The Linear Point Standard Ruler for galaxy survey data: validation with mock catalogues

Abstract

Due to late time non-linearities, the location of the acoustic peak in the two-point galaxy correlation function is a redshift-dependent quantity, thus it cannot be simply employed as a cosmological standard ruler. This has motivated the recent proposal of a novel ruler, also located in the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation range of scales of the correlation function, dubbed the "linear point". Unlike the peak, it is insensitive at the $0.5\%$ level to many of the non-linear effects that distort the clustering correlation function and shift the peak. However, this is not enough to make the linear point a useful standard ruler. In addition, we require a model-independent method to estimate its value from real data, avoiding the need to deploy a poorly known non-linear model of the correlation function. In this manuscript, we precisely validate a procedure for model-independent estimation of the linear point. We also identify the optimal set-up to estimate the linear point from the correlation function using galaxy catalogs. The methodology developed here is of general validity, and can be applied to any galaxy correlation-function data. As a working example, we apply this procedure to the LOWZ and CMASS galaxy samples of the Twelfth Data Release (DR12) of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), for which the estimates of cosmic distances using the linear point have been presented in Anselmi et al. (2017) [1].

The real data distance constraints presented in the companion paper are improved: arXiv:1703.01275

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Cited by in corpus (16)

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• Cosmic distance inference from purely geometric BAO methods: Linear Point standard ruler and Correlation Function Model Fitting
• Sources of $H_0$-tensions in dark energy scenarios
• Linear Point and Sound Horizon as Purely Geometric standard rulers
• The effects of massive neutrinos on the linear point of the correlation function
• Cosmological forecasts for future galaxy surveys with the linear point standard ruler: Toward consistent BAO analyses far from a fiducial cosmology
• Optimal Transport Reconstruction of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
• A first model-independent radial BAO constraint from the final BOSS sample
• Bayesian evidence comparison for distance scale estimates
• Angular Correlation Function from sample covariance with BOSS and eBOSS LRG
• Cosmological constraints with the linear point from the BOSS survey
• Laguerre reconstruction of the correlation function on Baryon Acoustic Oscillation scales
• Cosmic voids and BAO with relative baryon-CDM perturbations
• Laguerre reconstruction of the BAO feature in halo-based mock galaxy catalogues