The large-separation expansion of peak clustering in Gaussian random fields

Abstract

In the peaks approach, the formation sites of observable structures in the Universe are identified as peaks in the matter density field. The statistical properties of the clustering of peaks are particularly important in this respect. In this paper, we investigate the large-separation expansion of the correlation function of peaks in Gaussian random fields. The analytic formula up to third order is derived, and the resultant expression can be evaluated by a combination of one-dimensional fast Fourier transforms, which are evaluated very fast. The analytic formula obtained perturbatively in the large-separation limit is compared with a method of Monte-Carlo integrations, and a complementarity between the two methods is demonstrated.