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# X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts in the synchrotron self-Compton dominated regime

## 1 Introduction

The current model (see reviews of Cheng & Lu 2001 and Mészáros 2002) of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows is that a sideways expanding jet (Rhoads 1999) drives a blast wave propagating into the circum-burst medium, and the shock-accelerated electrons give rise to the afterglow emission. The main radiation process is believe to be synchrotron emission by electrons (e.g., Mészáros & Rees 1997; Sari, Piran & Narayan 1998), which is consistent with the afterglow spectra (e.g., Galama et al. 1998). The polarization detections in afterglows have also implicated the synchrotron mechanism (e.g., Covino et al. 1999; Wijers et al. 1999). The synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) emission is also important if the energy density of radiated synchrotron photons exceeds that of the magnetic field in the shock. This may be always the case since the ratio between the post-shock energies in electrons and in the magnetic field is commonly larger than $`10`$, and a significant fraction of the shock-heated electron energy is radiated away. The SSC emission has been studied by previous works based on the spherical afterglow model (Panaitescu & Mészáros 1998; Wei & Lu 1998; Totani 1998; Chiang & Dermer 1999; Dermer, Chiang & Mitman 2000; Dermer, Böttcher & Chiang 2000; Panaitescu & Kumar 2000; Sari & Esin 2001; Zhang & Mészáros 2001). Two cases of X-ray excess in the afterglow spectra have been explained to be the inverse-Compton components (Harrison et al. 2001; Yost et al. 2002).

The observed X-ray emission from GRB afterglows usually comes from synchrotron by fast cooling electrons, those electrons with energy-lose times less than the dynamical time of the system. If these electrons lose energy mainly by SSC rather than synchrotron, more shock-heated electrons would cool rapidly, thus the distribution of electrons and hence the X-ray light curve index would be different from the synchrotron-dominated case (Panaitescue & Kumar 2001; Li, Dai & Lu 2002). Furthermore, the SSC component is possible to be directly detected in the X-rays in some cases. Thus the SSC effects should be taken into account when modelling the afterglow observational data. Panaitescu & Kumar (2002) had incorporated numerically the SSC mechanism in the modelling of many GRB afterglows, in order to give out the physical condition of relativistic jets in GRB afterglows. However, most people still tend to use the simple asymptotic relation of light curve, rather than the numerical modelling, to fit the observational data. In many cases, though the afterglows are in the SSC-dominated regime, the asymptotic relation in synchrotron-dominated regime are still used in the fitting. Therefore it is necessary to derive the parameter range in which the afterglow are SSC-dominated, and then the analytical asymptotic relation of afterglow light curve in this regime.

In this paper, we make more detailed study on the inverse-Compton processes in GRB afterglows, especially the X-ray afterglow emission from jets in SSC-dominated regimes. We first introduce in section 2 the whole dynamical evolution of a beaming afterglow. In section 3 we calculate the light curve of synchrotron emission and the model parameter constraint on the SSC-dominated case. We then discuss in section 4 the case when SSC emission emerges directly in X-rays. Section 5 is a brief summary and discussion.

## 2 Dynamical evolution

Consider a beaming outflow from the GRB source, so called a jet, which decelerates as sweeping up the ambient medium and sideways expanding in the local sound speed. If the radiation energy is negligible compared to the jet kinetic energy, the jet can be regarded as adiabatic when considering its dynamic evolution. This is always the case provided the energy fraction that goes into shocked elections is $`ϵ_e0.1`$, which is the common value from model fit to observational data. For a higher $`ϵ_e`$, the jet will undergo first an early radiative stage, in which the afterglow light curve index is relevant to $`ϵ_e`$ (Böttcher & Dermer 2000; Li, Dai & Lu 2002). We consider only adiabatic dynamics here.

A jet, with equivalent isotropic energy $`E`$, coasts first with initial Lorentz factor $`\gamma _0`$ until it sweeps up enough material at a deceleration time $`t_0=(3E/32\pi \gamma _0^8nm_pc^5)^{1/3}`$, with $`n`$ the ambient medium density. After $`t_0`$ the jet begins to decelerate. The deceleration of the jet includes three stages: First, when the sideways expansion is not significant compared to the initial jet open angle $`\theta _0`$, the jet undergoes a spherical-like phase where the jet Lorentz factor decreases as $`\gamma t^{3/8}`$ (Blandford & McKee 1976), with $`t`$ the observer’s time, and the jet open angle is $`\theta \theta _0`$. Secondly, when the sideways expansion begins to dominate the dynamical evolution at $`t_j=t_0(\gamma _0\theta _0)^{8/3}`$, we have $`\theta 1/\gamma `$, and the jet turns into a spreading phase where $`\gamma t^{1/2}`$ (Rhoads 1999). Here we have assumed that the sound speed in the relativistic stage is comparable to light speed, $`c_sc`$. Finally, the jet becomes non-relativistic, $`\gamma 1`$, at $`t_n=t_0^{3/4}t_j^{1/4}\gamma _0^2`$ and $`\theta 1`$. In the non-relativistic phase the sideways expansion is not important to affect the dynamical evolution, and the shock’s velocity $`vt^{3/5}`$, its radius $`rt^{2/5}`$.

The three special times are calculated in the following:

$$t_0=90(E_{52}/n)^{1/3}\gamma _{0,2}^{8/3}\text{s},$$
(1)
$$t_j=4.2\times 10^4(E_{52}/n)^{1/3}\theta _{0,1}^{8/3}\text{s},$$
(2)
$$t_n=4.2\times 10^6(E_{52}/n)^{1/3}\theta _{0,1}^{2/3}\text{s},$$
(3)
where we have used the convention $`U=10^xU_x`$ and c.g.s units. Hereafter, by “sphere” we mean the $`t_0<t<t_j`$ phase, by “jet” the $`t_j<t<t_n`$ phase and by “NR” the $`t>t_n`$ phase.

## 3 Synchrotron emission

The shock accelerates the ambient electrons to high energies, with electron Lorentz factors described by a power-law distribution: $`dN_e/d\gamma _e\gamma _e^p`$ for $`\gamma _e>\gamma _m`$. The typical Lorentz factor of electrons is proportional to the internal energy density of the shock as $`\gamma _m\gamma 1`$. At the beginning it is approximated as $`\gamma _m610ϵ_e\gamma _0`$ at $`t_0`$, and evolves as $`\gamma _m\gamma `$ in the relativistic regime since $`\gamma 1\gamma `$, while in the NR phase it becomes $`\gamma _mv^2t^{6/5}`$ since $`\gamma 1v^2`$ for NR. The magnetic field is also created by the shock, commonly assumed to carry a fraction $`ϵ_B`$ of the total internal energy behind the shock front. Thus the energy density of magnetic field, $`B^2/4\pi `$, is also proportional to $`\gamma 1`$. At the deceleration time $`t_0`$, the magnetic field is $`B=(32\pi ϵ_Bnm_pc^2)^{1/2}\gamma _0`$, later on it evolves as $`B\gamma `$ in the relativistic regime \[$`t^{3/8}`$ (sphere) and $`t^{1/2}`$ (jet)\], while $`Bvt^{3/5}`$ in NR phase.

Under these conditions the synchrotron radiation is produced, with the instantaneous spectrum described as power-law segments (Sari, Piran & Narayan 1998). The typical frequency of synchrotron photons is relevant to the typical electron energy,

$$\nu _m=\frac{x_pe}{\pi m_ec}B\gamma _m^2\gamma \{\begin{array}{cc}t^{3/2}\hfill & \mathrm{sphere},\hfill \\ t^2\hfill & \mathrm{jet},\hfill \\ t^3\hfill & \mathrm{NR},\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
where $`x_p`$ is defined by Wijers & Galama (1999) and of order of unity.

The electrons lose energy through both synchrotron and SSC, and the Compton parameter $`Y`$, i.e., the ratio between the inverse-Compton to synchrotron luminosity, is calculated as (Sari & Esin 2001)

$$Y=\frac{1+\sqrt{1+4\eta ϵ_e/ϵ_B}}{2}\{\begin{array}{cc}\eta ϵ_e/ϵ_B,\hfill & \mathrm{if}\eta ϵ_e/ϵ_B1,\hfill \\ \sqrt{\eta ϵ_e/ϵ_B},\hfill & \mathrm{if}\eta ϵ_e/ϵ_B1,\hfill \end{array}$$
(5)
where $`\eta `$ is the fraction of electron energy that is radiated away (by both synchrotron and SSC). The synchrotron cooling frequency, i.e. the frequency of the synchrotron photons radiated by those electrons which cool on the dynamical time of the shock, is given by

$$\nu _c=\frac{36\pi em_ec}{\sigma _T^2B^3\gamma t^2(1+Y)^2}.$$
(6)
Since the electrons responsible to synchrotron frequencies above $`\nu _c`$ lose energy quickly, the radiated fraction of electron energy is therefore

$$\eta =\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{for fast cooling, }\nu _c<\nu _m\text{,}\hfill \\ (\nu _c/\nu _m)^{(2p)/2}\hfill & \text{for slow cooling, }\nu _c>\nu _m\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
The equations (5)-(7) show that $`Y`$ and $`\nu _c`$ are correlated, and these three equations should be combined to solve the time evolutions of both $`Y`$ and $`\nu _c`$, especially for the IC-dominated case, $`Y>1`$, which we focus on in this paper. The $`Y`$ and $`\nu _c`$ should be solved by numerical calculation, while for extreme case $`Y1`$ we can reach an analytical result (see also Li, Dai & Lu 2002),

$$\nu _c\{\begin{array}{cc}t^{3/2+2/(4p)}\hfill & \mathrm{sphere},\hfill \\ t^{2+4/(4p)}\hfill & \mathrm{jet},\hfill \\ t^{3+28/[5(4p)]}\hfill & \mathrm{NR}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
The flux peaks at the lower one of the two frequencies $`\nu _m`$ and $`\nu _c`$. The swept-up electron number is approximated by $`N_e\pi \theta ^2r^3n/3`$, and the power per unit time per unit frequency emitted by single electron is (in the comoving frame) $`P_\nu =(3^{1/2}\varphi _pe^3/m_ec^2)B`$, where $`\varphi _p`$ is calculated by Wijers & Galama (1999) and is of order of unity. Furthermore, the energy emitted by total electrons is distributed over an area of $`\mathrm{\Delta }S\pi \theta ^2D^2`$ at a luminosity distance $`D`$ from the source, the observed peak flux density is therefore

$$F_{\nu ,\mathrm{max}}\frac{N_e\gamma P_\nu }{\mathrm{\Delta }S}r^3\gamma B\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{const}.\hfill & \mathrm{sphere},\hfill \\ t^1\hfill & \mathrm{jet},\hfill \\ t^{3/5}\hfill & \mathrm{NR}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
Except for the very early times (see equation 14), the afterglow is generally in slow cooling regime with $`\nu _c\nu _m`$. We focus on the highest radiation energy range of afterglows, i.e. the X-ray band, which usually corresponds to the $`\nu >\nu _c`$ flux,

