The FLAMINGO project: Baryon effects on the matter power spectrum

Abstract: The effect of baryon physics associated with galaxy formation onto the large-scale matter distribution of the Universe is a key uncertainty in the theoretical modelling required for the interpretation of Stage IV surveys. We use the FLAMINGO simulations to study the baryon response due to galaxy formation of the total matter power spectrum. We find that it is only well converged for simulation volumes in excess of $200^3$ Mpc$^3$. We report results for simulations of varying feedback intensity, which either match the X-ray inferred gas fractions in clusters and the $z=0$ stellar mass function, or shifted versions of the data, as well as for different implementations of AGN feedback. We package our results in the form of a Gaussian process emulator which can rapidly reproduce all the simulations' predictions to better than one per cent up to the comoving wavenumber $k = 10~h$ Mpc$^{-1}$ and up to $z=3$ for all the feedback models present in the FLAMINGO suite. We find that the response becomes stronger, the range of scales affected increases, and the position of the minimum of the response moves to smaller scales as the redshift decreases. We find that lower gas fractions in groups and clusters lead to a stronger response and that the use of collimated jets instead of thermally driven winds for AGN feedback enhances the effect. Lowering the stellar masses at fixed cluster gas fractions also increases the magnitude of the response. We find only a small (1% at $k<10~h$ Mpc$^{-1}$) dependence of our results on the background cosmology, but a wider range of cosmology variations will be needed to confirm this result. The response we obtain for our strongest feedback models is compatible with some of the recent analyses combining weak lensing with external data. Such a response is, however, in strong tension with the X-ray inferred gas fractions in clusters used to calibrate the FLAMINGO model.