Galaxy bias and σ8 from counts in cells from the SDSS main sample

2020/06/01 by Andrew Repp, István Szapudi
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Physics #Sample (material) #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slaa139

5 pages, 3 figures; submitted to MNRAS

arxiv created 2020/06/01 · openalex created_date 2020/06/12 · openalex publication_date 2020/08/21 · arxiv updated 2020/09/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

ABSTRACT The counts-in-cells (CIC) galaxy probability distribution depends on both the dark matter clustering amplitude σ8 and the galaxy bias b. We present a theory for the CIC distribution based on a previous prescription of the underlying dark matter distribution and a linear volume transformation to redshift space. We show that, unlike the power spectrum, the CIC distribution breaks the degeneracy between σ8 and b on scales large enough that both bias and redshift distortions are still linear; thus, we obtain a simultaneous fit for both parameters. We first validate the technique on the Millennium Simulation and then apply it to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey main galaxy sample. We find σ8 = 0.92 ± .08 and b = 1.39^+.11_-.09 consistent with previous complementary results from redshift distortions and from Planck.

Citations

• On Recovering the Nonlinear Bias Function from Counts‐in‐Cells Measurements
• A New Method for Calculating Counts in Cells
• Wide‐Angle Redshift Distortions Revisited
• Simulations of the formation, evolution and clustering of galaxies and quasars
• Empirical Validation of the Ising Galaxy Bias Model
• Dynamics of gravitational clustering