The three-dimensional power spectrum of galaxies from the sloan digital sky survey

Max Tegmark, Michael R. Blanton, Michael A. Strauss, Fiona Hoyle, David Schlegel, Roman Scoccimarro, Michael S. Vogeley, David H. Weinberg, Idit Zehavi, Andreas Berlind, Tamás Budavari, Andrew Connolly, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Douglas Finkbeiner, Joshua A. Frieman, James E. Gunn, Andrew J.S. Hamilton, Lam Hui, Bhuvnesh Jain, David JohnstonStephen Kent, Huan Lin, Reiko Nakajima, Robert C. Nichol, Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Adrian Pope, Ryan Scranton, Uroš Seljak, Ravi K. Sheth, Albert Stebbins, Alexander S. Szalay, István Szapudi, Licia Verde, Yongzhong Xu, James Annis, Neta A. Bahcall, J. Brinkmann, Scott Burles, Francisco J. Castander, Istvan Csabai, Jon Loveday, Mamoru Doi, Masataka Fukugita, J. Richard Gott, Greg Hennessy, David W. Hogg, Željko Ivezić, Gillian R. Knapp, Don Q. Lamb, Brian C. Lee, Robert H. Lupton, Timothy A. McKay, Peter Kunszt, Jeffrey A. Munn, Liam O'Connell, John Peoples, Jeffrey R. Pier, Michael Richmond, Constance Rockosi, Donald P. Schneider, Christopher Stoughton, Douglas L. Tucker, Daniel E. Vanden Berk, Brian Yanny, Donald G. York

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    We measure the large-scale real-space power spectrum P(k) by using a sample of 205,443 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, covering 2417 effective square degrees with mean redshift z ≈ 0.1. We employ a matrix-based method using pseudo-Karhunen-Loève eigenmodes, producing uncorrelated minimum-variance measurements in 22 k-bands of both the clustering power and its anisotropy due to redshift-space distortions, with narrow and well-behaved window functions in the range 0.02 h Mpc-1 < k < 0.3 h Mpc -1. We pay particular attention to modeling, quantifying, and correcting for potential systematic errors, nonlinear redshift distortions, and the artificial red-tilt caused by luminosity-dependent bias. Our results are robust to omitting angular and radial density fluctuations and are consistent between different parts of the sky. Our final result is a measurement of the real-space matter power spectrum P(k) up to an unknown overall multiplicative bias factor. Our calculations suggest that this bias factor is independent of scale to better than a few percent for k < 0.1 h Mpc-1, thereby making our results useful for precision measurements of cosmological parameters in conjunction with data from other experiments such as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite. The power spectrum is not well-characterized by a single power law but unambiguously shows curvature. As a simple characterization of the data, our measurements are well fitted by a flat scale-invariant adiabatic cosmological model with h Ωm = 0.213 ± 0.023 and σ8 = 0.89 ± 0.02 for L* galaxies, when fixing the baryon fraction Ωbm = 0.17 and the Hubble parameter h = 0.72; cosmological interpretation is given in a companion paper.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)702-740
    Number of pages39
    JournalAstrophysical Journal
    Volume606
    Issue number2 I
    DOIs
    StatePublished - May 10 2004

    Keywords

    • Galaxies: statistics
    • Large-scale structure of universe
    • Methods: data analysis

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Astronomy and Astrophysics
    • Space and Planetary Science

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