Galaxy bias and σ8 from counts in cells from the SDSS main sample. (22nd August 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Repp, Andrew; Szapudi, István
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 498:Number 1(2020)
• Page Start: L125
• Page End: L129
• Publication Date: 2020-08-22
• Subjects: surveys -- cosmological parameters -- large-scale structure of Universe -- cosmology: observations; Astronomy -- Research -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slaa139
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1745-3933

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The counts-in-cells (CIC) galaxy probability distribution depends on both the dark matter clustering amplitude σ8 and the galaxy bias b . We present a theory for the CIC distribution based on a previous prescription of the underlying dark matter distribution and a linear volume transformation to redshift space. We show that, unlike the power spectrum, the CIC distribution breaks the degeneracy between σ8 and b on scales large enough that both bias and redshift distortions are still linear; thus, we obtain a simultaneous fit for both parameters. We first validate the technique on the Millennium Simulation and then apply it to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey main galaxy sample. We find σ8 = 0.92 ± .08 and $b = 1.39^{+.11}_{-.09}$ consistent with previous complementary results from redshift distortions and from Planck.