model for Field-Level Mass Distributions in Tomographic Density Slabs

Jun 11, 2026, 2:10 PM
20m
PI/4-405 - Bob Room (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics)

PI/4-405 - Bob Room

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

60
Contributed Talk

Speaker

Alexander Tong (University of Pennsylvania)

Description

The work presented in this talk is part of a program of performing field-level cosmological analyses using galaxy and weak lensing observables in density slabs of $O[100\ \mathrm{Mpc}]$. The inference pipeline requires a model for the mass overdensity field which is accurate to scales of a few Mpc across cosmologies, and also fast in the generation of sample fields. I will describe a scheme in which the nonlinear mass overdensity field is obtained by applying some point transformation to a Gaussian random field. I will present our transformation function that, with a small number of parameters, characterizes the mass distribution in a slab for different redshifts, slab widths, and cosmologies. I will show that the model accurately reproduces the statistical properties of mass overdensity fields from Gower Street simulations, demonstrating its viability for field-level inference. Finally, I will discuss a validation test which uses the point-transformed Gaussian model to infer the cosmology from the output of an $N$-body simulation.

Authors

Alexander Tong (University of Pennsylvania) Gary Bernstein (University of Pennsylvania) Supranta Sarma Boruah (University of Pennsylvania)

Presentation materials

External references