Signatures of the Primordial Universe from Its Emptiness: Measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Minima of the Density Field

Francisco-Shu Kitaura, Chia-Hsun Chuang, Yu Liang, Cheng Zhao, Charling Tao, Sergio Rodríguez-Torres, Daniel J. Eisenstein, Héctor Gil-Marín, Jean-Paul Kneib, Cameron McBride, Will J. Percival, Ashley J. Ross, Ariel G. Sánchez, Jeremy Tinker, Rita Tojeiro, Mariana Vargas-Magana, and Gong-Bo Zhao
Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 171301 – Published 25 April 2016

Abstract

Sound waves from the primordial fluctuations of the Universe imprinted in the large-scale structure, called baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs), can be used as standard rulers to measure the scale of the Universe. These oscillations have already been detected in the distribution of galaxies. Here we propose to measure BAOs from the troughs (minima) of the density field. Based on two sets of accurate mock halo catalogues with and without BAOs in the seed initial conditions, we demonstrate that the BAO signal cannot be obtained from the clustering of classical disjoint voids, but it is clearly detected from overlapping voids. The latter represent an estimate of all troughs of the density field. We compute them from the empty circumsphere centers constrained by tetrahedra of galaxies using Delaunay triangulation. Our theoretical models based on an unprecedented large set of detailed simulated void catalogues are remarkably well confirmed by observational data. We use the largest recently publicly available sample of luminous red galaxies from SDSS-III BOSS DR11 to unveil for the first time a >3σ BAO detection from voids in observations. Since voids are nearly isotropically expanding regions, their centers represent the most quiet places in the Universe, keeping in mind the cosmos origin and providing a new promising window in the analysis of the cosmological large-scale structure from galaxy surveys.

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  • Received 13 November 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.171301

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Francisco-Shu Kitaura1,*, Chia-Hsun Chuang1, Yu Liang2, Cheng Zhao2, Charling Tao2,3, Sergio Rodríguez-Torres4,5,6, Daniel J. Eisenstein7, Héctor Gil-Marín8,9, Jean-Paul Kneib10,11, Cameron McBride7, Will J. Percival12, Ashley J. Ross12,13, Ariel G. Sánchez14, Jeremy Tinker15, Rita Tojeiro16, Mariana Vargas-Magana17, and Gong-Bo Zhao18,12

  • 1Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, D-14482 Potsdam, Germany
  • 2Tsinghua Center of Astrophysics and Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • 3Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS/IN2P3, CPPM UMR 7346, 13288 Marseille, France
  • 4Instituto de Física Teórica, (UAM/CSIC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
  • 5Campus of International Excellence UAM+CSIC, Cantoblanco, E-28049 Madrid, Spain
  • 6Departamento de Fısica Teórica M8, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM), Cantoblanco, E-28049, Madrid, Spain
  • 7Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 8Sorbonne Universits, Institut Lagrange de Paris (ILP), 98 bis Boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
  • 9Laboratoire de Physique Nuclaire et de Hautes Energies, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 Place Jussieu, Tour 22, 1er tage, 75005 Paris, France
  • 10Laboratoire dAstrophysique, Ecole Polytechnique Fedérale de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 11Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LAM (Laboratoire dAstrophysique de Marseille) UMR 7326, F-13388, Marseille, France
  • 12Institute of Cosmology & Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, United Kingdom
  • 13Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
  • 14Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Postfach 1312, Giessenbachstraße, 85741 Garching, Germany
  • 15Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, New York 10003, USA
  • 16University of St. Andrews, North Haugh, St. Andrews Fife, KY16 9SS, United Kingdom
  • 17Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 20-364, México
  • 18National Astronomy Observatories, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100012, People’s Republic of China

  • *kitaura@aip.de

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Vol. 116, Iss. 17 — 29 April 2016

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