Abstract
The calibration and validation of scientific analysis in simulations is a
fundamental tool to ensure unbiased and robust results in observational
cosmology. In particular, mock galaxy catalogs are a crucial resource to
achieve these goals in the measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) in
the clustering of galaxies. Here we present a set of 1952 galaxy mock catalogs
designed to mimic the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 3 BAO sample over its full
photometric redshift range $0.6 < z_photo < 1.1$. The mocks are based
upon 488 ICE-COLA fast $N$-body simulations of full-sky light-cones and are
created by populating halos with galaxies, using a hybrid Halo Occupation
Distribution - Halo Abundance Matching model. This model has 10 free
parameters, which are determined, for the first time, using an automatic
likelihood minimization procedure. We also introduce a novel technique to
assign photometric redshift for simulated galaxies, following a two-dimensional
probability distribution with VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey
(VIPERS) data. The calibration was designed to match the observed abundance of
galaxies as a function of photometric redshift, the distribution of photometric
redshift errors, and the clustering amplitude on scales smaller than those used
for BAO measurements. An exhaustive analysis is done to ensure that the mocks
reproduce the input properties. Finally, mocks are tested by comparing the
angular correlation function $w(þeta)$, angular power spectrum $C_\ell$ and
projected clustering $\xi_p(r_\perp)$ to theoretical predictions and data. The
success in reproducing accurately the photometric redshift uncertainties and
the galaxy clustering as a function of redshift render this mock creation
pipeline as a benchmark for future analyses of photometric galaxy surveys.
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