Large scale structures in the Early SDSS: Comparison of the North and South Galactic strips

Abstract

We compare the large scale galaxy clustering between the North and South SDSS early data release (EDR) and also with the clustering in the APM Galaxy Survey. The three samples are independent and cover an area of 150, 230 and 4300 square degrees respectively. We combine SDSS data in different ways to approach the APM selection. Given the good photometric calibration of the SDSS data and the very good match of its North and South number counts, we combine them in a single sample. The joint clustering is compared with equivalent subsamples in the APM. The final sampling errors are small enough to provide an independent test for some of the results in the APM. We find evidence for an inflection in the shape of the 2-point function in the SDSS which is very similar to what is found in the APM. This feature has been interpreted as evidence for non-linear gravitational growth. By studying higher order correlations, we can also confirm good agreement with the hypothesis of Gaussian initial conditions (and small biasing) for the structure traced by the large scale SDSS galaxy distribution.

10 pages, 16 figures, matches version accepted in ApJ, includes new analysis with seeing and extinction mask which explains North and South SDSS discrepancies. Also includes covariance analysis for 2-pt function. Main conclusions remain unchanged

References in corpus (10)

• Large-Scale Structure of the Universe and Cosmological Perturbation Theory
• Galaxy Clustering in Early SDSS Redshift Data
• Analysis of Systematic Effects and Statistical Uncertainties in Angular Clustering of Galaxies from Early SDSS Data
• Galaxy Number Counts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Commissioning Data
• The 3D Power Spectrum from Angular Clustering of Galaxies in Early SDSS Data
• The Angular Correlation Function of Galaxies from Early SDSS Data
• The Angular Power Spectrum of Galaxies from Early SDSS Data
• Gravity's smoking gun?
• 2-Point Moments in Cosmological Large Scale Structure: I. Theory and Comparison with Simulations
• Galaxy clustering in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) : A first comparison with the APM Galaxy Catalogue

Cited by in corpus (11)

• On Departures From a Power Law in the Galaxy Correlation Function
• Cosmology and the Bispectrum
• Galaxy Clustering and Galaxy Bias in a Lambda-CDM Universe
• Measurement of the gravitational potential evolution from the cross-correlation between WMAP and the APM Galaxy survey
• Clusters and Superclusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Galaxy Bias and Halo-Occupation Numbers from Large-Scale Clustering
• The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: higher order galaxy correlation functions
• The SDSS Galaxy Angular Two-Point Correlation Function
• 3-point temperature anisotropies in WMAP: Limits on CMB non-Gaussianities and non-linearities
• Correlation between galaxies and QSO in the SDSS:na signal from gravitational lensing magnification?
• Higher-Order Angular Galaxy Correlations in the SDSS: Redshift and Color Dependence of non-Linear Bias