Astrophysics (Index)About

halo mass function

(HMF)
(mass of distribution of dark matter)

A halo mass function (HMF) is a distribution function (essentially an unnormalized probability density function) mapping mass quantities to the quantity of dark matter halos with that mass. They are of use in cosmology and cosmological simulations.

A sub-halo mass function is such a distribution of sub-halos within a dark matter halo, and a conditional sub-halo mass function is one parameterized by the mass of the particular dark matter halo (analogous to a conditional stellar mass function).


Note that the term mass function used here is not in the sense of a probability mass function (PMF), a function yielding the probability that some discrete random variable takes on a given value.


(cosmology,dark matter,function,mass)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_mass_function
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013MNRAS.434L..61M/abstract

Referenced by page:
mass function

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