The clustering of galaxies at z ≈ 0.5 in the SDSS-III Data Release 9 BOSS-CMASS sample: A test for the ACDM cosmology

Sebastián E. Nuza, Ariel G. Sánchez, Francisco Prada, Anatoly Klypin, David J. Schlegel, Stefan Gottlöber, Antonio D. Montero-Dorta, Marc Manera, Cameron K. McBride, Ashley J. Ross, Raul Angulo, Michael Blanton, Adam Bolton, Ginevra Favole, Lado Samushia, Francesco Montesano, Will J. Percival, Nikhil Padmanabhan, Matthias Steinmetz, Jeremy TinkerRamin Skibba, Donald P. Schneider, Hong Guo, Idit Zehavi, Zheng Zheng, Dmitry Bizyaev, Olena Malanushenko, Viktor Malanushenko, Audrey E. Oravetz, Daniel J. Oravetz, Alaina C. Shelden

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

100 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present results on the clustering of 282 068 galaxies in theBaryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) sample of massive galaxies with redshifts 0.4 < z < 0.7 which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III project. Our results cover a large range of scales from ∼500 to ∼90 h-1 Mpc. We compare these estimates with the expectations of the flat A cold dark matter (ACDM) standard cosmological model with parameters compatible with Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7 data. We use the MultiDark cosmological simulation, one of the largest N-body runs presently available, together with a simple halo abundance matching technique, to estimate galaxy correlation functions, power spectra, abundance of subhaloes and galaxy biases. We find that the ACDM model gives a reasonable description to the observed correlation functions at z ≈ 0.5, which is remarkably good agreement considering that the model, once matched to the observed abundance of BOSS galaxies, does not have any free parameters. However, we find a ≥10 per cent deviation in the correlation functions for scales ≤ 1 and ∼10-40 h-1 Mpc. A more realistic abundance matching model and better statistics from upcoming observations are needed to clarify the situation. We also estimate that about 12 per cent of the 'galaxies' in the abundance-matched sample are satellites inhabiting central haloes with mass M ≥ 1014 h-1 M⊙. Using the MultiDark simulation, we also study the real-space halo bias b of the matched catalogue finding that b = 2.00 ± 0.07 at large scales, consistent with the one obtained using the measured BOSS-projected correlation function. Furthermore, the linear large-scale bias, defined using the extrapolated linear matter power spectrum, depends on the number density n of the abundance-matched sample as b=-0.048- (0.594 ± 0.02)log10(n/ h3 Mpc-3). Extrapolating these results to baryon acoustic oscillation scales, we measure a scale-dependent damping of the acoustic signal produced by non-linear evolution that leads to ∼2-4 per cent dips at ≥ 3s level for wavenumbers k ≥ 0.1 h Mpc-1 in the linear large-scale bias.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)743-760
Number of pages18
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume432
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2013

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The clustering of galaxies at z ≈ 0.5 in the SDSS-III Data Release 9 BOSS-CMASS sample: A test for the ACDM cosmology'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this