The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: baryon acoustic oscillations in the Data Release 9 spectroscopic galaxy sample

We present measurements of galaxy clustering from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III). These use the Data Release 9 (DR9) CMASS sample, which contains 264 283 massive galaxies covering 3275 square degrees with an effective...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Anderson, Lauren, Aubourg, Eric, Bailey, Stephen, Bizyaev, Dmitry, Blanton, Michael R., Bolton, Adam S., Brinkmann, Jon, Brownstein, Joel R., Burden, Angela, Cuesta, Antonio J., Da Costa, Luiz A. N., Dawson, Kyle S., Putter, Roland de, Eisenstein, Daniel J., Gunn, James E., Guo, Hong, Hamilton, Jean-Christophe, Harding, Paul, Ho, Shirley, Honscheid, Klaus, Kazin, Eyal A., Kirkby, David, Kneib, Jean-Paul, Labatie, Antoine, Loomis, Craig, Lupton, Robert H., Malanushenko, Elena, Malanushenko, Viktor, Mandelbaum, Rachel, Manera, Marc, Maraston, Claudia, McBride, Cameron K., Mehta, Kushal T., Mena, Olga, Montesano, Francesco, Muna, Demetri, Nichol, Robert C., Nuza, Sebastián E., Olmstead, Matthew D. O, Verde, Licia
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2013
Country:España
Institution:Universidad de Barcelona
Repository:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/107083
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/107083
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Energia fosca (Astronomia)
Cosmologia
Mesurament de les distàncies
Astrofísica
Observacions astronòmiques
Dark energy (Astronomy)
Cosmology
Measurement of distances
Astrophysics
Astronomical observations
Description
Summary:We present measurements of galaxy clustering from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III). These use the Data Release 9 (DR9) CMASS sample, which contains 264 283 massive galaxies covering 3275 square degrees with an effective redshift z = 0.57 and redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.7. Assuming a concordance LambdaCDM cosmological model, this sample covers an effective volume of 2.2 Gpc3, and represents the largest sample of the Universe ever surveyed at this density, n¯≈3×10-4 h-3 Mpc 3. We measure the angle-averaged galaxy correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of 5sigma in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Combining with the SDSS-II luminous red galaxy sample, the detection significance increases to 6.7sigma. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance to z = 0.57 relative to the sound horizon DV/rs = 13.67 ± 0.22 at z = 0.57. Assuming a fiducial sound horizon of 153.19 Mpc, which matches cosmic microwave background constraints, this corresponds to a distance DV (z = 0.57) = 2094 ± 34 Mpc. At 1.7 per cent, this is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. We place this result alongside previous BAO measurements in a cosmological distance ladder and find excellent agreement with the current supernova measurements. We use these distance measurements to constrain various cosmological models, finding continuing support for a flat Universe with a cosmological constant.

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