$`F_{\nu >\nu _c}=F_{\nu ,\mathrm{max}}(\nu _c/\nu _m)^{(p1)/2}(\nu /\nu _c)^{p/2}`$
$`\{\begin{array}{cc}t^{3p/4+1/(4p)}\hfill & \mathrm{sphere},\hfill \\ t^{p+(p2)/(4p)}\hfill & \mathrm{jet},\hfill \\ t^{(66p15p^252)/[10(4p)]}\hfill & \mathrm{NR}.\hfill \end{array}`$ (13)
This above equation expresses the light curve of synchrotron emission in the IC-dominated case ($`Y>1`$)111Equation (28) in Li, Dai & Lu (2002) had shown the light curve scaling for the frequency range of $`\nu >\nu _c`$ and in the jet spreading phase, but that equation has a mistake in the $`Y>1`$ case.. We summarize the results together with previous works for synchrotron-dominated case ($`Y<1`$) in table 1. Since the synchrotron emission in the $`\nu _m<\nu <\nu _c`$ range, $`F_{\nu _m<\nu <\nu _c}=F_{\nu ,\mathrm{max}}(\nu /\nu _m)^{(p1)/2}`$, is irrelevant to the evolution of $`\nu _c`$, the light curve index in this frequency range is the same as the synchrotron-dominated case. The scaling relations for synchrotron-dominated case have not been included in table 1 and can be found in Sari, Piran & Halpern (1999) and Dai & Lu (1999, 2000).

### 3.1 Parameter range for strong Compton cooling

With different values of physical parameters, e.g., $`ϵ_e`$ and $`ϵ_B`$, the system may correspond to different cases of whether synchrotron- or IC-dominated, therefore we discuss the parameter range now. In general, the afterglow is initially in the fast cooling regime, with $`\nu _c<\nu _m`$ and $`\eta =1`$, and then the Compton parameter is a constant, $`Y_0\sqrt{ϵ_e/ϵ_B}`$, provided commonly $`ϵ_e>ϵ_B`$. It is not until a time,

$$t_{cm}=1.0\times 10^3E_{52}nϵ_{e,1}^2ϵ_{B,2}^2\left(1+\sqrt{\frac{ϵ_{e,1}}{ϵ_{B,2}}}\right)^2\text{s},$$
(14)
that the afterglow becomes slow cooling and the Compton parameter decreases as $`Yt^{(p2)/[2(4p)]}`$. For the cooling of electrons to be still dominated by SSC process, the Compton parameter at the point of jet break should be larger than unity: $`Y(t_j)>1`$. This, with help of equation (2), leads to

$$ϵ_{e,1}>0.24\frac{\theta _{0,1}^{2/9}}{E_{52}^{1/18}n^{1/9}}ϵ_{B,2}^{2/3}$$
(15)
for $`p=2.2`$ and

$$ϵ_{e,1}>0.45\frac{\theta _{0,1}^{8/21}}{E_{52}^{2/21}n^{4/21}}ϵ_{B,2}^{3/7}$$
(16)
for $`p=2.4`$. Thus, with the commonly taken parameters, such as $`ϵ_e0.1`$ and $`ϵ_B0.01`$, the afterglow is still Compton-dominated when the jet break in the light curve appears.

After the jet break point, the Compton parameter turns to drop faster as $`Yt^{(p2)/(4p)}`$. If we require that the $`Y`$ value is still larger than unity when the jet goes into NR phase, i.e., $`Y(t_n)>1`$, the condition is

$$ϵ_{e,1}>0.52\frac{ϵ_{B,2}^{2/3}}{E_{52}^{1/18}n^{1/9}\theta _{0,1}^{1/9}}$$
(17)
for $`p=2.2`$ and

$$ϵ_{e,1}>1.7\frac{ϵ_{B,2}^{3/7}}{E_{52}^{2/21}n^{4/21}\theta _{0,1}^{4/21}}$$
(18)
for $`p=2.4`$. Therefore the Compton cooling may dominate synchrotron cooling even in the NR phase for the common parameter values. So in the whole period of X-ray observation, Compton cooling is strong. These above inequations are insensitive to the initial condition of afterglows, like the total (isotropic) energy $`E`$, the ambient density $`n`$ and the jet open angle $`\theta _0`$, but sensitive to shock physics. We show the parameter ranges in figure 1.

## 4 Direct detection of inverse-Compton component

The SSC component dominates the synchrotron one in high enough energy range, and its spectral shape can also be approximated by broken power laws as synchrotron one (Panaitescu & Kumar 2000; Sari & Esin 2001): $`F_\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}\nu ^{1/3}`$ for $`\nu <\mathrm{min}(\nu _m^{\mathrm{IC}},\nu _c^{\mathrm{IC}})`$; $`F_\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}\nu ^{(p1)/2}`$ for $`\nu _m^{\mathrm{IC}}<\nu <\nu _c^{\mathrm{IC}}`$ (or $`F_\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}\nu ^{1/2}`$ for $`\nu _c^{\mathrm{IC}}<\nu <\nu _m^{\mathrm{IC}}`$); and $`F_\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}\nu ^{p/2}`$ for $`\nu >\mathrm{max}(\nu _m^{\mathrm{IC}},\nu _c^{\mathrm{IC}})`$, where $`\nu _m^{\mathrm{IC}}2\gamma _m^2\nu _m`$ and $`\nu _c^{\mathrm{IC}}2\gamma _c^2\nu _c`$, with $`\gamma _i`$ being the electron Lorentz factor corresponding to synchrotron frequency $`\nu _i`$.

After a time $`t_{cm}`$ the system becomes slow cooling, with $`\nu _m<\nu _c`$ for synchrotron component and $`\nu _m^{\mathrm{IC}}<\nu _c^{\mathrm{IC}}`$ for SSC component. If taken $`ϵ_e0.1`$ and $`ϵ_B0.01`$ typically, the system is in the SSC-dominated regime. Therefore we here limit our discussion to the SSC-dominated ($`Y>1`$) and slow cooling ($`t_j>t_{cm}`$) case, during which for typical parameters the crossing point between the synchrotron and the SSC spectral components, $`\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}`$, generally lies above the synchrotron cooling frequency $`\nu _c`$ and below SSC cooling frequency $`\nu _c^{\mathrm{IC}}`$. For the SSC emission to be detected directly in X-rays, we need $`\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}10^{18}`$ Hz. This condition places a lower limit on the ambient density (Sari & Esin 2001). We numerically calculate the emission by both synchrotron and SSC and then the evolution of the crossing frequency $`\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}`$ with time for different ambient densities, as show in figure 2. In general, the lower limit is $`n>1`$ cm-3.

In general, the $`\nu _m^{\mathrm{IC}}`$ moves into the X-ray band in the jet spreading phase ($`t_j<t<t_n`$). For fixed X-ray frequency $`\nu _\mathrm{X}=10^{18}\nu _{18}`$ Hz, the crossing time is $`t_m^{\mathrm{IC}}5\times 10^4ϵ_{e,1}^{4/3}ϵ_{B,2}^{1/6}E_{52}^{1/3}\theta _{0,1}^{2/3}n^{1/6}\nu _{18}^{1/3}`$ s. Note that we have assumed the slow cooling case which requires $`t_m^{\mathrm{IC}}>t_j>t_{cm}`$. Around $`t_m^{\mathrm{IC}}`$ the observed flux evolves as

$$F_{\nu _\mathrm{X}}^{\mathrm{IC}}\{\begin{array}{cc}t^0\nu _\mathrm{X}^{1/3}\hfill & t_j<t<t_m^{\mathrm{IC}},\hfill \\ t^{(3p1)/2}\nu _\mathrm{X}^{(p1)/2}\hfill & t_m^{\mathrm{IC}}<t<t_n.\hfill \end{array}$$
(19)
The spectral slope changes gradually from 1/3 to $`(p1)/2`$, which is different from the $`p/2`$ slope in the high energy tail of synchrotron component, and in the same time the light curve index changes from zero to a steep decline. The relation between the steep light curve index $`\alpha _{\mathrm{IC}}`$ ($`F_\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}t^{\alpha _{\mathrm{IC}}}`$) and the spectral index $`\beta _{\mathrm{IC}}`$ ($`F_\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}\nu ^{\beta _{\mathrm{IC}}}`$) in the rapid decline is:

$$\alpha _{\mathrm{IC}}3\beta _{\mathrm{IC}}1=0.$$
(20)
We emphasize that a steep light curve together with a shallow spectral slope in X-ray band (e.g. $`F_\nu ^{\mathrm{IC}}t^{3.1}\nu ^{0.7}`$ for $`p=2.4`$ ) may imply the direct detection of SSC-dominated emission component. Figure 3 has shown a case when SSC dominates the X-ray emission in jetted afterglows.

