J/MNRAS/540/716 The Manticore Project I, Local clusters (McAlpine+, 2025)
The Manticore Project I:
A digital twin of our cosmic neighbourhood from Bayesian field-level analysis.
McAlpine S., Jasche J., Ata M., Lavaux G., Stiskalek R., Frenk C.S.,
Jenkins A.
<Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 540, 716 (2025)>
=2025MNRAS.540..716M 2025MNRAS.540..716M (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: Clusters, galaxy ; Galaxies ; Models
Keywords: galaxies: clusters: general - galaxies: distances and redshifts -
large-scale structure of Universe
Abstract:
We present the first results from the Manticore Project, dubbed
Manticore-Local, a suite of Bayesian constrained simulations of the
nearby Universe, generated by fitting a physical structure formation
model to the 2M++ galaxy catalogue using the borg algorithm. This
field-level inference yields physically consistent realizations of
cosmic structure, leveraging a non-linear gravitational solver, a
refined galaxy bias model, and physics-informed priors. The
Manticore-Local posterior realizations evolve within a parent
cosmological volume statistically consistent with Lambda-cold dark
matter, demonstrated through extensive posterior predictive tests of
power spectra, bispectra, initial condition Gaussianity, and the halo
mass function. The inferred local supervolume (R<200Mpc, or z≲0.05)
shows no significant deviation from cosmological expectations;
notably, we find no evidence for a large local underdensity, with the
mean density suppressed by only ∼5% relative to the cosmic mean. Our
model identifies high-significance counterparts for 14 prominent
galaxy clusters - including Virgo, Coma, and Perseus - each within
1deg of its observed sky position. Across the posterior ensemble,
these counterparts are consistently detected with 2σ-4σ
significance, and their reconstructed masses and redshifts agree
closely with observational estimates, confirming the inference's
spatial and dynamical fidelity. The peculiar velocity field recovered
by Manticore-Local achieves the highest Bayesian evidence across five
independent data sets, surpassing state-of-the-art non-linear models,
linear theory, Wiener filtering, and machine learning approaches.
Unlike methods yielding only point estimates or using simplified
dynamics, Manticore-Local provides a full Bayesian posterior over
cosmic structure and evolution, enabling rigorous uncertainty
quantification. These results establish Manticore-Local as the most
advanced constrained realization suite of the local Universe to date,
offering a robust statistical foundation for future studies of galaxy
formation, velocity flows, and environmental dependencies in our
cosmic neighbourhood.
Description:
These data were generated from Bayesian constrained simulations of the
Local Universe using field-level inference techniques applied to the
2M++ galaxy catalogue with the BORG algorithm. The Manticore-Local
posterior realizations evolve within a parent cosmological volume
statistically consistent with Lambda-cold dark matter. The table
contains properties for well-known galaxy clusters including Virgo,
Centaurus, Fornax, Perseus, Coma, and others, with counterparts
consistently detected with 2-4 sigma significance. Masses are given at
both R200 and R500 overdensities in units of 10^14 solar masses.
Coordinates are comoving distances in the J2000.0 equatorial system.
Peculiar velocities are line-of-sight projections from the inferred 3D
velocity field in km/s. The data represents posterior samples from
MCMC chains, with SampleID indicating the posterior sample number for
each cluster detection. A demonstration notebook for reading and
plotting these data is available at
https://github.com/stuartmcalpine/manticore_public_scripts. We thank
the 2MASS team for providing the galaxy catalogue used in this work.
Details and products from the Manticore project can be found at
www.cosmictwin.org.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
clusters.dat 127 1120 Manticore-Local cluster properties
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See also:
II/246 : 2MASS All-Sky Catalog of Point Sources (Cutri+ 2003)
https://github.com/stuartmcalpine/manticore_public_scripts :
Analysis scripts and examples
https://www.cosmictwin.org : Manticore project website
Byte-by-byte Description of file: clusters.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 7 F7.3 deg RAdeg Right Ascension (J2000)
9- 15 F7.3 deg DEdeg Declination (J2000)
17- 23 F7.3 Mpc Dist Proper distance to cluster center
25- 41 A17 --- Cluster Cluster name
43- 51 F9.5 --- pval Pfeifer p-value for detection significance
53- 57 F5.3 deg SepAng Angular separation from known cluster center
59- 64 F6.3 10+14Msun M200 Halo mass within R200
66- 69 F4.2 Mpc R200 Radius of the sphere with 200 times
the critical density
71- 76 F6.3 10+14Msun M500 Halo mass within R500
78- 81 F4.2 Mpc R500 Radius of the sphere with 600 times
the critical density
83- 90 F8.3 km/s Vpec Line-of-sight peculiar velocity
92-100 F9.3 km/s Vrec Recession velocity (cz)
102-108 F7.3 Mpc Xpos X-coordinate in equatorial frame
110-116 F7.3 Mpc Ypos Y-coordinate in equatorial frame
118-124 F7.3 Mpc Zpos Z-coordinate in equatorial frame
126-127 I2 --- SampleID MCMC posterior sample ID
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Acknowledgements:
Stuart McAlpine, stuart.mcalpine(at)fysik.su.se
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 15-Jul-2025