arXiv subjects

G. P. Efstathiou

Publications and source records attributed to G. P. Efstathiou.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2002

A new upper limit on the total neutrino mass from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey

We constrain f_nu = Omega_nu / Omega_m, the fractional contribution of neutrinos to the total mass density in the Universe, by comparing the power spectrum of fluctuations derived from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey with power spectra for models with four components: baryons, cold dark matter, massive neutrinos and a cosmological constant. Adding constraints from independent cosmological probes we find f_nu < 0.13 (at 95% confidence) for a prior of 0.1< Omega_m <0.5, and assuming the scalar spectral index n=1. This translates to an upper limit on the total neutrino mass and m_nu,tot < 1.8 eV for "concordance" values of Omega_m and the Hubble constant. Very similar results are obtained with a prior on Omega_m from Type Ia supernovae surveys, and with marginalization over n.

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arXiv2000

The PSCz Catalogue

We present the catalogue, mask, redshift data and selection function for the PSCz survey of 15411 IRAS galaxies across 84% of the sky. Most of the IRAS data is taken from the Point Source Catalog, but this has been supplemented and corrected in various ways to improve the completeness and uniformity. We quantify the known imperfections in the catalogue, and we assess the overall uniformity, completeness and data quality. We find that overall the catalogue is complete and uniform to within a few percent at high latitudes and 10% at low latitudes. Ancillary information, access details, guidelines and caveats for using the catalogue are given.

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arXiv1999

The IRAS PSCz Dipole

We use the PSCz IRAS galaxy redshift survey to analyze the cosmological galaxy dipole out to a distance 300 h$^{-1}$ Mpc. The masked area is filled in three different ways, firstly by sampling the whole sky at random, secondly by using neighbouring areas to fill a masked region, and thirdly using a spherical harmonic analysis. The method of treatment of the mask is found to have a significant effect on the final calculated dipole. The conversion from redshift space to real space is accomplished by using an analytical model of the cluster and void distribution, based on 88 nearby groups, 854 clusters and 163 voids, with some of the clusters and all of the voids found from the PSCz database. The dipole for the whole PSCz sample appears to have converged within a distance of 200 $h^{-1}$Mpc and yields a value for $β= Ω^{0.6}/b$ = 0.75 (+0.11,-0.08), consistent with earlier determinations from IRAS samples by a variety of methods. For b = 1, the $2-σ$ range for $Ω_{o}$ is 0.43-1.02. The direction of the dipole is within 13$^o$ of the CMB dipole, the main uncertainty in direction being associated with the masked area behind the Galactic plane. The improbability that further major contributions to the dipole amplitude will come from volumes larger than those surveyed here means that the question of the origin of the CMB dipole is essentially resolved.

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arXiv1999

On density and velocity fields and beta from the IRAS PSCz survey

We present a version of the Fourier Bessel method first introduced by Fisher et al (1994) and Zaroubi et al (1994) with two extensions: (a) we amend the formalism to allow a generic galaxy weight which can be constant rather than the more conventional overweighting of galaxies at high distances, and (b) we correct for the masked zones by extrapolation of Fourier Bessel modes rather than by cloning from the galaxy distribution in neighbouring regions. We test the procedure extensively on N-body simulations and find that it gives generally unbiased results but that the reconstructed velocities tend to be overpredicted in high-density regions. Applying the formalism to the PSZz redshift catalog, we find that beta = 0.7 +/- 0.5 from a comparison of the reconstructed Local Group velocity to the CMB dipole. From an anisotropy test of the velocity field, we find that beta = 1 CDM models models normalized to the current cluster abundance can be excluded with 90% confidence. The density and velocity fields reconstructed agree with the fields found by Branchini et al (1998) in most points. We find a back-infall into the Great Attractor region (Hydra-Centaurus region) but tests suggest that this may be an artifact. We identify all the major clusters in our density field and confirm the existence of some previously identified possible ones.