## 5 Summary and discussion

We have discussed in this paper the effect of SSC process on the X-ray afterglow. For a wide range of parameter values (see figure 1), including the commonly taken ones $`ϵ_e0.1`$ and $`ϵ_B0.01`$, the electron cooling is dominated by IC cooling rather than synchrotron one. This leads to a different evolution of cooling frequency $`\nu _c`$ in the synchrotron emission component, and hence a different (flatter) synchrotron light curve slope above $`\nu _c`$, say, the X-ray range. The light curve index of jet-spreading phase in SSC-dominated ($`Y>1`$) case is flatter by a factor of $`(p2)/(4p)`$ than synchrotron-dominated case. This SSC effect should be taken into account when modelling in detail the X-ray observational data. It should be noticed that in many case we should use the SSC-dominated $`\alpha \beta `$ relations (in table 1) rather than the synchrotron-dominated ones to fit the observation.

For somewhat higher ambient density, $`n3`$ cm-3, the SSC emission dominates the synchrotron in X-ray range and can be detected directly (see also Sari & Esin 2001). The SSC light curve shows a slope of $`\alpha _{\mathrm{IC}}=2.53.4`$ for $`p=22.6`$, quite steeper than the synchrotron one. When the SSC component emerges, the X-ray spectral slope varies, which may be detected by observation.

The upcoming Swift satellite is due to launch at the end of 2003, which is expected to catch more than 200 afterglows per year. Owing to its rapid response, many afterglows may be rapidly observed in O/UV and X-rays within one minute. The current operating X-ray satellites, Chandra and XMM-Newton, have high sensitive and spectral resolution. So many more detailed X-ray observations of GRB afterglows are expected. We emphasize that the X-ray observation of afterglows may help to follow the cooling of electrons and help to investigate the SSC characteristics of afterglows.

## Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Projects and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.


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# Morphology of the supercluster-void network in ΛCDM cosmology

## 1 Introduction

One of the great observational discoveries of recent times is the realization that we live on a cosmic web which is embedded in an accelerating Universe. Although an accelerating universe was originally established using high redshift type Ia supernovae (Knop et al., 2003; Tonry et al., 2003), the case for a ‘dark energy’ dominated universe has received independent support from observations of the cosmic microwave background (Spergel et al., 2003) combined with studies of galaxy clustering in the two degree field (2dF) galaxy redshift survey (Efstathiou et al., 2002). Although the nature of dark energy is still an open issue, a cosmological constant appears to agree very well with all current observations which indicate $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }0.73`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m0.23`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b0.04`$ (for reviews of dark energy see Sahni & Starobinsky (2000); Sahni (2002)). Fully three dimensional large scale galaxy catalogues reveal that the cosmic web consists of an interpenetrating network of superclusters and voids. It therefore becomes important to understand and quantify the geometrical and topological properties of large scale structure in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology in a deep and integrated manner.

The main aim of the present study is to study the supercluster-void network in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology with emphasis on the sizes, shapes and topologies of individual superclusters and voids. We shall also study the percolation properties of the full excursion set sampling the entire density field and quantify our results in terms of Minkowski functionals (hereafter, MFs). A study such as the present one will help us in comparing theory against observations. It will also help us to distinguish the salient features of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology from sister cosmologies in which dark energy is a function of time. (These issues will be discussed in detail in companion papers.)

It may be appropriate to mention that this is the first comprehensive analysis of large scale structure geometry and morphology in which over-dense (superclusters) and under-dense (voids) regions are treated on a completely equal footing. Earlier studies have emphasized either over-densities (clusters, superclusters) or under-densities (voids) as a result of which the methods used for the analysis of these two complementary entities (superclusters/voids) often vary greatly in the literature. Thus over-dense regions have been studied using correlation functions, minimal spanning trees, shape functions etc., whereas voids have been constructed from point processes using elaborate boundary and volume filling techniques (see e.g. Sahni & Coles (1995); Martinez & Saar (2001) and references therein). Although the above methods do provide us with some insights into supercluster-void morphology, we shall follow an alternative route in this paper and study the properties of the supercluster-void network using the density field as our main starting point and fundamental physical quantity. The reason for this is two fold, firstly, density fields can be easily constructed from point data sets using, for example, cloud in cell (CIC) techniques (this is true both for data from N-body simulations, which we examine in this paper, as well as for galaxy distributions in three dimensions). Secondly, an elaborate surface modeling scheme, SURFGEN (short for ‘surface generator’), allows us to determine the geometry, morphology and topology of excursion sets defined on a density field in a very comprehensive manner (Sheth et al., 2003). Applying SURFGEN to the density distribution in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model allows us to develop deep insights into the distribution of large scale structure in this model, which can be quantified using MFs and Shapefinders. Working with the density field also permits us to determine the morphological properties of the full excursion set describing the supercluster-void network. More detailed information is then gleaned at one particular threshold (usually associated with percolation) at which shapes and sizes of individual superclusters and voids yield rich information about properties of the cosmic web to which we belong.

Concretely, we study the large scale structure of the universe by considering the geometry and topology of isodensity surfaces $`\delta (𝐱)\delta \rho (𝐱)/\overline{\rho }=const`$. At a given threshold $`\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}`$ regions having higher than threshold density ($`\delta >\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}`$) will be called “superclusters”, while regions with $`\delta <\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}`$ will be called “voids”. Thus, we define superclusters and voids as over-dense and under-dense connected regions bounded by one (or several) surfaces of constant density. This definition broadly corresponds to other definitions of superclusters and voids used in the literature but differs in details. Apart from obvious differences with superclusters and voids of galaxies in redshift space our approach specifies neither a particular density threshold nor the shapes of the structures. Despite these differences we call the objects of our study superclusters and voids mostly because they are nonlinear structures having sizes, volumes and masses roughly corresponding to superclusters and voids of galaxies.

We study superclusters and voids at a large number of density thresholds and construct the isodensity surfaces at every threshold to best accuracy. In contrast to many studies (see e.g. Blumenthal et al. (1992); Goldberg & Vogeley (2003)), we do not ‘cook up’ voids or superclusters with predefined shapes but isolate individual objects from the dark matter density field obtained in the N-body simulations by building the isodensity surfaces. Apart from uniformly smoothing the density field with a Gaussian filter, we do not introduce any factors that may affect the shapes or substructure in superclusters and voids of the cosmic density field. Filtering the density field may erase some small-scale features but it certainly does not introduce any new structures. Thus, we know beforehand that the real structure can be only richer and more elaborate compared to what we study after smoothing. Filtering high frequency modes is virtually implied in every physics study. This approach can be also viewed as an application of the standard excursion set technique to non-Gaussian three-dimensional fields.

One of the goals of this work is a quantitative and objective testing of some stereotypes routinely used in cosmology. Here are a few examples: both N-body simulations and redshift surveys are characterized by filamentary and sheet-like or pancake-like structures; voids are quasi-spherical bubbles in the density and/or galaxy distributions; and expand faster than the universe as whole; voids occupy most of the volume in the universe. The first problem arises when one tries to address these issues in the absence of conventional definitions. Frequently the context of the origin and usage of a particular assertion is either obscure or forgotten. Proving that some of the above cliches cannot be true does not require elaborate N-body simulations or sophisticated analysis. For instance, voids cannot both occupy most of the universe and expand faster than the universe because this would require the expansion of voids in comoving space. But this is impossible since the comoving volume is conserved ! Therefore, the expansion of some voids must clearly be at the expense of some of the others. This is one of the trivial (but important) conclusions arising from the adhesion model (Gurbatov, Saichev & Shandarin, 1989; Shandarin & Zeldovich, 1989; Sahni, Sathyaprakash & Shandarin, 1994). At the same time it is not necessary for the interior of the squeezed voids to shrink. The interior of the void may continue to expand faster than the Hubble flow but the void eventually vanishes because its boundaries move inwards (Sahni, Sathyaprakash & Shandarin, 1994, 1995a, 1995b). So as the void collapses it is likely to become increasingly non-spherical. Thus, a single expanding void model while being reasonable for a crude estimate of substructure growth may be completely misleading for estimating the sizes of a realistic ensemble of voids.

Pancakes or sheet–like structures remain an unsolved controversy since their theoretical prediction by Zel’dovich in 1970. On the one hand there were numerous assertions that they had been detected in the N-body simulations or redshift surveys most of which were based on visual impressions. On the other, many believe that pancakes are not clearly seen in any realistic N-body simulations and have not been detected objectively. It is worth noting that the simulation of the structure in the hot dark matter model did not show the existence of pancakes (Klypin & Shandarin, 1983) which was interpreted as the result of weak singularities corresponding to pancakes compared to considerably stronger singularities corresponding to filaments (, 1982). The coarse graining unavoidable in N-body simulations erases pancakes while filaments survive. This argument has been essentially repeated by Bond, Kofman & Pogosyan (1996) and elaborated for the probabilistic interpretation of the large-scale structure. In this study of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model we do not see pancakes either.

