The PAU Survey: spectral features and galaxy clustering using simulated narrow-band photometry

We present a mock catalogue for the Physics of the Accelerating Universe Survey (PAUS) and use it to quantify the competitiveness of narrow-band imaging for measuring spectral features and galaxy clustering. The mock agrees with observed number count and redshift distribution data. We demonstrate the importance of including emission lines in the narrow-band fluxes. We show that PAUCam has sufficient resolution to measure the strength of the 4000 Å break to the nominal PAUS depth. We predict the evolution of a narrow-band luminosity function and show how this can be affected by the OII emission line. We introduce new rest-frame broad-bands (UV and blue) that can be derived directly from the narrow-band fluxes. We use these bands along with D4000 and redshift to define galaxy samples and provide predictions for galaxy clustering measurements. We show that systematic errors in the recovery of the projected clustering due to photometric redshift errors in PAUS are significantly smaller than the expected statistical errors. The galaxy clustering on two halo scales can be recovered quantitatively without correction, and all qualitative trends seen in the one halo term are recovered. In this analysis, mixing between samples reduces the expected contrast between the one halo clustering of red and blue galaxies and demonstrates the importance of a mock catalogue for interpreting galaxy clustering results. The mock catalogue is available on request at https://cosmohub.pic.es/home.