Model-independent constraints on clustering and growth of cosmic structures from BOSS DR12 galaxies in harmonic space

Abstract

We present a new, model-independent measurement of the clustering amplitude of galaxies and the growth of cosmic large-scale structures from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) 12th data release (DR12). This is achieved by generalising harmonic-space power spectra for galaxy clustering to measure separately the magnitudes of the density and the redshift-space distortion terms, respectively related to the clustering amplitude of structures, $b\sigma_8(z)$, and their growth, $f\sigma_8(z)$. We adopt a tomographic approach with 15 redshift bins in $z\in[0.15,0.67]$. We restrict our analysis to strictly linear scales, implementing a redshift-dependent maximum multipole for each bin. The measurements do not appear to suffer from systematic effects and show excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions from the Planck cosmic microwave background analysis assuming a $\Lambda$CDM cosmology. Our results also agree with previous analyses by the BOSS collaboration. Furthermore, our method provides the community with a new tool for data analyses of the cosmic large-scale structure complementary to state-of-the-art approaches in configuration or Fourier space. Amongst its merits, we list: it being more agnostic with respect to the underlying cosmological model; its roots in a well-defined and gauge-invariant observable; the possibility to account naturally for wide-angle effects and even relativistic corrections on ultra-large scales; and the capability to perform an almost arbitrarily fine redshift binning with little computational effort. These aspects are all the more relevant for the oncoming generation of cosmological experiments such as Euclid, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), and the SKA Project.