2011/03/23 by Danny C. Pan, Michael S. Vogeley, Fiona Hoyle +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.20197.x
10 pages
arxiv created 2011/03/23 · arxiv updated 2015/05/27
We study the distribution of cosmic voids and void galaxies using Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Using the VoidFinder algorithm as described by Hoyle 2002, we identify 1054 statistically significant voids in the northern galactic hemisphere with radii > 10 h-1 Mpc. The filling factor of voids in the sample volume is 62%. The largest void is just over 30 h-1 Mpc in effective radius. The median effective radius is 17 h-1 Mpc. The voids are found to be significantly underdense, with density contrast δ< -0.85 at the edges of the voids. The radial density profiles of these voids are similar to predictions of dynamically distinct underdensities in gravitational theory. We find 8,046 galaxies brighter than Mr = -20.09 within the voids, accounting for 7% of the galaxies. We compare the results of VoidFinder on SDSS DR7 to mock catalogs generated from a SPH halo model simulation as well as other Λ-CDM simulations and find similar void fractions and void sizes in the data and simulations. This catalog is made publicly available at http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~pan/voidcatalog.html for download.