The large–scale structure in the dark matter density field is certainly different from the one observed in galaxy redshift surveys. Galaxies are at best pointwise tracers of the parent continuous dark matter density field. It is likely that they are biased tracers, and that they do not display real physical structures but structures which are strongly distorted by the mapping into redshift space. Thus, the observed superclusters and voids are not physical but only apparent objects as the retarded motion of some planets is only apparent but not real motion. At present there are only two methods of investigating real large–scale objects: by reconstructing the real space density field from peculiar velocities of galaxies and by investigating the density fields in the models that are consistent with observations such as $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM.

We consider this study of the dark matter density field in real space as a first step in a systematic study of the morphology of large-scale structure. It will be followed by studies of mock and real galaxy catalogues. Understanding the morphology of the dark matter distribution in real space is an important component in understanding the physical processes determining the formation of galaxies and their motions as well as for building theoretical models of superclusters and voids.

Due to the fairly large smoothing scale adopted here, the over-density in superclusters ranges from $`\delta 1`$ to $`\delta 10`$, which makes them more extended ( $`\stackrel{>}{}`$ few Mpc) and considerably less dense than galaxy clusters in (for instance) the Abell catalogue.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we briefly describe the density fields used in this study. In Section 3 we define and very briefly discuss the morphological measures which we apply to study the cosmic web. Sec. 4 provides the relation of the filling factors used in this study with the probability density function. Sec. 5 discusses the morphological properties of individual superclusters and voids. Sec. 6 describes substructure in superclusters and voids. A discussion of some properties of Minkowski functionals is contained in Sec. 7. Section 8 summarizes our main results.

## 2 Dark Matter Distribution in Virgo Simulations

We use dark matter distributions in a flat model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ = 0.3, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ = 0.7, $`h=0.7`$ ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM). The initial spectrum was taken in the form suggested by Efstathiou, Bond & White (1992) with the shape parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.21`$.

The amplitude ($`\sigma _8=0.9`$) of the power spectrum in the model is set so as to reproduce the observed abundance of rich galaxy clusters at the present epoch. A detailed discussion of the cosmological parameters and simulations can be found in Jenkins et al. (1998).

The density fields generated by the VIRGO simulations have been studied in several papers (see e.g. Springel et al. (1998); Scoccimarro, Couchman & Frieman (1999)); this is the first systematic study of global and local morphology when both over-dense and under-dense regions are measured by the same method.

SURFGEN operates on three-dimensional pixelized maps. Therefore we first generate the density field from the distribution of dark matter particles. This process was described in detail in Sheth et al. (2003); here we present a brief summary. The data consist of $`256^3`$ particles in a box of size 239.5 $`h^1`$Mpc. We fit a $`128^3`$ grid to the box. Thus, the size of each cell is 1.875 $`h^1`$Mpc. Here we follow the smoothing technique used by Springel et al. (1998) which they adopted for their preliminary topological analysis of the Virgo simulations. In the first, we apply a Cloud in Cell (CIC) technique to construct a density field on the grid. Next we smooth this field with a Gaussian kernel which offers us an extra smoothing length-scale. We study the field smoothed with $`L_s=5`$ $`h^1`$Mpc but also present the global MFs for the field smoothed with $`10`$ $`h^1`$Mpc for comparison. The scale of $`L_s=5`$ $`h^1`$Mpc is a fiducial smoothing scale in many studies of both density fields in N-body simulations and galaxy fields from redshift surveys; see for example, Grogin & Geller (2000). The Gaussian kernel for smoothing that we adopt here is

$$W(r)=\frac{1}{(\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}L_s^3}exp\left(\frac{r^2}{L_s^2}\right).$$
(1)
Since the kernel is isotropic, it is likely to diminish the true extent of anisotropy in filaments and pancakes. This effect could be minimized by considering anisotropic kernels and/or smoothing techniques based on the wavelet transform. An even more ambitious approach is to reconstruct density fields using Delaunay tesselations using a technique reported by van de Weygaert (2002). Density fields reconstructed in this manner appear to preserve anisotropic features and may therefore have some advantage over conventional ‘cloud-in-cell’ techniques followed by an isotropic smoothing (Schaap & Weygaert, 2000). Thus, as far as one of the goals is to utilize the geometry of the patterns to discriminate between the models, such smoothing schemes should prove more powerful. We hope to return to these issues in further publications.

We scan the density fields at 99 values of the density threshold, all equispaced in the filling factor $`FF_C`$ defined as

$$FF_\mathrm{C}(\delta _{\mathrm{TH}})=\frac{1}{V_{tot}}\mathrm{\Theta }(\delta \delta _{\mathrm{TH}})d^3x,$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }(x)`$ is the Heaviside Theta function and $`\delta =(\rho \overline{\rho })/\overline{\rho }`$ is the density contrast. The supercluster filling factor $`FF_\mathrm{C}`$ measures the volume-fraction in regions which satisfy the ‘supercluster’ criterion $`\delta _{\mathrm{sc}}\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}`$. In the following, we use $`FF_\mathrm{C}`$ along with the void filling factor $`FF_\mathrm{V}1FF_\mathrm{C}`$ as a parameter to label the density contours. The relation between $`FF_\mathrm{C}`$ and density contrast threshold can be seen in Fig. 1.

At each level of the density field (labeled by $`FF_\mathrm{C}`$ or $`FF_\mathrm{V}`$), we construct a catalogue of superclusters (over-dense regions) and voids (under-dense regions) based on a grid realization of the Friends of Friends (FOF) algorithm.

Next we (i) run the SURFGEN code on each of these superclusters/voids to model surfaces for each of them and (ii) determine the Minkowski Functionals (MFs) for all superclusters/voids at the given threshold (these are referred to in the literature as partial MFs). Global MFs are partial MFs summed over all superclusters. Thus, at each level of the density, we first compute the partial MFs and then the global MFs.

## 3 Morphological Parameters

Since the 1970s, theory, N-body simulations, and, most importantly, galaxy redshift surveys have strongly suggested that the components of the large-scale structure can be roughly placed in three classes: compact quasi-spherical or slightly elliptical structures like Abell clusters, long filaments like the famous ‘bridge’ connecting the Coma cluster and A1367, (Gregory & Thompson (1978)) and voids. There have also been claims that pancake-like concentrations of galaxies have been observed Fairall (1998); Martinez & Saar (2001). The voids have often been claimed to have quasi-spherical or slightly elliptical shapes. Most of these claims have been based on visual impressions. In particular, statistics used in studies of voids often assumed that voids are spherical or close to spherical thereby precluding any other possibility.

In this work we study the geometry and topology of the regions bounded by the isodensity surfaces and therefore make no prior assumptions about the shapes of superclusters and voids. It is worth noting that some regions may have more than one boundary surface and possess nontrivial topology of the boundaries. The complete characterization of an arbitrarily complex region in three dimensions obviously cannot be achieved if only a few numbers are used. At best one can try to design some basic characteristics that serve a particular purpose. Our purpose is to provide basic measures suitable for quantification of typical components of the large-scale structure: superclusters and voids.

Four Minkowski functionals are effective non-parametric descriptors of the morphological properties of surfaces in three dimensions (Mecke, Buchert & Wagner, 1994; Matsubara, 2003; Sheth et al., 2003). They are

* Volume $`V`$ enclosed by the surface, $`S`$,
* Area $`A`$ of the surface,
* Integrated mean curvature $`C`$ of the surface,

$$C=\frac{1}{2}_S\left(\frac{1}{R_1}+\frac{1}{R_2}\right)𝑑a,$$
(3)
where $`R_1`$ and $`R_2`$ are the principal radii of curvature at a given point on the surface.
* the Euler characteristic

$$\chi =\frac{1}{2\pi }_S\left(\frac{1}{R_1R_2}\right)𝑑a.$$
(4)

Although for our purpose the Euler characteristic is a more convenient quantity than genus, $`G`$ (see Appendix for a discussion) the latter has been used more often in cosmology. The genus is uniquely related to the Euler characteristic $`G=1\chi /2`$ and thus carries exactly the same information. We measure the above parameters for every region in both over-dense and under-dense excursion sets at 99 density thresholds equispaced in the filling factor from $`FF=0.01`$ to $`FF=0.99`$.

As demonstrated in Sahni, Sathyaprakash & Shandarin (1998); Sathyaprakash, Sahni & Shandarin (1998) particular ratios of Minkowski functionals called “Shapefinders” provide us with a set of non-parametric measures of sizes and shapes of objects. Therefore, in addition to determining MFs we shall also derive the Shapefinders, $`T`$ (Thickness), $`B`$ (Breadth) and $`L`$ (Length) defined as follows:

$$T=\frac{3V}{A},B=\frac{A}{C},L=\frac{C}{4\pi }.$$
(5)
The three Shapefinders describing an individual region bounded by one or several isolated surfaces of constant density have dimensions of length and provide us with an estimate of the regions ‘extension’: $`T`$ is the shortest and thus describes the characteristic thickness of the region or object, $`L`$ is typically the longest and characterizes the length of the object; $`B`$ is intermediate and can be associated with the breadth of the object. This simple interpretation is obviously relevant only for fairly simple shapes. The choice of the coefficients in eq. 5 results in a sphere having all three sizes equal to its radius $`T=B=L=R`$. A triaxial ellipsoid has values of $`T`$, $`B`$ and $`L`$ close but not equal to the lengths of its three principal semi-axes: shortest, intermediate and the longest respectively. It is worth noting that $`T`$, $`B`$ and $`L`$ are only the estimates of three basic sizes (semi-axes) of an object which work quite well on such objects as a triaxial ellipsoid and torus (Sahni, Sathyaprakash & Shandarin, 1998; Sathyaprakash, Sahni & Shandarin, 1998; Sheth et al., 2003) but no three numbers can describe an arbitrary, complex three-dimensional shape.

