Optimising the measurement of relativistic distortions in large-scale structure

Abstract

It has been shown recently that relativistic distortions generate a dipolar modulation in the two-point correlation function of galaxies. To measure this relativistic dipole it is necessary to cross-correlate different populations of galaxies with for example different luminosities or colours. In this paper, we construct an optimal estimator to measure the dipole with multiple populations. We show that this estimator increases the signal-to-noise of the dipole by up to 35 percent. Using 6 populations of galaxies, in a survey with halos and number densities similar to those of the millennium simulation, we forecast a cumulative signal-to-noise of 4.4. For the main galaxy sample of SDSS at low redshift z<0.2 our optimal estimator predicts a cumulative signal-to-noise of 2.4. Finally we forecast a cumulative signal-to-noise of 7.4 in the upcoming DESI survey. These forecasts indicate that with the appropriate choice of estimator the relativistic dipole should be detectable in current and future surveys.

20 pages, 8 figures. v2: 19 pages, 6 figures. Explicit derivation of the cancellation of the cosmic variance added. Some references added, minor changes to the text, main results unchanged. Matches version published in JCAP