Related papers: Seeing patterns in noise: Gigaparsec-scale `struct…
Understanding the formation and evolution of the cosmic web of galaxies is a fundamental goal of cosmology, using various tracers of the cosmic large-scale structure at an ever wider range of redshifts. Our principal aim is to advance the…
Studies of the Universe's transition to smoothness in the context of LCDM have all pointed to a transition radius no larger than ~300 Mpc. These are based on a broad array of tracers for the matter power spectrum, including galaxies,…
In order to investigate whether galaxy structures are compatible with the predictions of the standard LCDM cosmology, we focus here on the analysis of several simple and basic statistical properties of the galaxy density field. Namely, we…
For a precise determination of cosmological parameters we need to understand the effects of the local large-scale structure of the Universe on the measurements. They include modifications of the cosmic microwave background, distortions of…
The non-Euclidean geometry of spacetime induces an anisotropy in the apparent correlation function of high-redshift quasars. This effect can constrain the cosmological constant \Lambda independent of any assumptions about evolution of…
Detections of local maxima in the density perturbation spectrum at characteristic comoving scales L~100-200h^{-1}Mpc have previously been claimed. Here, this cosmic standard ruler is sought in the ``10K'' release of the 2dF QSO Redshift…
We have carried out multicolour imaging of a complete sample of radio-loud quasars at 0.6 < z < 1.1 and find groups or clusters of galaxies in the fields of at least 8 and possibly 13 of the 21 sources. There is no evidence for an evolution…
Motivated by the significant overdensity of background bright quasars recently detected behind the foreground clusters of galaxies on scale of $10$ arcminutes, we have investigated the possibility of attributing the quasar-cluster…
We study the dependence of the number density and properties of quasars on the background galaxy density using the currently largest spectroscopic datasets of quasars and galaxies. We construct a galaxy number density field smoothed over…
The completed 2dF QSO Redshift (2QZ) Survey has been used to search for extreme large-scale cosmological structure (around 200 Mpc) over the redshift range 0<z<2.5. We demonstrate that statistically significant overdensities and…
We present the largest catalogue to date of Galaxies On Top Of Quasars (GOTOQs), systems where the sightline to a background quasar passes directly through or very close to a foreground galaxy. Using $\approx$1.1 million quasar spectra from…
We present the clustering measurements of quasars in configuration space based on the Data Release 14 (DR14) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. This dataset includes 148,659 quasars spread…
We review observational tests for the homogeneity of the Universe on large scales. Redshift and peculiar velocity surveys, radio sources, the X-Ray Background, the Lyman-alpha forest and the Cosmic Microwave Background are used to set…
If the Universe is dominated by cold dark matter and dark energy as in the currently popular LCDM cosmology, it is expected that large scale structures form gradually, with galaxy clusters of mass M > ~10^14 Msun appearing at around 6 Gyrs…
We measure the clustering of a sample of photometrically selected luminous red galaxies around a low redshift (0.2<z<0.6) sample of quasars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 5. We make use of a new statistical…
In the standard picture of structure formation, the first massive galaxies are expected to form at the highest peaks of the density field, which constitute the cores of massive proto-clusters. Luminous quasars (QSOs) at z~4 are the most…
We use host galaxy imaging studies of the PG Quasar survey to compare the far-infrared (FIR) properties of quasars with disturbed and undisturbed host galaxies. By using survival analysis, we show that the quasars with disturbed host…
I critically discuss in a pedagogical and phenomenological way a few crucial tests challenging the claims by Pietronero and collaborators that there is no evidence from available galaxy catalogues that the Universe is actually homogeneous…
Extragalactic radio sources with projected linear size larger than one Megaparsec 1 Mpc = 3.09e22 m = 3.3e6 light years) are called Giant Radio Galaxies (GRGs) or quasars (GRQs). Over the past few years our search for such objects by visual…
We are looking at quasar environment in the context of large-scale structure (LSS) - a new approach, giving a more informed interpretation of quasar-galaxy correlations. This paper presents our first results for a sample of z ~ 0.3 quasars.…