An indicator of ‘shape’ is provided by a pair of dimensionless Shapefinder statistics

$$P=\frac{BT}{B+T};F=\frac{LB}{L+B},$$
(6)
where $`P`$ and $`F`$ are measures of Planarity and Filamentarity respectively ($`P,F1`$). A sphere has $`P=F=0`$, an ideal filament has $`P=0,F=1`$ while $`P=1,F=0`$ for an ideal pancake. Other interesting shapes include ‘ribbons’ for which $`PF1`$. When combined with the genus measure, the triplet $`\{P,F,G\}`$ provides an example of shape-space which incorporates information about topology as well as morphology of superclusters and voids.<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Non-geometrical shape-statistics based on mass moments etc. can give misleading results when applied to large scale structure, as demonstrated in Sathyaprakash, Sahni & Shandarin (1998).

## 4 Percolation and global topology

### 4.1 Filling factors and one-point function

A characteristic of the density field which is both simple and useful is the one-point probability density function, $`p(\delta )`$, where $`\delta (\rho \overline{\rho })/\overline{\rho }`$. In this study we use the integral

$$FF_C(\delta )=P(\delta )=\underset{\delta }{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}p(\delta ^{})𝑑\delta ^{}$$
(7)
known as the cumulative probability function (cpf) as a major quantity parameterizing the excursion sets. It measures the fraction of volume in the excursion set, $`\delta >\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}`$. In order to compare supercluster and void parameters we also use the under-density filling factor

$$FF_V(\delta )=1FF_C(\delta )=\underset{1}{\overset{\delta }{}}p(\delta ^{})𝑑\delta ^{}.$$
(8)
The filling factor $`FF_C=FF_C(\delta )`$ is shown in Fig. 1 (thick solid line) for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM smoothed on the length scale of $`L_s`$=5 $`h^1`$Mpc. In addition, the thick dashed line shows the fraction of mass in the excursion set for the same smoothing scale. From Fig. 1 we find that the density field is ‘nonlinear’ ($`\delta >1`$) in a relatively small fraction ( $`\stackrel{<}{}`$ 15%) of the total volume. However, the difference between these two curves is the first clear demonstration of nonlinearity of the density field. Convergence to the Gaussian distribution with the growth of the smoothing scale is demonstrated by the two thin lines corresponding to the smoothing scale of $`L_s`$=10 $`h^1`$Mpc.

### 4.2 Percolation

Understanding percolation is essential for understanding the morphology of the supercluster-void network. Percolation is important because the properties of superclusters and voids radically change at the percolation transitions (see Fig. 2). The left panel shows: (i) the fractional volumes in the largest supercluster and void (dashed lines) and (ii) the total volume in all superclusters and voids after the largest object has been removed from the sample (solid lines). The right panel shows mass fractions in all four components. At relatively high thresholds $`\delta _C\text{ }\stackrel{>}{}1.8`$ corresponding to small filling factors $`FF_C\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}0.07`$ the largest supercluster has insignificant volume and mass compared to the total volume or mass contained in the over-dense excursion set, $`\delta >\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}`$. During the percolation transition at $`FF_C0.07`$ corresponding to $`\delta _C1.8`$, both volume and mass in the largest supercluster rapidly grow, overtaking the volume and mass in the entire excursion set, and completely dominating the entire sample from this point onwards. The largest void behaves in a qualitatively similar manner if plotted versus $`FF_V`$. At $`FF_V\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}0.22,\delta _V\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}0.5`$ its volume is small compared to the volume of the under-dense excursion set, $`\delta <\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}`$, but at the percolation transition $`FF_V0.22,\delta _V0.5`$, it takes over and from then on remains the dominant structure in the under-dense excursion set. Since $`FF_C1FF_V`$ the void percolation transition takes place at $`FF_C0.78`$ as shown in Fig. 2.

Two obvious conclusions can be drawn from the above discussion. First, at percolation the object having the largest volume becomes very different from all remaining objects, therefore it must be studied separately. Second, individual objects – both superclusters and voids – must be studied in the corresponding phase before percolation occurs in the corresponding phase. Both superclusters and voids reach their largest sizes, volumes and masses just before percolation sets in.

Figure 2 also shows that at $`FF_C>0.5`$ superclusters dominate by volume while at $`FF_C<0.5`$ voids dominate. In the range $`0.2\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}FF_C\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}0.7`$ corresponding to $`1.6\text{ }\stackrel{>}{}\delta \text{ }\stackrel{>}{}0.43`$, no more than 10% of volume is occupied by non-percolating objects, while the remaining more than 90% of entire volume is occupied by just two largest objects: percolating supercluster and the percolating void. In the range between the two percolation thresholds $`FF_C0.07`$ and $`FF_C0.78`$, both largest objects percolate and therefore the density field has a sponge like structure. The interval of sponge like structure in a Gaussian field is between $`FF_C0.16`$ and $`FF_C0.84`$. Therefore nonlinear gravitational evolution has shifted it toward smaller $`FF_C`$ and increased its range by a little bit from 0.68 (=0.84$``$0.16) to 0.71 (=0.78$``$0.07).

It is worth stressing that the shift and length of the sponge like interval are determined by the percolation thresholds which in general are two independent parameters. As a result of these shifts the interval of the so called “meat-ball” topology (when no supercluster percolates) has reduced compared to the Gaussian case from $`FF_C0.16`$ to $`FF_C0.07`$ and the interval of the “bubble” topology (when no void percolates) is increased from $`FF_V0.16`$ to $`FF_V0.22`$. All the numbers obviously depend on the adopted smoothing scale but the sign and type of change must be universal for the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model.

For both superclusters and voids $`FF=FF_{\mathrm{max}}+FF_{\mathrm{ind}}`$, where $`FF_{\mathrm{ind}}`$ stands for the fractional volume occupied by all objects excluding the largest one, and $`FF_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is the fractional volume in the largest object. Further since, $`FF_{\mathrm{max}}/FF_{\mathrm{ind}}1`$ in the the most part of the range between two percolation thresholds for both superclusters and voids, it is not surprising that $`FF_{\mathrm{max}}^C=FF_{\mathrm{max}}^V`$ almost exactly at $`FF_C=FF_V=0.5`$. A similar result was found in the models with power law initial spectra (Yess & Shandarin, 1996).

Percolation is characterized by many features, the most conspicuous being the rapid merger of disjoint parts of the excursion set into one connected structure spanning the entire volume. Merging of superclusters occurs when the density threshold is reduced whereas merging of voids correspond to the growth of the threshold. Spanning of the largest supercluster or void throughout the whole volume results in connection of the opposite faces of the cubic volume by this structure which explains the term percolation. Although in principle the percolation transition can be determined by checking if the opposite faces of the cube are connected, in practice it is more robust to identify percolation using other properties of the excursion set (Klypin, 1987; Klypin & Shandarin, 1993).

As the estimators of the percolation threshold we use the following four ratios

$$m^{(i)}=\frac{MF_{\mathrm{max}}^{(i)}}{MF_{ES}^{(i)}},i=1,2,3,4,$$
(9)
where $`MF^{(i)}`$ is one of four quantities: volume, area, integrated mean curvature, or mass ($`MF^{(1)}=V,MF^{(2)}=A,MF^{(3)}=C,MF^{(4)}=M`$). The subscript “max” is self-explanatory, and “$`ES`$” stands for the entire excursion set. At percolation these ratios grow extremely rapidly from very small values to unity. The maximum rate of growth $`\delta m^{(i)}/\delta (FF)`$ can be used as a reliable estimator of the percolation threshold as shown in Fig. 3. All four parameters detect the percolation transitions at $`FF_C0.07`$ for superclusters and at $`FF_V0.22`$ for voids. These transitions correspond to the density contrast $`\delta _C1.8`$ for superclusters and $`\delta _V0.5`$ for voids.

Figure 4 compares the largest supercluster with the largest void. Three Minkowski functionals and the fraction of the mass in the largest objects are shown as a function of the corresponding filling factor. The difference of two curves in every panel is a significant indication of non-Gaussianity of the density field. All Gaussian curves must coincide in every panel and show maximum growth at $`FF_C^{SC}=FF_V^V0.16`$. The nonlinear gravitational evolution in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model shifts the percolation transition in the over-dense excursion set toward smaller filling factors ($`FF_C:0.160.07`$) and in the under-dense excursion set toward larger filling factors ($`FF_V:0.160.22`$). Again the particular numbers depend on the choice of the smoothing scale but the sign of the effects is independent of the smoothing scale. At smaller smoothing scales as well as for any adaptive smoothing having a better resolution in high density regions the supercluster percolation threshold must decrease ($`FF_C<0.07`$) and void percolation threshold must increase ($`FF_V>0.22`$). On the other hand, increasing the smoothing scale would result in a continuous reduction of differences between superclusters and voids and their ultimate convergence to Gaussian curves in every panel (not shown).

It is worth noting that the percolation transition in voids is more conspicuous than that in superclusters. The transition is particularly clearly marked by $`A_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{max}}`$ curves. All curves look differently after percolation as well. However, in order to precisely evaluate the significance level of these differences one needs to analyze more than one realization and/or have larger simulation volume.

### 4.3 Global topology

It is interesting to compare the percolation and genus statistics. Both were suggested as tests for assessing the connectedness of the large-scale structure. In a series of papers Zel’dovich and Shandarin (Zeldovich, 1982; Shandarin, 1983; Shandarin & Zeldovich, 1983) raised the question of topology of large-scale structure and suggested percolation statistic as a discriminator between models. The percolation test was first applied to a redshift catalog (compiled by J. Huchra) by Zeldovich, Einasto & Shandarin (1982) and then Einasto et al. (1984) who found that the connectivity between galaxies in this catalog was significantly stronger than for a Poisson distribution. In contrast, a non-dynamical computer model having approximately correct correlation functions up to the fourth order (Soneira & Peebles, 1978) showed significantly weaker connectivity than observed. Thus, percolation was able to detect connectedness in the galaxy distribution. It was also demonstrated that three lowest order correlation functions (two-, three- and four-point functions) are not sufficient to detect the connectedness in the galaxy distribution.

