English

Reconstructing the velocity field beyond the local universe

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2014-11-18 v2

Abstract

We present a maximum probability approach to reconstructing spatial maps of the peculiar velocity field at redshifts z0.1z\sim0.1, where the velocities have been measured from distance indicators (DI) such as DnσD_n-\sigma relations or Tully-Fisher. With the large statistical uncertainties associated with DIs, our reconstruction method aims to recover the underlying true peculiar velocity field by reducing these errors with the use of two physically motivated filtering prior terms. The first constructs an estimate of the velocity field derived from the galaxy over-density {\deltag} and the second makes use of the matter linear density power spectrum {\pk}. Using NN-body simulations we find, with an SDSS-like sample (Ngal33N_{gal}\simeq33 per deg2^2), an average correlation coefficient value of r=0.55±0.02r=0.55\pm{0.02} between our reconstructed velocity field and that of the true velocity field from the simulation. However, with a suitably high number density of galaxies from the next generation surveys (e.g. Ngal140N_{gal}\simeq140 per deg2^2) we can achieve an average r=0.70±0.02r=0.70\pm{0.02} out to moderate redshifts z0.1z\sim0.1. This will prove useful for future tests of gravity, as these relatively deep maps are complementary to weak lensing maps at the same redshift.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1210.1203,
  title  = {Reconstructing the velocity field beyond the local universe},
  author = {Russell Johnston and David Bacon and Luis F. A. Teodoro and Robert C. Nichol and Michael S. Warren and Catherine Cress},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.1203},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG)