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:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repository:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat: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.