A few years later Gott, Melott & Dickinson (1986) (see also Melott (1990) for a review) suggested the genus statistic as a discriminator between various models of large-scale structure. Although both percolation and genus statistics characterize density fields and are sensitive to the connectedness of the large scale structure, each carries significantly different information. It is important to remember that the genus refers to a surface which is the interface between over-dense and under-dense regions (defined at a given density threshold). An interpretation of genus as a characteristic of a three dimensional object (supercluster or void) bounded by this surface is not unique and certainly non-trivial if the region has a complicated shape. For instance, both a full sphere and a doughnut with a bubble in its body have genus of 0.

Figure 5 shows the genus curve in a slightly unusual form (see also Sahni, Sathyaprakash & Shandarin (1997)). The half of the curve corresponding to high density thresholds is shown as a function of the over-density filling factor $`FF_C`$ (solid line) while the other half corresponding to low thresholds is plotted as a function of the under-density filling factor $`FF_V`$ (dashed line). This allows to better illustrate the deformations of the curve due to nonlinear effects. The Gaussian genus curve is symmetric for positive and negative thresholds thus both parts of it overlap in Fig. 5 (dotted line). The vertical dashed lines mark three thresholds: the supercluster percolation threshold at $`FF=FF_C0.07`$, the void percolation threshold at $`FF=FF_V0.22`$ and the both percolation thresholds in a Gaussian field at $`FF=FF_C=FF_V0.16`$.

A marked decrease in the amplitude of the genus curve compared to the Gaussian curve at small $`FF`$ is noticeable for both over-dense and under-dense excursion sets. (Small $`FF`$ high density for superclusters and low density for voids.) The global genus curve has no significant features at either percolation threshold $`FF_C0.07`$ or $`FF_V0.22`$. The right panel of Fig. 5 shows the ratios of the genus of the largest object $`G_{max}`$ to the global genus of the excursion set $`G_{ES}`$ for both superclusters (solid line) and voids (dashed line). Both percolation curves shown in the right panel would overlap in the case of a Gaussian field (not shown) and demonstrate the percolation transition at $`FF0.16`$. The other indicators of the percolation transitions (Eq. 9) are in excellent agreement with the right panel of Fig. 5 which can be seen by comparing Fig. 5 with Figs. 3 and 4. The splitting of the percolation curves shown in Fig. 5 (right panel) as well as in Fig. 4 clearly demonstrates non-Gaussianity of the density field.

After percolation takes place the genus of the largest object considerably increases (Fig. 6) which manifests its complex shape. The length and therefore filamentarity of the largest object radically changes after percolation takes place (see Fig. 6 and 7) and cannot be easily interpreted. On the other hand, the breadth and thickness, (and consequently also the planarity), grow much more gradually with the growth of the corresponding filling factor and in this sense are similar to non-percolating objects. The mean density of the percolating supercluster at the percolation transition is $`\overline{\rho }_{\mathrm{SC}}4\overline{\rho }`$ so that $`\delta _{\mathrm{SC}}3`$. The corresponding value for the percolating void is $`\overline{\rho }_\mathrm{V}0.3`$ and $`\delta _\mathrm{V}0.7`$. Both $`\delta _{\mathrm{SC}}`$ and $`\delta _\mathrm{V}`$ are significantly different from the percolation threshold for superclusters $`(\delta _\mathrm{C}=1.8\overline{\rho })`$ and voids ($`\delta _\mathrm{V}=0.5`$) respectively (see Figure 6).

## 5 Individual Superclusters and Voids

In this section we carry out comparative statistical analysis of physical and geometrical parameters of superclusters and voids. We stress that the largest supercluster and the largest void both are excluded from this analysis. Before percolation transition they both are extreme outliers and after percolation they have nothing in common with the other objects. The total number of individual objects is shown in Fig. 8. There are numerous small objects among both superclusters and voids which dominate by numbers at every threshold (right panel of Fig. 8). Including them into the statistical analysis along with large objects would seriously affect all the parameters. One way to deal with this problem would be the computation of weighted parameters, i.e. by mass for superclusters and by volume for voids. This actually corresponds to computing one or a few moments of the probability distribution function which also may be misleading because the distribution functions are strongly non-Gaussian. We analyze only the the most massive superclusters making 90% of all mass in non-percolating over-dense objects and most voluminous voids making 90% of total volume in non-percolating under-dense objects. The smallest over-dense and under-dense objects are excluded from the analysis. Figure 8 shows the number density in (100 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc)<sup>-3</sup> units for both large (left panel) and small (right panel) objects. Despite the smallest objects make only 10% of mass or volume they are more numerous then the largest objects making the most of mass or volume.

### 5.1 Masses, volumes and mean densities

We begin with the analysis of masses, volumes and mean densities

$$\rho _{mean}\frac{M}{V}$$
(10)
which are probably the most important factors among those that determine the visual impression. They are also the least ambiguous.

Figure 9 shows the masses, volumes and mean densities of superclusters (left) and voids (right) at various thresholds parameterized by the corresponding filling factor. The thick solid lines show the median of the distribution, the dashed lines show the 50% interval (25% largest and 25% smallest are beyond this interval), and thin solid lines show the 95% interval. The intervals are highly asymmetric with respect to the median which indicates the non-Gaussianity of all distribution functions. Every distribution function has a long tail at large values. Both superclusters and voids have largest masses and volumes around the corresponding percolation threshold although the maximum is more distinct in the case of voids. As one might anticipate, voids are less massive and more voluminous than superclusters. However, the difference is not huge at the chosen smoothing scale. The median mass reaches a maximum about $`10^{15}M_{}`$ for superclusters and $`10^{14.8}M_{}`$ for voids. The median volume in the corresponding maximum is about $`3\times 10^3(h^1Mpc)^3`$ for superclusters and about $`3\times 10^4(h^1Mpc)^3`$ for voids. The mean densities of the superclusters are well above the mean density before percolation and gradually decrease after percolation takes place however remaining above the mean density in the universe. As expected the mean density of voids increases with the growth of $`FF_V`$ corresponding to the growth of the density threshold. It is somewhat surprising that the volumes of superclusters do not change much with the threshold, the masses change more but not greater than by an order of magnitude.

### 5.2 Sizes and Shapes

Three characteristic sizes and shapes of superclusters and voids can be estimated from Minkowski functionals of every object (eq. 5 and 6). Figure 10 shows the median and 50% and 95% intervals for the length, breadth and thickness of the superclusters and voids. The sizes of superclusters are shown as a function of $`FF_C`$, while the sizes of voids as a function of $`FF_V`$. It is surprising that the median thickness of superclusters depends on the threshold so weakly; it is within 4$``$6 h<sup>-1</sup>Mpc interval for a range of thresholds between $`0\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}\delta \text{ }\stackrel{<}{}6`$. This may indicate that the actual thickness of superclusters is significantly smaller and the measured values reflect the width of the smoothing window. The breadth of superclusters is not much larger than the thickness and it is likely that this quantity is also affected by the width of the filtering window. Voids are a little fatter than superclusters and their median thickness reaches about 9 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc at the percolation threshold. Interestingly voids are also wider and longer than superclusters (please note the logarithmic scale used for length). Recalling that the size parameters are normalized to the radius of the sphere rather than to diameter we conclude that the longest 25% of superclusters are longer than about 50 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc and 25% of voids are longer than about 60 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc.

The shape parameters of superclusters and voids are shown in Fig. 11. The median planarities of superclusters are small which means that in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe the dark matter density field smoothed with 5h<sup>-1</sup>Mpc typically has no pancake-like superclusters with the diameters greater than about 10 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc. The outliers can reach planarity $`P0.3`$ corresponding to the ratio $`B/T1.4`$ which is not large either. In addition, it happens only at quite large filling factors where the density threshold is quite low and only very few superclusters are left (see Fig. 8). Voids show an opposite trend to superclusters: voids are significantly more planar than superclusters and the largest planarities in voids occur at small filling factors. Filamentarities are significantly higher for both over-dense and under-dense objects: median values peak at about 0.35 ($`L/B2`$). The outliers could be considerably more elongated $`F>0.7`$ (i.e. $`L/B>6`$). As we shall see in the next section, the more massive a supercluster or more voluminous a void, the greater is its tendency to be filamentary.

### 5.3 Correlations between morphological and physical parameters

Both superclusters and voids reach their largest sizes near their respective percolation thresholds: $`FF_C0.07`$ for superclusters and $`FF_V0.22`$ for voids. Figure 12 shows the scatter plots of three characteristic sizes ($`L`$, $`B`$, and $`T`$) versus mass for superclusters and versus volume for voids. The combined plots are made for $`FF_C=0.06`$, $`0.07`$ and $`0.08`$ for superclusters and for $`FF_V=0.21`$, $`0.22`$ and $`0.23`$ for voids. The solid lines show the radius of a sphere having the same volume as a given object ($`R=(3V/4\pi )^{1/3}`$). All three sizes show a significant correlation with the mass: the greater the mass the greater the thickness, breadth and length. The thickness and breadth approximately double their values and length grows over an order of magnitude when mass increases from about $`10^{14.5}M_{}`$ to $`10^{16.5}M_{}`$. Both the thickness and breadth are considerably smaller than the radius $`R`$ of a sphere having similar volume for large superclusters ($`M\text{ }\stackrel{>}{}10^{15}M_{}`$) as well as for large voids ($`V\text{ }\stackrel{>}{}10^4(h^1Mpc)^3`$). On the other hand the length is considerably greater than $`R`$. This is another manifestation of anisotropies of the large-scale objects.