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arXiv1997

Genus Statistics of the Virgo N-body simulations and the 1.2-Jy Redshift Survey

We study the topology of the Virgo N-body simulations and compare it to the 1.2-Jy redshift survey of IRAS galaxies by means of the genus statistic. Four high-resolution simulations of variants of the CDM cosmology are considered: a flat standard model (SCDM), a variant of it with more large-scale power (tCDM), and two low density universes, one open (OCDM) and one flat (LCDM). The fully sampled N-body simulations are examined down to strongly nonlinear scales, both with spatially fixed smoothing, and with an adaptive smoothing technique. While the tCDM, LCDM, and OCDM simulations have very similar genus statistics in the regime accessible to fixed smoothing, they can be separated with adaptive smoothing at small mass scales. In order to compare the N-body models with the 1.2-Jy survey, we extract large ensembles of mock catalogues from the simulations. These mock surveys are used to test for systematic effects in the genus analysis and to establish the distribution of errors of the genus curve. We find that a simple multivariate analysis of the genus measurements is compromised both by non-Gaussian distributed errors and by noise that dominates the covariance matrix. We therefore introduce a principal components analysis of the genus curve. With a likelihood ratio test we find that the 1.2-Jy data favours the LCDM, tCDM and OCDM models compared to SCDM. When genus measurements for different smoothing scales are combined, the SCDM model can be excluded at a 99% confidence level, while the other three models fit the 1.2-Jy data well. (abridged)

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arXiv1997

The structure of galaxy clusters in different cosmologies

We investigate the internal structure of clusters of galaxies in high-resolution N-body simulations of 4 different cosmologies. There is a higher proportion of disordered clusters in critical-density than in low-density universes, although the structure of relaxed clusters is very similar in each. Crude measures of substructure, such as the shift in the position of the centre-of-mass as the density threshold is varied, can distinguish the two in a sample of just 20 or so clusters; it is harder to differentiate between clusters in open and flat models with the same density parameter. Most clusters are in a quasi-steady state within the virial radius and are well-described by the density profile of Navarro, Frenk & White (1995).

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arXiv1997

The Virgo Consortium: The evolution and formation of galaxy clusters

We report on work done by the Virgo consortium, an international collaboration set up in order to study the formation and evolution of Large Scale Structure using N-body simulations on the latest generation of parallel supercomputers. We show results of 256^3 particle simulations of the formation of clusters in four Dark Matter models with different cosmological parameters. Normalizing the models such that one obtains the correct abundance of rich clusters yields an interesting result: The peculiar velocities of the clusters are almost independent of Ω, and depend only weakly on Γ, the shape parameter of the power spectrum. Thus, it is nearly impossible to distinguish between high and low Ωmodels on the basis of the peculiar velocities.

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arXiv1996

The Virgo consortium: simulations of dark matter and galaxy clustering

We report on work in progress by the Virgo consortium, a collaboration set up to carry out large simulations of the formation of galaxies and large-scale structure exploiting the latest generation of parallel supercomputers. We show results of $256^3$ particle N-body simulations of the clustering evolution of dark matter in four cold dark matter models with different cosmological parameters. The high resolution and large volume of these simulations allows us to determine reliably the mass autocorrelation function for pair separations in the range $40\hkpc$ to $20\hmpc$. Comparison of these with the observed galaxy correlation function shows that for any of these models to be viable, the distribution of galaxies must be biased relative to the distribution of mass in a non-trivial, scale-dependent fashion. In particular, low $Ω_0$ models require the galaxies to be more ``weakly'' clustered than the mass at small and intermediate pair separations. Simulations which include the evolution of gas show that cold gas knots form with approximately the abundance expected on theoretical grounds, although a few excessively massive objects grow near the centres of rich clusters. The locations where these cold gas knots form are, in general, biased relative to the distribution of mass in a scale-dependent way. Some of these biases have the required sign but they are, for the most part, weaker than is necessary for agreement with observations. The antibias present in our low $Ω_0$ N-body/SPH simulation appears to be related to the merging and disruption of galaxies in rich clusters.

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