2001/07/31 by SDSS Collaboration, Ryan Scranton, David Johnston +52 · 7 citations
Computer Science · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Correlation function (quantum field theory) #Estimator #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gaussian Processes and Bayesian Inference #Mathematics #Physics #Remote Sensing in Agriculture #Sky #Statistics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/342786
published as Astrophys.J.579:48-75,2002 · 64 pages, 31 figures, new version to match that accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2002/07/03 · openalex publication_date 2002/10/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The angular distribution of galaxies encodes a wealth of information about large-scale structure. Ultimately, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will record the angular positions of order of 10 8 galaxies in five bands, adding significantly to the cosmological constraints. This is the first in a series of papers analyzing a rectangular stripe of 2 5 × 90° from early SDSS data. We present the angular correlation function for galaxies in four separate magnitude bins on angular scales ranging from 0 003 to 15°. Much of the focus of this paper is on potential systematic effects. We show that the final galaxy catalog—with the mask accounting for regions of poor seeing, reddening, bright stars, etc.—is free from external and internal systematic effects for galaxies brighter than r * = 22. Our estimator of the angular correlation function includes the effects of the integral constraint and the mask. The full covariance matrix of errors in these estimates is derived using mock catalogs with further estimates using a number of other methods.