THE LARGE-SCALE THREE-POINT CORRELATION FUNCTION OF SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY LUMINOUS RED GALAXIES
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637 (United States)
We present new measurements of the redshift-space three-point correlation function (3PCF) of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Using the largest data set to date, the Data Release 7 LRGs, and an improved binning scheme compared to previous measurements, we measure the LRG 3PCF on large scales up to {approx}90 h{sup -1} Mpc, from the mildly nonlinear to quasi-linear regimes. Comparing the LRG correlations to the dark matter two- and three-point correlation functions, obtained from N-body simulations we infer linear and nonlinear bias parameters. As expected, LRGs are highly biased tracers of large-scale structure, with a linear bias b{sub 1} {approx} 2; the LRGs also have a large positive nonlinear bias parameter, in agreement with predictions of galaxy population models. The use of the 3PCF to estimate biasing helps to also make estimates of the cosmological parameter {sigma}{sub 8}, as well as to infer best-fit parameters of the halo occupation distribution parameters for LRGs. We also use a large suite of public mock catalogs to characterize the error covariance matrix for the 3PCF and compare the variance among simulation results with jackknife error estimates.
- OSTI ID:
- 21579940
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 737, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/737/2/97; ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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