An information theory based search for homogeneity on the largest accessible scale

Abstract

We analyze the SDSS DR12 quasar catalogue to test the large-scale smoothness in the quasar distribution. We quantify the degree of inhomogeneity in the quasar distribution using information theory based measures and find that the degree of inhomogeneity diminishes with increasing length scales which finally reach a plateau at $\sim 250h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$. The residual inhomogeneity at the plateau is consistent with that expected for a Poisson point process. Our results indicate that the quasar distribution is homogeneous beyond length scales of $250h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$.

arXiv comment5 pages, 2 figures, Corrected a few typos, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (43)

• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary
• The Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum from the Full COBE/FIRAS Data Set
• Spectral Classification and Redshift Measurement for the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
• Dark Energy from structure: a status report
• The SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Quasar Target Selection for Data Release Nine
• Cosmic homogeneity demonstrated with luminous red galaxies
• On cosmic acceleration without dark energy
• Clustering of Low-Redshift (z <= 2.2) Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasar catalog: tenth data release
• Think Outside the Color Box: Probabilistic Target Selection and the SDSS-XDQSO Quasar Targeting Catalog
• The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: the transition to large-scale cosmic homogeneity
• Detection of the velocity dipole in the radio galaxies of the NRAO VLA Sky Survey
• BATSE Observations of the Large-Scale Isotropy of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• The Large-Scale Smoothness of the Universe
• A structure in the early universe at z ~ 1.3 that exceeds the homogeneity scale of the R-W concordance cosmology
• Cross-Correlation of SDSS DR7 Quasars and DR10 BOSS Galaxies: The Weak Luminosity Dependence of Quasar Clustering at z~0.5
• The scale of homogeneity of the galaxy distribution in SDSS DR6
• A direct measurement of the linear bias of mid-infrared-selected quasars at z~1 using cosmic microwave background lensing
• Inhomogeneity effects in Cosmology
• Scaling in the Universe
• Homogeneity and isotropy in the 2MASS Photometric Redshift catalogue
• Testing homogeneity on large scales in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release One
• Seeing patterns in noise: Gigaparsec-scale `structures' that do not violate homogeneity
• Information Entropy in Cosmology
• Is the Universe Homogeneous? (On Large Scales)
• Testing the isotropy of the Universe by using the JLA compilation of type-Ia supernovae
• The 2-10 keV XRB dipole and its cosmological implications
• Fractal correlations in the CfA2-South redshift survey
• Direct Minkowski Functional analysis of large redshift surveys: a new high--speed code tested on the luminous red galaxy Sloan Digital Sky Survey-DR7 catalogue
• Large-scale Cosmic Homogeneity from a Multifractal Analysis of the PSCz Catalogue
• The Scale of Cosmic Isotropy
• Very large scale correlations in the galaxy distribution
• Accelerated expansion without dark energy
• Breaking the self-averaging properties of spatial galaxy fluctuations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - Data Release Six
• Power law correlations in galaxy distribution and finite volume effects from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Four
• Direction Dependence in Supernova Data: Constraining Isotropy
• The scale of homogeneity in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey
• Testing homogeneity in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Twelve with Shannon entropy
• A method for testing the cosmic homogeneity with Shannon entropy
• Relative information entropy and Weyl curvature of the inhomogeneous Universe
• Probing large scale homogeneity and periodicity in the LRG distribution using Shannon entropy
• Compatibility of the Large Quasar Groups with the Concordance Cosmological Model
• Search for a direction in the forest of Lyman-$\alpha$

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Lecture Notes in Cosmology
• Measuring the scale of cosmic homogeneity with SDSS-IV DR14 quasars
• Cosmic homogeneity: a spectroscopic and model-independent measurement
• Polarized anisotropic spectral distortions of the CMB: Galactic and extragalactic constraints on photon-axion conversion
• Measuring the cosmic homogeneity scale with SDSS-IV DR16 Quasars
• Cosmological homogeneity scale estimates are dressed
• Testing homogeneity of the galaxy distribution in the SDSS using Renyi entropy
• The maximum extent of the filaments and sheets in the cosmic web: an analysis of the SDSS DR17
• A new method to probe the mass density and the cosmological constant using configuration entropy
• Can the angular scale of cosmic homogeneity be used as a cosmological test?