Fast n-point correlation functions and three-point lensing application

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We present a new algorithm to rapidly compute the two-point (2PCF), three-point (3PCF) and n-point (n-PCF) correlation functions in roughly O(N log N) time for N particles, instead of O(Nⁿ) as required by brute force approaches. The algorithm enables an estimate of the full 3PCF for as many as 10⁶ galaxies. This technique exploits node-to-node correlations of a recursive bisectional binary tree. A balanced tree construction minimizes the depth of the tree and the worst case error at each node. The algorithm presented in this paper can be applied to problems with arbitrary geometry. We describe the detailed implementation to compute the two point function and all eight components of the 3PCF for a two-component field, with attention to shear fields generated by gravitational lensing. We also generalize the algorithm to compute the n-point correlation function for a scalar field in k dimensions where n and k are arbitrary positive integers.