Signatures of the Primordial Universe from Its Emptiness: Measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from Minima of the Density Field

Abstract

Sound waves from the primordial fluctuations of the Universe imprinted in the large-scale structure, called baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs), can be used as standard rulers to measure the scale of the Universe. These oscillations have already been detected in the distribution of galaxies. Here we propose to measure BAOs from the troughs (minima) of the density field. Based on two sets of accurate mock halo catalogues with and without BAOs in the seed initial conditions, we demonstrate that the BAO signal cannot be obtained from the clustering of classical disjoint voids, but is clearly detected from overlapping voids. The latter represent an estimate of all troughs of the density field. We compute them from the empty circumsphere centers constrained by tetrahedra of galaxies using Delaunay triangulation. Our theoretical models based on an unprecedented large set of detailed simulated void catalogues are remarkably well confirmed by observational data. We use the largest recently publicly available sample of luminous red galaxies from SDSS-III BOSS DR11 to unveil for the first time a >3$\sigma$ BAO detection from voids in observations. Since voids are nearly isotropically expanding regions, their centers represent the most quiet places in the Universe, keeping in mind the cosmos origin and providing a new promising window in the analysis of the cosmological large-scale structure from galaxy surveys.

arXiv comment8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication at Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (86)

• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
• Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Parameter Results
• Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large-Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies
• The 6dF Galaxy Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and the Local Hubble Constant
• The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III
• The 2.5 m Telescope of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Spectra and redshifts
• SDSS-III: Massive Spectroscopic Surveys of the Distant Universe, the Milky Way Galaxy, and Extra-Solar Planetary Systems
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Power-spectrum analysis of the final dataset and cosmological implications
• The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Data Release 10 and 11 galaxy samples
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 Galaxy Sample
• Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results
• The Multi-Object, Fiber-Fed Spectrographs for SDSS and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: mapping the distance-redshift relation with baryon acoustic oscillations
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyα forest of BOSS DR11 quasars
• Cosmological implications of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements
• Spectral Classification and Redshift Measurement for the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Ly-α forest of BOSS quasars
• Probing dark energy using baryonic oscillations in the galaxy power spectrum as a cosmological ruler
• The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: Survey Design and First Data Release
• Improving Cosmological Distance Measurements by Reconstruction of the Baryon Acoustic Peak
• A hierarchy of voids: Much ado about nothing
• The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: mock galaxy catalogues for the BOSS Final Data Release
• The clustering of massive galaxies at z~0.5 from the first semester of BOSS data
• A Cosmic Watershed: the WVF Void Detection Technique
• The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Analysis of potential systematics
• Measurement of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyman-alpha Forest Fluctuations in BOSS Data Release 9
• Cosmic Voids in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7
• NEXUS: Tracing the Cosmic Web Connection
• Voids in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
• The Aspen--Amsterdam Void Finder Comparison Project
• Baryonic acoustic oscillations in simulated galaxy redshift surveys
• The structure of voids
• 4MOST - 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope
• Universal Density Profile for Cosmic Voids
• Testing Gravity using Cosmic Voids
• Modelling Baryon Acoustic Oscillations with Perturbation Theory and Stochastic Halo Biasing
• Tracing the Dark Matter Sheet in Phase Space
• Counting voids to probe dark energy
• The darkness that shaped the void: dark energy and cosmic voids
• Voids in a $\Lambda$CDM Universe
• Voids in the Large-Scale Structure
• Planck 2013 results. XIX. The integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect
• Precision cosmology with voids: definition, methods, dynamics
• The abundance of voids and the excursion set formalism
• The Cosmic Web, Multi-Stream Flows, and Tessellations
• Spatial and Dynamical Properties of Voids in a LCDM Universe
• The Properties of Galaxies in Voids
• ORIGAMI: Delineating Halos using Phase-Space Folds
• Galaxy Voids in Cold Dark Matter Universes
• A measurement of the Alcock-Paczynski effect using cosmic voids in the SDSS
• The Evidence of Absence: Galaxy Voids in the Excursion Set Formalism
• Eulerian BAO Reconstructions and N-Point Statistics
• Statistics of Voids in the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
• The Size and Shape of Local Voids
• A robust public catalogue of voids and superclusters in the SDSS Data Release 7 galaxy surveys
• Voids in the Simulated Local Universe
• nIFTy Cosmology: Galaxy/halo mock catalogue comparison project on clustering statistics
• The orientation of disk galaxies around large cosmic voids
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: voids and hierarchical scaling models
• Void Ellipticity Distribution as a Probe of Cosmology
• VOBOZ: An Almost-Parameter-Free Halo-Finding Algorithm
• Alignments of Voids in the Cosmic Web
• The Three-point Function as a Probe of Models for Large-scale Structure
• Voids in the SDSS DR9: observations, simulations, and the impact of the survey mask
• Constraining the halo bispectrum in real and redshift space from perturbation theory and non-linear stochastic bias
• Voids in the LCRS versus CDM Models
• Unfolding the Hierarchy of Voids
• A hierarchy of voids: More ado about nothing
• The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: The Evolution of Void Statistics from z~1 to z~0
• Towards understanding the structure of voids in the cosmic web
• Voids in Modified Gravity Reloaded: Eulerian Void Assignment
• The cosmic web of the Local Universe: cosmic variance, matter content and its relation to galaxy morphology
• Structural Analysis of the SDSS Cosmic Web I.Nonlinear Density Field Reconstructions
• Clustering and Bias Measurements of SDSS Voids
• The VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey - Searching for Cosmic Voids
• Improving reconstruction of the baryon acoustic peak : the effect of local environment
• A Model of Void Formation
• Zipf's law for fractal voids and a new void-finder
• The statistics of voids as a tool to constrain cosmological parameters: sigma_8 and Omega_m h
• A Robust Distance Measurement and Dark Energy Constraints from the Spherically-Averaged Correlation Function of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxies
• Probability distribution of density fluctuations in the non-linear regime
• The Two--Point Correlation Function and the Size of Voids
• Structure in the 3D Galaxy Distribution: II. Voids and Watersheds of Local Maxima and Minima

