Related papers: Mapping the Universe: The 2010 Russell Lecture
In this manuscript I review the mathematics and physics that underpins recent work using the clustering of galaxies to derive cosmological model constraints. I start by describing the basic concepts, and gradually move on to some of the…
Number counts of galaxy clusters offer a very promising probe of the Dark Energy (DE) equation-of-state parameter, $w$. The basic goal is to measure abundances of these objects as a function of redshift, compare this to a theoretical…
We describe a project to study a sample of X-ray luminous clusters of galaxies at redshift z~0.2 at several scales (with HST/WFPC2 and CFHT/CFH12k) and wavebands (optical and X-ray). The main aims of the project are (i) to determine the…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) has provided a precise template for features in the linear power spectrum: the matter-radiation turnover, sound horizon drop, and acoustic oscillations. In a two dimensional power spectrum in redshift…
Recently, it has been shown that it is possible to reconstruct the projected mass distribution of a cluster from weak lensing provided that both the geometry of the universe and the probability distribution of galaxy redshifts are known;…
Survey observations of the three-dimensional locations of galaxies are a powerful approach to measure the distribution of matter in the universe, which can be used to learn about the nature of dark energy, physics of inflation, neutrino…
We present results from a new method of exploring the distant Universe. We use 3-D spectroscopy to sample a large cosmological volume at a time when the Universe was less than 3 billion years old to investigate the evolution of…
The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) has already measured over 220,000 redshifts of nearby (z ~0.1) galaxies. It allows us to estimate fundamental cosmological parameters and to subdivide the survey into subsets according to the galaxy…
Mapping the expansion history of the universe is a compelling task of physical cosmology, especially in the context of the observational evidence for the recent acceleration of the universe, which demonstrates that canonical theories of…
We present a new method for measuring the projected mass distributions of galaxy clusters. The gravitational amplification is measured by comparing the joint distribution in redshift and magnitude of galaxies behind the cluster with that of…
Community access to deep (i ~ 25), highly-multiplexed optical and near-infrared multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) on 8-40m telescopes would greatly improve measurements of cosmological parameters from LSST. The largest gain would come from…
Studies of the distribution and evolution of galaxies are of fundamental importance to modern cosmology; these studies, however, are hampered by the complexity of the competing effects of spectral and density evolution. Constructing a…
(abridged) A wide-field galaxy redshift survey allows one to probe galaxy clustering at largest spatial scales, which carries an invaluable information on horizon-scale physics complementarily to the cosmic microwave background (CMB).…
The ESO Slice Project (ESP) is a galaxy redshift survey we have recently completed as an ESO Key-Project. The ESP covers 23.3 square degrees in a region close to the South Galactic Pole. The survey is nearly complete (85%) to the limiting…
In this paper, we explore how the forthcoming generation of large-scale radio continuum surveys, with the inclusion of some degree of redshift information, can constrain cosmological parameters. By cross-matching these radio surveys with…
We use Hectospec mounted on the 6.5-meter MMT to carry out a redshift survey of red ($r-i>0.2$, $g-r>0.8$, $r<21.3$) galaxies in the COSMOS field to measure the environments of massive compact quiescent galaxies at intermediate redshift.…
Weak gravitational lensing surveys measure the distortion of the image of distant sources due to the deflections of light rays by the fluctuations of the gravitational potential along the line of sight. Since they probe the non-linear…
Weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies by foreground structures has proven to be a powerful tool to study the mass distribution in the universe. The advent of panoramic cameras on 4m class telescope has led to a first generation of…
Multi-object spectroscopy has been a key technique contributing to the current era of 'precision cosmology'. From the first exploratory surveys of the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe to the current generation of superbly…
We investigate, using simulated galaxy catalogues, the completeness of searches for massive clusters of galaxies in redshift surveys or imaging surveys with photometric redshift estimates, i.e. what fraction of clusters (M>10^14/h Msun) are…