Β-Skeleton analysis of the cosmic web. Issue 4 (27th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fang, Feng; Forero-Romero, Jaime; Rossi, Graziano; Li, Xiao-Dong; Feng, Long-Long
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 485:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 5276
• Page End: 5284
• Publication Date: 2019-03-27
• Subjects: methods: statistical -- cosmological parameters -- cosmology: observations -- large-scale structure of Universe; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz773
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The β-skeleton is a mathematical method to construct graphs from a set of points that has been widely applied in the areas of image analysis, machine learning, visual perception, and pattern recognition. In this work, we apply the β-skeleton to study the cosmic web. We use this tool on simulated data to identify the filamentary structures and characterize the statistical properties of the skeleton. We find that the β-skeleton is able to reveal the underlying structures without any parameter fine-tuning. A different degree of sparseness can be obtained by adjusting the value of β. In addition, the statistical properties of the length and direction of the skeleton connections show a clear dependence on the redshift space distortions, volume effect, Alcock–Paczynski effect, and galaxy bias. Our proof-of-concept study shows that the statistical properties of the β-skeleton can be used to probe cosmological parameters and galaxy evolution.