The corresponding plots of planarities and filamentarities show a similar correlation: the larger the mass of a supercluster or the larger the volume of a void, the greater its planarity and filamentarity (Fig. 13). One can clearly see that the largest objects (superclusters with $`M>10^{15}M_{}`$ and voids with $`V>10^4(h^1Mpc)^3`$ are the most anisotropic large-scale objects. Note that voids display a higher level of planarity when compared to superclusters. Indeed, one of the most noticeable results of this analysis is evidence that voids defined near the onset of percolation of the under-dense excursion set are significantly non-spherical. Finally, the larger the mass of a supercluster the greater its mean density and the more voluminous a void the lower its mean density (Fig. 14).

## 6 SUBSTRUCTURE IN SUPERCLUSTERS AND VOIDS

Visual inspection shows that superclusters and voids have noticeable substructure. Isolated voids inside superclusters and isolated clusters and superclusters inside voids are obvious examples. Theory (, 1992; Sahni, Sathyaprakash & Shandarin, 1994) and targeted N-body simulations (Beacom, et al., 1991; Gottlöber et al., 2003) show that voids are also filled with smaller filaments of high density. In the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe these filaments are strong enough to survive smoothing on a scale $`L_s=5h^1Mpc`$. Figure 15 shows the maximum of the genus of superclusters and voids. In order to interpret it properly we need to explain how to interpret the genus of an object. A standard interpretation of genus in cosmological literature (see e.g. Melott (1990)) says

$$G=\text{(number of holes)-(number of isolated regions)}+1,$$
(11)
this requires additional clarifications. First, “holes” stand for fairly complex mathematical objects that do not always coincide with the simple minded meaning of the word. For instance, a cavity in a tooth is not a hole, a bubble in a glass of champagne is not a hole either, but a tunnel through a mountain is a hole. Second, “number of isolated regions” means the number of isolated pieces of the surface that define the boundaries of the object. For instance, a region bounded by two nested spheres (a thick spherical shell) has two disconnected pieces of the boundary surface and no tunnels, therefore its genus is $``$1. A torus has surface in one piece but it has a tunnel, thus its genus equals +1. Consider an object topologically homeomorphic to a sphere (G=0), i.e. only one boundary surface and no tunnels. Adding a tunnel increases the genus by one and adding a bubble inside the body reduces the genus by one. Thus, a doughnut with a bubble of air in its body has genus 0, exactly as a full sphere.

Figure 15 shows that the genus of an isolated supercluster can be as large as five. It means that there are at least five tunnels through the supecluster. The number of tunnels could be even greater if it also had a few smaller isolated voids inside. The vast majority of superclusters are topologically isomorphic to a sphere i.e. , $`G=0`$, but the most massive ones have genus greater than unity. A supercluster with genus of unity is homeomorphic to a doughnut and one with genus of two to a pretzel. The substructure of voids is considerably more complex. The largest genus of voids detected in this simulation is 55, therefore at least 55 filaments span through the void !

Figure 16 shows the correlation between genus and mass (for superclusters) or volume (for voids). Largest superclusters $`M\text{ }\stackrel{>}{}10^{15}M_{}`$ have a nontrivial topology. Generally the more massive supercluster the greater chance of complex topology. Voids display even stronger correlation between genus and volume.

## 7 Symmetry of Global Minkowski Functionals

The global Minkowski functionals were introduced in cosmology by Mecke, Buchert & Wagner (1994) and since then have been used in many studies, see e.g. (1999); Sheth et al. (2003). Since the Minkowski functionals are additive<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2 Note, genus is not additive but the Euler characteristic is additive. we obtain them by simple summation over all objects at every density threshold. As discussed in Sheth et al. (2003)) computing the global Minkowski functionals poses some problem in the case of periodic boundary conditions. However, as shown in Appendix it can be solved if Minkowski functionals are computed for every supercluster and void at a given threshold.

In Gaussian fields three global Minkowski functionals (area A, integrated mean curvature C, and genus G) have certain symmetries as functions of the filling factor. In addition, the number of positive peaks, $`N_+`$ in the excursion set equals the number of negative troughs, $`N_{}`$:

$`A(1FF_C)`$ $`=`$ $`A(FF_C),`$ (12)
$`C(1FF_C)`$ $`=`$ $`C(FF_C),`$ (13)
$`G(1FF_C)`$ $`=`$ $`G(FF_C),`$ (14)
$`N_{}(1FF_C)`$ $`=`$ $`N_+(FF_C).`$ (15)
The departure from these symmetries manifests the non-Gaussianity of the field even before a comparison with the corresponding Gaussian functions. Figure 17 shows the violation of the symmetry in the global Minkowski functionals in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model smoothed with $`L_s`$=5 $`h^1`$Mpc and 10 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc. The half of every curve corresponding to positive thresholds ($`\delta _{\mathrm{TH}}\text{ }\stackrel{>}{}0`$) is plotted as a solid line and the other half as a dashed line. The curves corresponding to smaller smoothing scale have higher amplitudes and are shown by thick lines. One can see that while the curves corresponding to $`L_s`$=5 $`h^1`$Mpc are likely to be non-Gaussian,they almost overlap at $`L_s`$=10 $`h^1`$Mpc.

## 8 Summary and Discussion

We have studied the large–scale network in the dark matter density field in real space obtained from N-body simulations by VIRGO consortium (Jenkins et al., 1998). The density distribution has been smoothed with a Gaussian window ($`L_s=5h^1Mpc`$).

The major goal of the study was quantitative description and comparison of over-dense and under-dense regions which were dubbed as superclusters and voids respectively. We conducted the measurements of four Minkowski functionals for every individual supercluster and void selected at 99 density thresholds equispaced in terms of the filling factor (Eqs. 2, 7 and 8) with the SURFGEN code. By computing the shapefinders (Eqs. 5 and 6) from Minkowski functionals we estimated the sizes and shapes of every supercluster and void. In this study we did not assume any shape or other characteristics for the large-scale objects. Instead we have measured the morphology and various other characteristics of the objects as they were defined by the isodensity surfaces. It is worth stressing that in our study the superclusters and voids have been defined as three-dimensional regions with closed boundary surfaces<sup>3</sup><sup>3</sup>3In some studies voids are viewed as the regions between filaments connected in a closed loop; for example, see Fig.4 in Sheth & Van de Weygaert (2003)..

The main results of our investigation are summarized below:

* Individual superclusters totally occupy no more than about 5% of the total volume and comprise no more than 20% of mass if the largest (i.e. percolating) supercluster is excluded (Fig. 2).
* The maximum of the total volume and mass comprised by all superclusters except the largest one is reached approximately at the percolation threshold: $`\delta 1.8`$ corresponding to $`FF_C0.07`$.
* Individual voids totally occupy no more than 14% of volume and contain no more than 4% of mass if the largest void is excluded (Fig. 2).
* The maximum of the total volume and mass comprised by all voids except the largest one is reached at about the void percolation threshold: $`\delta 0.5`$ corresponding to $`FF_V0.22`$.
* Between these two percolation thresholds all superclusters and voids except the largest ones take up no more than about 10% of volume and mass. Both largest supercluster and void span throughout the whole space and have a very large genus. Therefore they have no well defined sizes, volumes, masses or easily defined shapes.
* Although superclusters are more massive and voids are more voluminous the difference in maximum volumes reached at the corresponding percolation thresholds is not much greater than an order of magnitude (see Fig. 9). The difference in maximum masses is even smaller than the difference in volumes.
* The volumes, masses and geometrical sizes of superclusters increase as the density threshold decreases and reach maximum values at about the percolation threshold ($`\delta 1.8`$). At lower thresholds all parameters decrease as the threshold continues to decrease.
* The sizes of voids are significantly larger than those of superclusters even in the density field smoothed with $`L_s=5h^1Mpc`$.
* The length of a quarter of the most massive superclusters exceeds 50 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc. The most voluminous voids are even longer: 25% of them are longer than 60 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc. The longest non-percolating supercluster is as long as 100 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc and the longest non-percolating void is as long as 200 h<sup>-1</sup> Mpc. Both are comparable to the size of the box ($`239.5h^1Mpc`$) and therefore may be affected by the boundaries.
* The genus value of individual superclusters can be $`5`$ while the genus of individual voids can reach $`55`$. This implies significant amount of substructure in superclusters and voids.
* Voids have considerably more developed substructure than superclusters. This is in a general agreement with other studies of voids (Grogin & Geller, 2000; Peebles, 2001).
* One of our main results is that voids, as defined through the density field (read dark matter distribution) can be distinctly non-spherical. Whether this result carries over to voids in galaxy surveys will depend upon the nature of the baryon-dark matter biasing and also on whether the density field is sampled in real or in redshift space. Since gravitational lensing probes the density field directly, our results are likely to be of some relevance both for ongoing as well as future weak lensing surveys of large scale structure.
* The planarities of both superclusters and voids are quite low $`P\text{ }\stackrel{<}{}0.3`$. This implies that the pancake-like structures in the dark matter density in real space are not typical in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model. We are stressing that this conclusion may be affected by the size of the smoothing window.
* The percolation thresholds as well as some other parameters depend on the smoothing scale and for smaller smoothing scales or adaptive filtering windows the supercluster percolation threshold must decrease ($`FF_C^{perc.}<0.07`$) and the void percolation threshold increase ($`FF_V^{perc.}>0.22`$).

