The Flat Sky Approximation to Galaxy Number Counts
  We derive and test an approximation for the angular power spectrum of galaxy
number counts in the flat sky limit. The standard density and redshift space
distortion (RSD) terms in the resulting approximation are distinct to the
Limber approximation, providing an accurate result for multipoles as low as
$\ell\simeq10$, where the corresponding Limber approximation is completely
inaccurate. At equal redshift the accuracy of the density and RSD (standard)
terms is around 0.2% for $z<3$ and 0.5% at $z=5$, even to $\ell<50$. At unequal
redshifts, if we consider the total power spectrum, the precision is better
than 5% only for very small redshift differences, $\delta <\delta_0 (\simeq
3.6\times10^{-4}(1+z)^{2.14})$ where the standard terms are well-approximated,
or for large enough redshift differences $\delta >\delta_1 (\simeq
0.33(r(z)H(z))/(z+1))$ where the lensing terms dominate. The flat sky
expressions for the pure lensing and the lensing-density cross-correlation
terms are equivalent to the Limber approximation. For arbitrary redshift
differences, the Limber approximation achieves an accuracy of 0.5% (above
$\ell\simeq 40$ for pure lensing and $\ell\simeq 80$ for density-lensing).
Besides being very accurate, the flat sky approximation is computationally much
simpler and can therefore be very useful for data analysis and forecasts with
MCMC methods. This will be particularly crucial for upcoming galaxy surveys
that will measure the power spectrum of galaxy number counts.
