Ringing the initial Universe: the response of overdensity and transformed-density power spectra to initial spikes

We present an experiment in which we 'ring' a set of cosmological N-body- simulation initial conditions, placing spikes in the initial power spectrum at different wavenumber bins. We then measure where these spikes end up in the final conditions. In the usual overdensity power spectrum, most sensitive to contracting and collapsing dense regions, initial power on slightly non-linear scales (k ∼ 0.3 h Mpc−1) smears to smaller scales, coming to dominate the initial power once there. Log-density and Gaussianized-density power spectra, sensitive to low-density (expanding) and high-density regions, respond differently: initial spikes spread symmetrically in scale, both upwards and downwards. In fact, in the power spectrum of 1/(1 + δ), spikes migrate to larger scales, showing the magnifying effect of voids on small-scale modes. These power spectra show much greater sensitivity to small-scale initial features. We also test the difference between an approximation of the Lyα flux field and its Gaussianized form, and give a toy model that qualitatively explains the symmetric power spreading in Gaussianized-density power spectra. Also, we discuss how to use this framework to estimate power-spectrum covariance matrices. This can be used to track the fate of information in the Universe that takes the form of initial degrees of freedom, one random spike per initial mode.