No Arabic abstract
In a series of papers we have recently studied the clustering of LRG galaxies in the latest spectroscopic SDSS data release, which has 75000 LRG galaxies sampling 1.1 Gpc^3/h^3 to z=0.47. Here we focus on detecting a local maxima shaped as a circular ring in the bidimensional galaxy correlation function xi(pi,sigma), separated in perpendicular sigma and line-of-sight pi distances. We find a significant detection of such a peak at r ~110 Mpc/h. The overall shape and location of the ring is consistent with it originating from the recombination-epoch baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO). This agreement provides support for the current understanding of how large scale structure forms in the universe. We study the significance of such feature using large mock galaxy simulations to provide accurate errorbars.
Measurements of clustering in large-scale imaging surveys that make use of photometric redshifts depend on the uncertainties in the redshift determination. We have used light-cone simulations to show how the deprojection method successfully recovers the real space correlation function when applied to mock photometric redshift surveys. We study how the errors in the redshift determination affect the quality of the recovered two-point correlation function. Considering the expected errors associated to the planned photometric redshift surveys, we conclude that this method provides information on the clustering of matter useful for the estimation of cosmological parameters that depend on the large scale distribution of galaxies.
In the near future, cosmology will enter the wide and deep galaxy survey area allowing high-precision studies of the large scale structure of the universe in three dimensions. To test cosmological models and determine their parameters accurately, it is natural to confront data with exact theoretical expectations expressed in the observational parameter space (angles and redshift). The data-driven galaxy number count fluctuations on redshift shells, can be used to build correlation functions $C(theta; z_1, z_2)$ on and between shells which can probe the baryonic acoustic oscillations, the distance-redshift distortions as well as gravitational lensing and other relativistic effects. Transforming the model to the data space usually requires the computation of the angular power spectrum $C_ell(z_1, z_2)$ but this appears as an artificial and inefficient step plagued by apodization issues. In this article we show that it is not necessary and present a compact expression for $C(theta; z_1, z_2)$ that includes directly the leading density and redshift space distortions terms from the full linear theory. It can be evaluated using a fast integration method based on Clenshaw-Curtis quadrature and Chebyshev polynomial series. This new method to compute the correlation functions without any Limber approximation, allows us to produce and discuss maps of the correlation function directly in the observable space and is a significant step towards disentangling the data from the tested models.
We provide constraints on the accuracy with which the neutrino mass fraction, $f_{ u}$, can be estimated when exploiting measurements of redshift-space distortions, describing in particular how the error on neutrino mass depends on three fundamental parameters of a characteristic galaxy redshift survey: density, halo bias and volume. In doing this, we make use of a series of dark matter halo catalogues extracted from the BASICC simulation. The mock data are analysed via a Markov Chain Monte Carlo likelihood analysis. We find a fitting function that well describes the dependence of the error on bias, density and volume, showing a decrease in the error as the bias and volume increase, and a decrease with density down to an almost constant value for high density values. This fitting formula allows us to produce forecasts on the precision achievable with future surveys on measurements of the neutrino mass fraction. For example, a Euclid-like spectroscopic survey should be able to measure the neutrino mass fraction with an accuracy of $delta f_{ u} approx 6.7times10^{-4}$, using redshift-space clustering once all the other cosmological parameters are kept fixed to the $Lambda$CDM case.
Third-order statistics of the cosmic density field provides a powerful cosmological probe containing synergistic information to the more commonly explored second-order statistics. Here, we exploit a spectroscopic catalog of 72,563 clusters of galaxies extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, providing the first detection of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) peak in the three-point correlation function (3PCF) of galaxy clusters. We measure and analyze both the connected and the reduced 3PCF of SDSS clusters from intermediate ($rsim10$ Mpc/h) up to large ($rsim140$ Mpc/h) scales, exploring a variety of different configurations. From the analysis of reduced 3PCF at intermediate scales, in combination with the analysis of the two-point correlation function, we constrain both the cluster linear and non-linear bias parameters, $b_1=2.75pm0.03$ and $b_2=1.2pm0.5$. We analyze the measurements of the 3PCF at larger scales, comparing them with theoretical models. The data show clear evidence of the BAO peak in different configurations, which appears more visible in the reduced 3PCF rather than in the connected one. From the comparison between theoretical models considering or not the BAO peak, we obtain a quantitative estimate of this evidence, with a $Delta chi^2$ between 2 and 75, depending on the considered configuration. Finally, we set up a generic framework to estimate the expected signal-to-noise ratio of the BAO peak in the 3PCF exploring different possible definitions, that can be used to forecast the most favorable configurations to be explored also in different future surveys, and applied it to the case of the Euclid mission.
Measurements of the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) peak in the redshift-space correlation function yield the angular diameter distance D_A(z) and the Hubble parameter H(z) as a function of redshift, constraining the properties of dark energy and space curvature. We discuss the perturbations introduced in the galaxy correlation function by gravitational lensing through the effect of magnification bias and its cross-correlation with the galaxy density. At the BAO scale, gravitational lensing adds a small and slowly varying component to the galaxy correlation function and does not change its shape significantly, through which the BAO peak is measured. The relative shift in the position of the BAO peak caused by gravitational lensing in the angle-averaged correlation function is 10^-4 at z=1, rising to 10^-3 at z=2.5. Lensing effects are stronger near the line-of-sight, however the relative peak shift increases only to 10^-3.3 and 10^-2.4 at z=1 and z=2.5, when the galaxy correlation is averaged within 5 degrees of the line-of-sight (containing only 0.4% of the galaxy pairs in a survey). Furthermore, the lensing contribution can be measured separately and subtracted from the observed correlation at the BAO scale.