Related papers: Quantifying cosmic variance
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…
It is known that modeling uncertainties and astrophysical foregrounds can potentially introduce appreciable bias in the deduced values of cosmological parameters. While it is commonly assumed that these uncertainties will be accounted for…
Recent cosmological modeling efforts have shown that a local underdensity on scales of a few hundred Mpc (out to z ~ 0.1), could produce the apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe observed via type Ia supernovae. Several…
The apparatus of correlation gamma function (\Gamma*(r)) is used to analyze volume-limited samples from the DR4 Main Galaxy Sample of the SDSS survey with the aim of determining the characteristic scales of galaxy clustering. Up to 20…
We study the relative dust attenuation-inclination relation in 78,721 nearby galaxies using the axis ratio dependence of optical-NIR colour, as measured by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), and the…
We study the enviromental dependence and the morphological composition of the galaxy color-magnitude diagram at z~0.7, using a pilot sub-sample of ~2000 galaxies from the COSMOS surve, with I_AB<24, photometric redshift within 0.61<z<0.85…
We explore a variety of statistics of clusters selected with cosmic shear measurement by utilizing both analytic models and large numerical simulations. We first develop a halo model to predict the abundance and the clustering of weak…
We discuss cosmological inference from galaxy surveys at low and high redshifts. Studies of optical and IRAS redshift surveys with median redshift ${\bar z} \sim 0.02$ yield measurements of the density parameter $\Omega$ and the…
We provide a quantitative description and statistical interpretation of the optical continuum variability of quasars. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has obtained repeated imaging in five UV-to-IR photometric bands for 33,881…
An accurate calibration of the source redshift distribution $p(z)$ is a key aspect in the analysis of cosmic shear data. This, one way or another, requires the use of spectroscopic or high-quality photometric samples. However, the…
We present cosmological parameter constraints based on a joint modeling of galaxy-lensing cross correlations and galaxy clustering measurements in the SDSS, marginalizing over small-scale modeling uncertainties using mock galaxy catalogs,…
We study the self-consistent, linear response of a galactic disc to non-axisymmetric perturbations in the vertical direction as due to a tidal encounter, and show that the density distribution near the disc mid-plane has a strong impact on…
We present the KMOS^3D survey, a new integral field survey of over 600 galaxies at 0.7<z<2.7 using KMOS at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). The KMOS^3D survey utilizes synergies with multi-wavelength ground and space-based surveys to trace…
Cosmic voids in the large-scale structure of the Universe affect the peculiar motions of objects in their vicinity. Although these motions are difficult to observe directly, the clustering pattern of their surrounding tracers in redshift…
Weak lensing surveys are reaching sensitivities at which uncertainties in the galaxy redshift distributions n(z) from photo-z errors degrade cosmological constraints. We use ray-tracing simulations and a simple treatment of photo-z errors…
A promising method for measuring the cosmological parameter combination fsigma_8 is to compare observed peculiar velocities with peculiar velocities predicted from a galaxy density field using perturbation theory. We use N-body simulations…
We use weak lensing data from the Hubble Space Telescope COSMOS survey to measure the second- and third-moments of the cosmic shear field, estimated from about 450,000 galaxies with average redshift <z> ~ 1.3. We measure two- and…
We derive cosmological constraints on the matter density, \om, and the amplitude of fluctuations, \sig, using $\mathtt{GalWCat19}$, a catalog of 1800 galaxy clusters we identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-DR13 spectroscopic data set…
We test the homogeneity of the Universe at $z\sim 0.3$ with the Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) spectroscopic sample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. First, the mean number $N(R)$ of LRGs within completely surveyed LRG-centered spheres of…
A variety of methods have been proposed to define and to quantify galaxy environments. While these techniques work well in general with spectroscopic redshift samples, their application to photometric redshift surveys remains uncertain. To…