Title: Angular systematics-free cosmological analysis of galaxy clustering in configuration space

Abstract

ABSTRACT Galaxy redshift surveys are subject to incompleteness and inhomogeneous sampling due to the various constraints inherent to spectroscopic observations. This can introduce systematic errors on the summary statistics of interest, which need to be mitigated in cosmological analysis to achieve high accuracy. Standard practices involve applying weighting schemes based on completeness estimates across the survey footprint, possibly supplemented with additional weighting schemes accounting for density-dependent effects. In this work, we concentrate on pure angular systematics and describe an alternative approach consisting in analysing the galaxy two-point correlation function where angular modes are nulled. By construction, this procedure removes all possible known and unknown sources of angular observational systematics, but also part of the cosmological signal. We use a modified Landy–Szalay estimator for the two-point correlation function that relies on an additional random catalogue where angular positions are randomly drawn from the galaxy catalogue, and provide an analytical model to describe this modified statistic. We test the model by performing an analysis of the full anisotropic clustering in mock catalogues of luminous red and emission-line galaxies at 0.43 < z < 1.1. We find that the model fully accounts for the modified correlation function in redshift space, without introducing new nuisance parameters. The derived cosmological parameters from the analysis of baryon acoustic oscillations and redshift-space distortions display slightly larger statistical uncertainties, mostly for the growth rate of structure parameter fσ8 that exhibits a $$50{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$$ statistical error increase, but free from angular systematic error.

Authors:

Paviot, Romain; de la Torre, Sylvain; de Mattia, Arnaud; Zhao, Cheng; Bautista, Julian; Burtin, Etienne; Dawson, Kyle; Escoffier, Stéphanie; Jullo, Eric; Raichoor, Anand ;

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Raichoor, Anand"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-5999-7923"

Ross, Ashley J. ;

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Ross, Ashley J."
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-7522-9083"

Rossi, Graziano

Publication Date:

Tue Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2022

Research Org.:

US Department of Energy (USDOE), Washington, DC (United States). Office of Science, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE; French National Research Agency (ANR); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)

OSTI Identifier:

1856461

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1982683

Resource Type:

Published Article

Journal Name:

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Name: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Journal Volume: 512 Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 0035-8711

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

Country of Publication:

United Kingdom

Language:

English

Subject:

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; galaxies; statistics; large-scale structure of Universe