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Galaxy clustering in the Two Micron All Sky Redshift Survey

Posted on:2008-11-09Degree:Ph.DType:Thesis
University:Harvard UniversityCandidate:Westover, MichaelFull Text:PDF
GTID:2440390005466891Subject:Physics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
To make cosmological measurements using the galaxy distribution we must first understand galaxy biasing the way in which the galaxy distribution differs from the underlying matter distribution. Here I present studies of galaxy biasing using the Two Micron All Sky Redshift Survey, a near-infrared selected survey not subject to many of the selection effects that limit other samples. The relationship between galaxy bias and luminosity is steeper for our near-infrared selected sample than it is for optical samples, with b/b * = 0.73 + 0.24L/L*. I found no dependence upon luminosity in the relative bias between early and late morphologically typed galaxies once the mean dependence of bias upon luminosity was removed.;I tested the relative biasing between early- and late-type galaxies using joint counts in cells. I found that a power law biasing model with bPL = 0.86--0.91 was a better fit than linear models. I did not see a significant increase in the quality of the fit when stochasticity was added to the model, in contrast with results from color- and spectral type-selected samples.;I tested the hierarchical scaling hypothesis and confirmed that the scale factors S3, S4, and S5 are independent of scale, as expected for a matter distribution evolved from Gaussian initial perturbations. There was no increase in the scale factors at large cell sizes as seen in some earlier surveys. I also measured the generalized dimensions Dq using a multifractal analysis and found smaller values than have been seen in optically-selected surveys and simulations, indicating that galaxies in the near-infrared selected sample may be more likely to reside in filamentary rather than sheet-like structures.
Keywords/Search Tags:Galaxy, Near-infrared selected, Using, Distribution, Biasing
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