Model Selection using Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Final SDSS-IV Release

Abstract

The baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) peak, seen in the cosmic matter distribution at redshifts up to ~3.5, reflects the continued expansion of the sonic horizon first identified in temperature anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background. The BAO peak position can now be measured to better than ~1% accuracy using galaxies, and ~1.4-1.6% precision with Ly-alpha forrests and the clustering of quasars. In conjunction with the Alcock-Paczyński (AP) effect, which arises from the changing ratio of angular to spatial/redshift size of (presumed) spherically-symmetric source distributions with distance, the BAO measurement is viewed as one of the most powerful tools to use in assessing the geometry of the Universe. In this paper, we employ five BAO peak measurements from the final release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV, at average redshifts <z>=0.38, 0.51, 0.70, 1.48 and 2.33, to carry out a direct head-to-head comparison of the standard model, Lambda-CDM, and one of its principal competitors, known as the R_h=ct universe. For completeness, we complement the AP diagnostic with a volume-averaged distance probe that assumes a constant comoving distance scale r_d. Both probes are free of uncertain parameters, such as the Hubble constant, and are therefore ideally suited for this kind of model selection. We find that R_h=ct is favored by these measurements over the standard model based solely on the AP effect, with a likelihood ~75% versus ~25%, while Planck-Lambda-CDM is favored over R_h=ct based solely on the volume-averaged distance probe, with a likelihood ~80% versus ~20%. A joint analysis using both probes produces an inconclusive outcome, yielding comparable likelihoods to both models. We are therefore not able to confirm with this work that the BAO data, on their own, support an accelerating Universe.

arXiv commentaccepted to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys. D

References in corpus (26)

• Detection of the Baryon Acoustic Peak in the Large-Scale Correlation Function of SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies
• The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: cosmological analysis of the DR12 galaxy sample
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: Power-spectrum analysis of the final dataset and cosmological implications
• Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheid Standards Provide a 1% Foundation for the Determination of the Hubble Constant and Stronger Evidence for Physics Beyond LambdaCDM
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Cosmological Implications from two Decades of Spectroscopic Surveys at the Apache Point observatory
• Information criteria for astrophysical model selection
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyα forest of BOSS DR11 quasars
• The SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Overview and Early Data
• A 2% Distance to z=0.35 by Reconstructing Baryon Acoustic Oscillations - I : Methods and Application to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Quasar-Lyman $\alpha$ Forest Cross-Correlation from BOSS DR11 : Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
• Improving Cosmological Distance Measurements by Reconstruction of the Baryon Acoustic Peak
• Measurement of BAO correlations at $z=2.3$ with SDSS DR12 \lya-Forests
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: BAO and RSD measurements from anisotropic clustering analysis of the Quasar Sample in configuration space between redshift 0.8 and 2.2
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: measurement of the BAO and growth rate of structure of the luminous red galaxy sample from the anisotropic correlation function between redshifts 0.6 and 1
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: measurement of the BAO and growth rate of structure of the luminous red galaxy sample from the anisotropic power spectrum between redshifts 0.6 and 1.0
• The Completed SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: BAO and RSD measurements from the anisotropic power spectrum of the Quasar sample between redshift 0.8 and 2.2
• The R_h = ct Universe
• Acoustic Signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background
• The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the correlation function of LOWZ and CMASS galaxies in Data Release 12
• The SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations at redshift of 0.72 with the DR14 Luminous Red Galaxy Sample
• Cosmological Redshift Distortion of Correlation Functions as a Probe of the Density Parameter and the Cosmological Constant
• Cosmic Chronometers in the R_h=ct Universe
• The R_h=ct Universe Without Inflation
• A comparison of the R_h=ct and LCDM cosmologies using the Cosmic Distance Duality Relation
• Alcock-Paczynski Test with Model-independent BAO Data
• Viability of slow-roll inflation in light of the non-zero k_min measured in the CMB power spectrum

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Model Selection with Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyman-alpha Forest
• What if the universe expands linearly? A local general relativity to solve the "zero active mass" problem
• A Pop III generated dust screen at z~16
• Comparison of $\Lambda$CDM and $R_h=ct$ with updated galaxy cluster $f_{gas}$ measurements using Bayesian inference
• Distinct radial acceleration relations of galaxies and galaxy clusters supports hyperconical modified gravity