## 9 Acknowledgments

VS and SS acknowledge support from the Indo-US collaborative project DST/NSF/US (NSF-RP087)/2001. SS acknowledges the support from the Observatory Cote d’Azur Nonlinear Cosmology Program (Nice France) in summer 2003 when most of the analysis was done. The trip to Nice was funded by AAS. JVS is supported by the Senior Research Fellowship of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India. The simulations studied in this paper were carried out by the Virgo Supercomputing Consortium using computers based at Computing Centre of the Max-Planck Society in Garching and at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre. The data are publicly available at www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/NumCos.

## 10 Appendix: Global Minkowski Functionals in a Box with Periodic Boundary Conditions

In computing the Minkowski functionals of individual large-scale objects (superclusters or voids) we assume that the boundary surface of every object is closed however it may consist of several disconnected parts. If the region is cut by a box boundary it is always closed by the corresponding part of the box face. We also assume that the partial Minkowski functionals are measured for all superclusters and voids at the same set of density thresholds. In this case the evaluation of the global Minkowski functionals with periodic boundary conditions can be done as follows.

* Volume: The total volume is obviously independent of the assumption of periodicity $`V^{(cp)}=V^{(c)}=v_i^{(c)}`$ where $`v_i^{(c)}`$ are the volumes of individual superclusters and $`V^{(cp)}`$ and $`V^{(c)}`$ denote the global volumes in periodic and non-periodic boxes.
* Area: Let us denote the total area of the superclusters at given filling factor $`FFFF_c`$ as $`A^{(c)}=a_i^{(c)}`$ and the total area of voids as $`A^{(v)}=a_i^{(v)}`$. Then, the sum of two becomes

$$A^{(c)}+A^{(v)}=2A^{(p)}+A^{(box)}$$
(16)
where $`A^{(p)}`$ is the total area of the excursion set in the box with periodic boundary conditions and $`A^{(box)}`$ is the total area of the box boundary (see Fig. 18 for an illustration). For periodic boundary conditions the global area of the over-dense excursion set obviously equals the global area of the under-dense excursion set since it is the area of the common interface surface. Solving the above equation for $`A^{(p)}`$ one obtains

$$A^{(p)}=\frac{A^{(c)}+A^{(v)}A^{(box)}}{2}.$$
(17)
* Integrated mean curvature: The isodensity surfaces is constructed by the triangulation described in detail in Sheth et al. (2003). It is convenient for the further calculation of the global integrated mean curvatures to split the sum into two parts: one is the sum over the inner edges and the other is the sum over the edges lying on the box boundary

$$C^{(c)}=\underset{\text{all edges}}{}c_j^{(c)}=\underset{\text{in. edges}}{}c_k^{(c)}+\underset{\text{b. edges}}{}c_i^{(c)}$$
(18)
and

$$C^{(v)}=\underset{\text{all edges}}{}c_j^{(v)}=\underset{\text{in. edges}}{}c_k^{(v)}+\underset{\text{b. edges}}{}c_i^{(v)}.$$
(19)
For the inner edges the contributions to global mean curvatures of the superclusters and voids have the same magnitude but opposite signs

$$c_k^{(c)}=\frac{1}{2}l_k(\pi \phi _k)=c_k^{(v)},$$
(20)
where $`\phi _k`$ is the angle between two surface triangles having common edge as shown in Fig. 18. Please note that in this equation we use the angle between the triangle planes while in eq. 6 (Sheth et al., 2003) we used the angle between the normals to the triangles. If the edge lies on the box boundary the relation is less trivial.

Consider a region $`R_i`$ being cut by the box face into two pieces $`R_{i1}`$ and $`R_{i2}`$ as schematically shown in Fig. 18. The dashed lines show the projections of the opposite faces of the box. The plane of the figure is assumed to be orthogonal to the edge lying on the faces of the box and having the length $`l_i`$. This assumption is made only for convenience of the illustration and does not affect the calculation. We consider the input to the mean integrated curvature from the edge $`l_i`$. The code treats the regions $`R_{i1}`$ and $`R_{i2}`$ as two separate regions, therefore

$$c_i^{(c)}=\frac{1}{2}[l_i(\pi \phi _i)+l_i(\pi \theta _i)]=\pi l_i\frac{1}{2}l_i(\phi _i+\theta _i).$$
(21)
However, if $`R_i`$ was treated as one region which corresponded to the periodic boundary conditions then we would have

$$c_i^{(cp)}=\frac{1}{2}\pi l_i\frac{1}{2}l_i(\phi _i+\theta _i).$$
(22)
Thus, each edge lying on the face of the box contributes to the global integrated mean curvature extra $`\frac{1}{2}l_i\pi `$ compared to the periodic case. Similar reasoning yields for the adjacent void

$$c_i^{(v)}=\frac{1}{2}l_i(\phi _i+\theta _i)$$
(23)
and

$$c_i^{(vp)}=\frac{1}{2}\pi l_i+\frac{1}{2}l_i(\phi _i+\theta _i).$$
(24)
Note that $`c_i^{(cp)}=c_i^{(vp)}`$ as it should be.

For the face edges we have

$$c_i^{(v)}=c_i^{(c)}+\pi l_i$$
(25)
Now we have all the terms for equations 18 and 19 and after simple and straightforward calculations obtain the global mean integrated curvatures for superclusters and voids for periodic boundary conditions in terms of non-periodic quantities

$$C^{(cp)}=\frac{1}{2}(C^{(c)}C^{(v)})=C^{(vp)}.$$
(26)
* The Euler characteristic: Three kinds of elements of the triangulated surface are triangle faces, edges and vertices. The Euler characteristic of the triangulated surface is

$$\chi =FE+V,$$
(27)
where $`F`$, $`E`$ and $`V`$ are the total numbers of faces (triangles), edges and vertices respectively for both closed and open surfaces.

A related measure of topology often used in cosmology is the genus $`G=1\chi /2`$. Although the two quantities are uniquely related and therefore carry exactly the same information the Euler characteristic has more convenient mathematical properties. As we shall see below including the surfaces with boundaries (i.e. open surfaces) into analysis is very useful in many cases in particular in dealing with the boundary conditions. For such surfaces the genus is fractional: e.g. the Euler characteristic of a patch is $`\chi _p=1`$ and thus its genus is $`G_p=1/2`$. As a result the standard interpretation (eq. 11) cannot be directly applied. Secondly, and more importantly, the Euler characteristic is additive while genus is not. It means that the Euler characteristic of a set of disconnected surfaces is simply the sum over all members of the set $`\chi _g=_i\chi _i`$ but the genus is not $`G_g_ig_i`$. For example, three isolated spheres have a genus of $`G_g=2g_i=0`$ while $`\chi _g=\chi _i=6`$. In our study we use Minkowski functionals for both the global description of the density field and individual objects. Thus, the additivity of a parameter becomes a very useful property.

Similarly to the previous discussion of the integrated mean curvature we split each number into two: one is the input from the elements lying inside the box and the other from the elements lying on the boundary i.e. faces of the box

$$\chi =(F_{in}E_{in}+V_{in})+(F_bE_b+V_b),$$
(28)
where subscripts “in” and “b” correspond to the internal elements of triangulation lying inside of the box and on the boundaries of the box respectively. In the periodic case there are neither triangles nor edges or vertices on the faces of the box, therefore

$$\chi ^{(p)}=F_{in}E_{in}+V_{in}$$
(29)
for both superclusters and voids because it is the characteristic of the common interface surface.

The boundary group of terms gives different results for superclusters and voids. In the case of superclusters $`F_b^{(c)}E_b^{(c)}+V_b^{(c)}=\chi _b^{(c)}`$ is the Euler characteristic of the “cluster boundary surface” i.e. the surface consisting of all regions on the faces of the box that have been used for closing the superclusters cut by the boundary. And in the case of voids it is obviously the remaining of the box surface which can be called the “void boundary surface” $`F_b^{(v)}E_b^{(v)}+V_b^{(v)}=\chi _b^{(v)}`$. For instance, consider a simple case when there is only one cluster cut by a box face. Assuming non-periodic boundary conditions and closed boundary surfaces for all superclusters the parts of cluster surface consists of two simply connected pieces each homeomorphous to a circle and thus $`\chi _b^{(c)}=2`$. The void boundary surface is homeomorphous to a sphere with two holes (not tunnels) and thus $`\chi _b^{(v)}=0`$. If there were $`n`$ superclusters cut by the box boundaries then $`\chi _b^{(c)}=2n`$ and $`\chi _b^{(v)}=22n`$. In general, since the parts of the boundary used for closing the superclusters and the parts used for closing voids make the whole surface of the box

$$\chi _b^{(c)}+\chi _b^{(v)}=2$$
(30)
since the box surface is homeomorphous to a sphere and therefore is equal to two. Summing up the cluster ans void Euler characteristics one obtains

$$\chi ^{(c)}+\chi ^{(v)}=2\chi ^{(p)}+\chi _b^{(c)}+\chi _b^{(v)}=2(\chi ^{(p)}+1).$$
(31)
Thus, the global Euler characteristic for periodic boundary conditions, $`\chi ^{(p)}`$ can be found if both $`\chi ^{(c)}`$ and $`\chi ^{(v)}`$ are computed at the same threshold under assumption of non-periodic boundary conditions

$$\chi ^{(p)}=\frac{1}{2}(\chi ^{(c)}+\chi ^{(v)})1.$$
(32)
Computing $`\chi ^{(c)}`$ and $`\chi ^{(v)}`$ also assumes that all individual clusters and voids have closed surfaces. The surfaces of superclusters and voids cut by the boundary of the box are closed by necessary parts of the box boundary surface.