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    Priors and scale cuts in EFT-based full-shape analyses

    Anton Chudaykin1,*, Mikhail M. Ivanov2,†, and Takahiro Nishimichi3,4,5,‡

    • 1Département de Physique Théorique and Center for Astroparticle Physics, Université de Genève, 24 quai Ernest Ansermet, 1211 Genève 4, Switzerland
    • 2Center for Theoretical Physics—a Leinweber Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
    • 3Department of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science, Kyoto Sangyo University, Motoyama, Kamigamo, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8555, Japan
    • 4Center for Gravitational Physics and Quantum Information, Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
    • 5Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study (UTIAS), The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8583, Japan

    • *Contact author: anton.chudaykin@unige.ch
    • †Contact author: ivanov99@mit.edu
    • ‡Contact author: takahiro.nishimichi@yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp

    Phys. Rev. D 113, 063524 – Published 9 March, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/glg2-py5y

    Abstract

    Parameter estimation from galaxy survey data from the full-shape method depends on scale cuts and priors on effective-field theory (EFT) parameters. The effects of priors, including the so-called “prior volume” phenomenon, have been originally studied in Ivanov et al. [J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys. 05 (2020) 042] and subsequent works. In this note, we repeat and extend these tests and also apply them to other priors used in the literature. We point out that, in addition to the “prior volume” effect, there is a more important effect that is largely overlooked: a systematic bias on cosmological parameters due to overoptimistic scale cuts. Unlike the prior volume effect, this is a genuine systematic bias due to two-loop corrections that does not vanish with better priors or with larger data volumes. Our study is based on the high-fidelity BOSS-like PT challenge simulation data, which offer many advantages over analyses based on synthetic data generated with fitting pipelines. We show that some analysis choices associated with the pybird code, especially the scale cuts, significantly bias parameter recovery, overestimating σ8 by 5% (equivalent to 1σ). The bias on measured EFT parameters is even more significant. The analysis choices associated with the class-pt code lead to much smaller (≲1%) shifts in cosmological parameters based on their best-fit values.

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