Clustering analysis of BOSS-CMASS galaxies with semi-analytical model for galaxy formation and halo occupation distribution

ABSTRACT The spatial distribution of massive and luminous galaxies has provided important constraints on the fundamental cosmological parameters and physical processes governing galaxy formation. In this work, we construct and compare independent galaxy–halo connection models in the application of clustering measurement at non-linear scales of BOSS-CMASS galaxies. In particular, we adopt a halo occupation distribution (HOD) model with 11 parameters and a semi-analytical model (SAM) with 16 parameters to describe the galaxy two-point correlation function. With an empirical parametrization for the velocity field to model the redshift space distortion effect and the emulator technique, we can explore the parameter space of both models. We find that the HOD model is able to recover the underlying velocity field of SAM with an accuracy of 3 per cent, and can be improved to 1 per cent when the analysis is restricted to scales above 1 $h^{-1}$ Mpc. The comparison is based on multiple samplings in the parameter space, which can verify the convergence of the models. Then, we perform constraints on the model parameters using clustering measurement of CMASS galaxies. Although limited by the emulator accuracy and the flexibility of the model, we find that the clustering measurement is capable of constraining a subset of the SAM parameters, especially for components sensitive to the star formation rate. This result leads us to anticipate that a joint analysis of both clustering and abundance measurements can significantly constrain the parameters of galaxy formation physics, which requires further investigation from both theoretical and observational aspects.