Simulations and Halo Catalogs Provided by Halotools

In this section of the documentation we give a brief description of each of the simulations provided by the package. If you would like to use your own catalog, rather than one of the simulations listed below, see the Working with alternative halo and particle catalogs.

Halotools is configured to download, process and manage a range of simulations and halo catalogs. For each supported simulation, there are pre-processed binaries available for download for redshifts z = 0, 0.5, 1, and 2. Halo catalogs based on the Rockstar halo-finder are available for all of the simulations below; for Bolshoi, BDM-based catalogs are also available. To see simple examples of how to manipulate the data stored in halo catalogs, see the Examples section of the CachedHaloCatalog documentation. For more detailed information, refer to the Quickstart guide to analyzing halo catalogs tutorial.

Below appears a summary table of the provided snapshots. See the sections below for further information

simname	available halo-finders	available redshifts
bolshoi	rockstar, bdm	0.0, 0.5, 0.84, 2.0
bolplanck	rockstar	0.0, 0.5, 1.00, 2.0
multidark	rockstar	0.0, 0.5, 1.00, 2.15
consuelo	rockstar	0.0, 0.5, 1.00, 2.15

Bolshoi (simname = bolshoi)

WMAP5 cosmology with Lbox = 250 Mpc/h and particle mass of ~1e8 Msun/h.

For a detailed description of the simulation specs, see http://www.cosmosim.org/cms/simulations/multidark-project/bolshoi.

To download the halos upon which the Halotools-provided catalogs are based, see Source of Bolshoi Rockstar halos and Source of Bolshoi BDM halos.

Note that the above web source of halo data is frequently updated and is not maintained by Halotools, and so it is not possible to guarantee that a halo catalog you download from this location will be the same as the one used to produce the Halotools-provided catalogs.

Bolshoi-Planck (simname = bolplanck)

Planck 2013 cosmology with Lbox = 250 Mpc/h and particle mass of ~1e8 Msun/h.

For a detailed description of the simulation specs, see http://www.cosmosim.org/cms/simulations/bolshoip-project/bolshoip/.

To download the halos upon which the Halotools-provided catalogs are based, see Source of Bolshoi Planck Rockstar halos.

Note that the above web source of halo data is frequently updated and is not maintained by Halotools, and so it is not possible to guarantee that a halo catalog you download from this location will be the same as the one used to produce the Halotools-provided catalogs.

Multidark (simname = multidark)

WMAP5 cosmology with Lbox = 1Gpc/h and particle mass of ~1e10 Msun/h.

For a detailed description of the simulation specs, see http://www.cosmosim.org/cms/simulations/multidark-project/mdr1.

To download the halos upon which the Halotools-provided catalogs are based, see Source of Multidark Rockstar halos.

Note that the above web source of halo data is frequently updated and is not maintained by Halotools, and so it is not possible to guarantee that a halo catalog you download from this location will be the same as the one used to produce the Halotools-provided catalogs.

Consuelo (simname = consuelo)

WMAP5-like cosmology with Lbox = 420 Mpc/h and particle mass of ~1e9 Msun/h.

For a detailed description of the simulation specs, see http://lss.phy.vanderbilt.edu/lasdamas/simulations.html.

To download the halos upon which the Halotools-provided catalogs are based, see Source of Consuelo Rockstar halos.

Note that the above web source of halo data is frequently updated and is not maintained by Halotools, and so it is not possible to guarantee that a halo catalog you download from this location will be the same as the one used to produce the Halotools-provided catalogs.