2004/04/05 by Chris Blake, Pedro G. Ferreira, Julian Borrill · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07831.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 351 (2004) 923 · 12 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2004/04/05 · openalex publication_date 2004/06/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We measure the angular power spectrum Cℓ of radio galaxies in the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) using two independent methods: direct spherical harmonic analysis and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE). The results are consistent and can be understood using models for the spatial matter power spectrum and for the redshift distribution of radio galaxies at mJy flux density levels. A good fit to the angular power spectrum can only be achieved if radio galaxies possess high bias with respect to mass fluctuations; by marginalizing over the other parameters of the model we derive a 68 per cent confidence interval 1.53 < b0×σ8 < 1.87, where b0 is the linear bias factor for radio galaxies and σ8 describes the normalization of the matter power spectrum. Our models indicate that the majority of the signal in the NVSS Cℓ spectrum is generated at low redshifts z≲ 0.1. Individual redshifts for the NVSS sources are thus required to alleviate projection effects and probe directly the matter power spectrum on large scales.