Cosmological Density Fluctuations on 100Mpc Scales and their ISW Effect

Abstract

We measure the matter probability distribution function (PDF) via counts in cells in a volume limited subsample of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxy Catalog on scales from $30h^{-1}$Mpc to $150h^{-1}$Mpc and estimate the linear Integrated Sachs--Wolfe effect produced by supervoids and superclusters in the tail of the PDF. We characterize the PDF by the variance, $S_3$, and $S_4$, and study in simulations the systematic effects due to finite volume, survey shape and redshift distortion. We compare our measurement to the prediction of $\Lambda$CDM with linear bias and find a good agreement. We use the moments to approximate the tail of the PDF with analytic functions. A simple Gaussian model for the superstructures appears to be consistent with the claim by Granett et al. that density fluctuations on $100h^{-1}$Mpc scales produce hot and cold spots with $\Delta T\approx 10\mu K$ on the cosmic microwave background.

9 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, Updates to match the article accepted to ApJ

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