Primordial Non-Gaussianity and the NRAO VLA Sky Survey

Abstract

The NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) is the only dataset that allows an accurate determination of the auto-correlation function (ACF) on angular scales of several degrees for Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) at typical redshifts $z\simeq 1$. Surprisingly, the ACF is found to be positive on such large scales while, in the framework of the standard hierarchical clustering scenario with Gaussian primordial perturbations it should be negative for a redshift-independent effective halo mass of order of that found for optically-selected quasars. We show that a small primordial non-Gaussianity can add sufficient power on very large scales to account for the observed NVSS ACF. The best-fit value of the parameter $f_{\mathrm{NL}}$, quantifying the amplitude of primordial non-Gaussianity of local type is $f_{\mathrm{NL}}=62\pm 27$ ($1\sigma$ error bar) and $25<f_{\mathrm{NL}}<117$ ($2\sigma$ confidence level), corresponding to a detection of non-Gaussianity significant at the $\sim 3\sigma$ confidence level. The minimal halo mass of NVSS sources is found to be $M_{\min }=10^{12.47\pm 0.26}{h}^{-1}{M}_{\odot }$ ($1\sigma$) strikingly close to that found for optically selected quasars. We discuss caveats and possible physical and systematic effects that can impact on the results.

arXiv comment6 pages, 5 figures

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