Related papers: Matter in the Local Universe

We review the quantitative science that can be and has been done with redshift and peculiar velocity surveys of galaxies in the nearby universe. After a brief background setting the cosmological context for this work, the first part of this…

Galaxy redshift surveys have achieved significant progress over the last couple of decades. Those surveys tell us in the most straightforward way what our local universe looks like. While the galaxy distribution traces the bright side of…

We only see a small fraction of the matter in the universe, but the rest gives itself away by the impact of its gravity. The distortions from pure Hubble flow (or peculiar velocities) that this matter creates have the potential to be a…

I review progress in the past few years in studying the large-scale structure of the universe through redshift surveys of galaxies. Of the many statistical methods used to describe the galaxy distribution, I concentrate here on the power…

Peculiar velocities are the motions of galaxies due to the gravitational influence of large-scale structure, and thus are an important cosmological probe of the underlying matter density field. In recent years the number of surveys designed…

Two main strategies have been implemented in mapping the local universe: whole-sky 'shallow' surveys and 'deep' surveys over limited parts of the sky. The two approaches complement each other in studying cosmography and statistical…

A valuable amount of information is available in peculiar velocities of galaxies. Peculiar velocity surveys have recently allowed the discovery of potential problems with LCDM. Nonetheless, their direct observation through distance…

Since the late 1970's, redshift surveys have been vital for progress in understanding large-scale structure in the Universe. The original CfA redshift survey collected spectra of 20-30 galaxies per clear night on a 1.5 meter telescope; over…

Galaxy redshift surveys are one of the pillars of the current standard cosmological model and remain a key tool in the experimental effort to understand the origin of cosmic acceleration. To this end, the next generation of surveys aim at…

Low redshift surveys of galaxy peculiar velocities provide a wealth of cosmological information. We revisit the idea of extracting this information by directly measuring the redshift-space momentum power spectrum from such surveys. We…

The nature of dark energy remains a profound mystery 20 years after the discovery of cosmic acceleration. A very high number density galaxy redshift survey over a wide area (HD GRS Wide) spanning the redshift range of 0.5<z<4 using the same…

A huge amount of good quality data converges towards the picture of a spatially flat universe undergoing the today observed phase of accelerated expansion. This new observational trend is commonly addressed as Precision Cosmology. Despite…

We review the ability of redshift surveys to provide constraints on the Dark Energy content of the Universe. The matter power spectrum and dynamics at the present epoch are nearly `blind' to Dark Energy, but combined with the CMB they can…

The peculiar velocity reconstruction methods allow one to have a deeper insight into the distribution of dark matter: both to measure mean matter density and to obtain the primordial density fluctuations. We present here the…

We review how dark matter is distributed in our local neighbourhood from an observational and theoretical perspective. We will start by describing first the dark matter halo of our own galaxy and in the Local Group. Then we proceed to…

Discoveries in the last few years have revolutionized our knowledge of the universe and our ideas of its ultimate fate. Measurements of the expansion of the universe show that it is not slowing down under normal gravity but accelerating due…

These lectures deal with our current knowledge of the matter distribution in the universe, focusing on how this is studied via the large-scale structure seen in galaxy surveys. We first assemble the necessary basics needed to understand the…

Peculiar velocities are an important probe of the growth rate of mass density fluctuations in the Universe. Most previous studies have focussed exclusively on measuring peculiar velocities at intermediate ($0.2 < z < 1$) redshifts using…

The luminosity distance-redshift relation is one of the fundamental tools of modern cosmology. We compute the luminosity distance-redshift relation in a perturbed flat matter-dominated Universe, taking into account the presence of…

Cosmological observations usually map our present-day past light cone. However, it is also possible to compare different past light cones. This is the concept behind the redshift drift, a model-independent probe of fundamental cosmology. In…