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# The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: small‐scale clustering of Lyman‐break galaxies at z < 1

• ##### Michael Pracy
Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark; Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Weston Creek, ACT 2600, Australia; Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Impact Factor: 5.52). 04/2009; 395(1):240 - 254. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.14447.x
Source: arXiv

ABSTRACT The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey is a large-scale structure survey of intermediate-redshift ultraviolet-selected (UV-selected) emission-line galaxies scheduled to cover 1000 deg2, spanning a broad redshift range 0.2 < z < 1.0. The main scientific goal of the survey is the measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the galaxy clustering pattern at a significantly higher redshift than previous studies. The BAO may be applied as a standard cosmological ruler to constrain dark energy models. Based on the first 20 per cent of the data set, we present initial results concerning the small-scale clustering of the WiggleZ targets, together with survey forecasts. The WiggleZ galaxy population possesses a clustering length r0= 4.40 ± 0.12 h−1 Mpc, which is significantly larger than z= 0 UV-selected samples, with a slope γ= 1.92 ± 0.08. This clustering length is comparable to z= 3 Lyman-break galaxies with similar UV luminosities. The clustering strength of the sample increases with optical luminosity, UV luminosity and reddening rest-frame colour. The full survey, scheduled for completion in 2010, will map an effective volume Veff≈ 1 Gpc3 (evaluated at a scale k= 0.15 h Mpc−1) and will measure the angular diameter distance and Hubble expansion rates in three redshift bins with accuracies of ≈5 per cent. We will determine the value of a constant dark energy equation-of-state parameter, wcons, with a higher precision than existing supernovae observations using an entirely independent technique. The WiggleZ and supernova measurements lie in highly complementary directions in the plane of wcons and the matter density Ωm. The forecast using the full combination of WiggleZ, supernova and cosmic microwave background (CMB) data sets is a marginalized error Δwcons= 0.07, providing a robust and precise measurement of the properties of dark energy including cross-checking of systematic errors.

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##### Article: The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: the growth rate of cosmic structure since redshift z=0.9
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ABSTRACT: We present precise measurements of the growth rate of cosmic structure for the redshift range 0.1 < z < 0.9, using redshift-space distortions in the galaxy power spectrum of the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. Our results, which have a precision of around 10% in four independent redshift bins, are well-fit by a flat LCDM cosmological model with matter density parameter Omega_m = 0.27. Our analysis hence indicates that this model provides a self-consistent description of the growth of cosmic structure through large-scale perturbations and the homogeneous cosmic expansion mapped by supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillations. We achieve robust results by systematically comparing our data with several different models of the quasi-linear growth of structure including empirical models, fitting formulae calibrated to N-body simulations, and perturbation theory techniques. We extract the first measurements of the power spectrum of the velocity divergence field, P_vv(k), as a function of redshift (under the assumption that P_gv(k) = -sqrt[P_gg(k) P_vv(k)] where g is the galaxy overdensity field), and demonstrate that the WiggleZ galaxy-mass cross-correlation is consistent with a deterministic (rather than stochastic) scale-independent bias model for WiggleZ galaxies for scales k < 0.3 h/Mpc. Measurements of the cosmic growth rate from the WiggleZ Survey and other current and future observations offer a powerful test of the physical nature of dark energy that is complementary to distance-redshift measures such as supernovae and baryon acoustic oscillations.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 04/2011; 415(3). · 5.52 Impact Factor
• ##### Article: Photometric selection of emission‐line galaxies, clustering analysis and a search for the integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect
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ABSTRACT: We investigate the use of simple colour cuts applied to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) optical imaging to perform photometric selections of emission-line galaxies (ELGs) out to z < 1. Our selection is aimed at discerning three separate redshift ranges: 0.2 ≲z≲ 0.4, 0.4 ≲z≲ 0.6 and 0.6 ≲z≲ 1.0, which we calibrate using data taken by the COMBO-17 survey in a single field (S11). We thus perform colour cuts using the SDSS g, r and i bands and obtain mean photometric redshifts of and . We further calibrate our high-redshift selection using spectroscopic observations with the AAOmega spectrograph on the 4-m Anglo-Australian Telescope, observing ≈50–200 galaxy candidates in four separate fields. With just 1 h of integration time and seeing of ≈ 1.6 arcsec, we successfully determined redshifts for ≈65 per cent of the targeted candidates. We compare our spectroscopic redshifts to the photometric redshifts from the COMBO-17 survey and find reasonable agreement between the two. We calculate the angular correlation functions of these samples and find correlation lengths of r0= 2.78 ± 0.08, 3.71 ± 0.11 and 5.50 ± 0.13 h−1 Mpc for the low-, mid- and high-redshift samples, respectively. Comparing these results with predicted dark matter clustering, we estimate the bias parameter for each sample to be b= 0.72 ± 0.02, b= 0.93 ± 0.03 and b= 1.43 ± 0.03. We calculate the two-point redshift-space autocorrelation function at z≈ 0.6 and find a clustering amplitude of so= 6.4 ± 0.8 h−1 Mpc. Finally, we use our photometric sample to search for the integrated Sachs–Wolfe signal in the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 5-yr data. We cross-correlate our three redshift samples with the WMAP W, V, Q and K bands and find an overall trend for a positive signal similar to that expected from models. However, the signal in each is relatively weak, with the results in the WMAP W band being wTg(<100 arcmin) = 0.25 ± 0.27, 0.17 ± 0.20 and 0.17 ± 0.16 μK for the low-, mid- and high-redshift samples, respectively. Combining all three galaxy samples, we find a signal of wTg(<100 arcmin) = 0.20 ± 0.12 μK in the WMAP W band, a significance of 1.7σ. However, in testing for systematics where the WMAP data are rotated with respect to the ELG sample, we found similar results at several different rotation angles, implying the apparent signal may be produced by systematic effects.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 04/2010; 403(3):1261 - 1273. · 5.52 Impact Factor
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##### Article: Measurements of H(z) and D_A(z) from the Two-Dimensional Two-Point Correlation Function of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxies
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ABSTRACT: We present a method for measuring the Hubble parameter, H(z), and angular diameter distance, D_A(z), from the two-dimensional two-point correlation function, and validate it using LasDamas mock galaxy catalogs. Applying our method to the sample of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7), we measure H(z=0.35)=82.1_{-4.9}^{+4.8} km s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}, D_A(z=0.35)=1048_{-58}^{+60} Mpc without assuming a dark energy model or a flat Universe. We find that the derived measurements of H(0.35)r_s(z_d)/c and D_A(0.35)/r_s(z_d) (where r_s(z_d) is the sound horizon at the drag epoch) are nearly uncorrelated, have tighter constraints and are more robust with respect to possible systematic effects. Our galaxy clustering measurements of {H(0.35)r_s(z_d)/c, D_A(0.35)/r_s(z_d)}={0.0434\pm 0.0018,6.60\pm 0.26} (with the correlation coefficient r = 0.0604) can be used to combine with cosmic microwave background and any other cosmological data sets to constrain dark energy. Our results represent the first measurements of H(z) and D_A(z) (or H(z)r_s(z_d)/c and D_A(0.35)/r_s(z_d)) from galaxy clustering data. Our work has significant implications for future surveys in establishing the feasibility of measuring both H(z) and D_A(z) from galaxy clustering data.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 02/2011; · 5.52 Impact Factor