Renormalized halo bias

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic study of renormalization in models of halo biasing. Building on work of McDonald, we show that Eulerian biasing is only consistent with renormalization if non-local terms and higher-derivative contributions are included in the biasing model. We explicitly determine the complete list of required bias parameters for Gaussian initial conditions, up to quartic order in the dark matter density contrast and at leading order in derivatives. At quadratic order, this means including the gravitational tidal tensor, while at cubic order the velocity potential appears as an independent degree of freedom. Our study naturally leads to an effective theory of biasing in which the halo density is written as a double expansion in fluctuations and spatial derivatives. We show that the bias expansion can be organized in terms of Galileon operators which aren't renormalized at leading order in derivatives. Finally, we discuss how the renormalized bias parameters impact the statistics of halos.