Cited by in corpus (55)

• Constraints on Cosmology and Gravity from the Dynamics of Voids
• Detection of Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Features in the Large-Scale 3-Point Correlation Function of SDSS BOSS DR12 CMASS Galaxies
• Massive Neutrinos Leave Fingerprints on Cosmic Voids
• Cosmic Voids and Void Lensing in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification Data
• Redshift-space distortions around voids
• Low Redshift Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Measurement from the Reconstructed 6-degree Field Galaxy Survey
• Assessment of the Information Content of the Power Spectrum and Bispectrum
• UNIT project: Universe $N$-body simulations for the Investigation of Theoretical models from galaxy surveys
• The bias of cosmic voids in the presence of massive neutrinos
• Multipole analysis of redshift-space distortions around cosmic voids
• More out of less: an excess integrated Sachs-Wolfe signal from supervoids mapped out by the Dark Energy Survey
• On the linearity of tracer bias around voids
• The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: tomographic BAO analysis of DR12 combined sample in Fourier space
• Linear redshift space distortions for cosmic voids based on galaxies in redshift space
• Baryonic acoustic oscillations from 21cm intensity mapping: the Square Kilometre Array case
• The Impact of the Fiducial Cosmology Assumption on BAO Cosmological Parameter Inference
• Euclid: Forecasts from redshift-space distortions and the Alcock-Paczynski test with cosmic voids
• The Clustering of Galaxies in the Completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: single-probe measurements from DR12 galaxy clustering -- towards an accurate model
• Testing cosmology with a catalogue of voids in the BOSS galaxy surveys
• The completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Cosmological implications from multi-tracer BAO analysis with galaxies and voids
• Euclid: Cosmological forecasts from the void size function
• Cosmological constraints from the BOSS DR12 void size function
• Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: The relationship between mass and light around cosmic voids
• An accurate linear model for redshift space distortions in the void-galaxy correlation function
• The clustering of the SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey DR14 quasar sample: Measuring the anisotropic Baryon Acoustic Oscillations with redshift weights
• Constraint of Void Bias on Primordial non-Gaussianity
• Testing the imprint of non-standard cosmologies on void profiles using Monte Carlo random walks
• Probing Galaxy Assembly Bias in BOSS Galaxies Using Void Probabilities
• The perspective of voids on rising cosmology tensions
• Updated void catalogs of the SDSS DR7 main sample
• Testing the spherical evolution of cosmic voids
• An improved model of redshift-space distortions around voids: application to quintessence dark energy
• Euclid: Cosmology forecasts from the void-galaxy cross-correlation function with reconstruction
• Density-dependent clustering: I. Pulling back the curtains on motions of the BAO peak
• A common explanation of the Hubble tension and anomalous cold spots in the CMB
• Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: imprints of cosmic voids and superclusters in the Planck CMB lensing map
• Improving baryon acoustic oscillation measurement with the combination of cosmic voids and galaxies
• The clustering of critical points in the evolving cosmic web
• The cosmic web connection to the dark matter halo distribution through gravity
• Statistical recovery of the BAO scale from multipoles of the beam-convolved 21cm correlation function
• Volume Statistics as a Probe of Large-Scale Structure
• The sparkling Universe: Clustering of voids and void clumps
• Separate Universe Void Bias
• Cosmic Voids in Evolving Dark Sector Cosmologies: the High Redshift Universe
• Higher Order Hamiltonian Monte Carlo Sampling for Cosmological Large-Scale Structure Analysis
• Alcock-Paczyński effect on void-finding: Implications for void-galaxy cross-correlation modelling
• Unveiling the Universe with Emerging Cosmological Probes
• Cosmic void exclusion models and their impact on the distance scale measurements from large scale structure
• Cosmic Void Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Measurement: Evaluation of Sensitivity to Selection Effects
• The environmental dependence of the baryon acoustic peak in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey CMASS sample
• Effect of Massive Neutrinos on the Position of Cold Dark Matter Halo: Revealed via Delaunay Triangulation Void
• The Gravitational Lensing Imprints of DES Y3 Superstructures on the CMB: A Matched Filtering Approach
• Cosmology with Cosmic Voids
• Accelerating BAO Scale Fitting Using Taylor Series
• Multivariate analysis of cosmic void characteristics