Euclid preparation LXIII. Simulations and non-linearities beyond Lambda cold dark matter. 2. Results from non-standard simulations

Abstract

The Euclid mission will measure cosmological parameters with unprecedented precision. To distinguish between cosmological models, it is essential to generate realistic mock observables from cosmological simulations that were run in both the standard Lambda-cold-dark-matter (Lambda CDM) paradigm and in many non-standard models beyond Lambda CDM. We present the scientific results from a suite of cosmological N-body simulations using non-standard models including dynamical dark energy, k-essence, interacting dark energy, modified gravity, massive neutrinos, and primordial non-Gaussianities. We investigate how these models affect the large-scale-structure formation and evolution in addition to providing synthetic observables that can be used to test and constrain these models with Euclid data. We developed a custom pipeline based on the Rockstar halo finder and the nbodykit large-scale structure toolkit to analyse the particle output of non-standard simulations and generate mock observables such as halo and void catalogues, mass density fields, and power spectra in a consistent way. We compare these observables with those from the standard Lambda CDM model and quantify the deviations. We find that non-standard cosmological models can leave large imprints on the synthetic observables that we have generated. Our results demonstrate that non-standard cosmological N-body simulations provide valuable insights into the physics of dark energy and dark matter, which is essential to maximising the scientific return of Euclid.