2008/01/31 by Christopher M. Hirata, Shirley Ho, Nikhil Padmanabhan +4 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.043520
published as Phys.Rev.D78:043520,2008 · 34 pages, 6 figures, matches PRD accepted version
arxiv created 2008/05/30 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the correlation of gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with several tracers of large-scale structure, including luminous red galaxies (LRGs), quasars, and radio sources. The lensing field is reconstructed based on the CMB maps from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite; the LRGs and quasars are observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS); and the radio sources are observed in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS). Combining all three large-scale structure samples, we find evidence for a positive cross correlation at the 2.5\ensuremathσ level (1.8\ensuremathσ for the SDSS samples and 2.1\ensuremathσ for NVSS); the cross correlation amplitude is 1.06\ifmmode±\else\textpm\fi0.42 times that expected for the WMAP cosmological parameters. Our analysis extends other recent analyses in that we carefully determine bias-weighted redshift distribution of the sources, which is needed for a meaningful cosmological interpretation of the detected signal. We investigate contamination of the signal by galactic emission, extragalactic radio and infrared sources, thermal and kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects, and the Rees-Sciama effect, and find all of them to be negligible.