We measure the angular auto-correlation functions (w) of SDSS galaxies selected to have photometric redshifts 0.1 < z < 0.4 and absolute r-band magnitudes Mr < -21.2. We split these galaxies into five overlapping redshift shells of width 0.1 and measure w in each subsample in order to investigate the evolution of SDSS galaxies. We find that the bias increases substantially with redshift - much more so than one would expect for a passively evolving sample. We use halo-model analysis to determine the best-fit halo-occupation-distribution (HOD) for each subsample, and the best-fit models allow us to interpret the change in bias physically. In order to properly interpret our best-fit HODs, we convert each halo mass to its z = 0 passively evolved bias (bo), enabling a direct comparison of the best-fit HODs at different redshifts. We find that the minimum halo bo required to host a galaxy decreases as the redshift decreases, suggesting that galaxies with Mr < -21.2 are forming in halos at the low-mass end of the HODs over our redshift range. We use the best-fit HODs to determine the change in occupation number divided by the change in mass of halos with constant bo and we find a sharp peak at bo ~ 0.9 - corresponding to an average halo mass of ~ 10^12Msol/h. We thus present the following scenario: the bias of galaxies with Mr < -21.2 decreases as the Universe evolves because these galaxies form in halos of mass ~ 10^12Msol/h (independent of redshift), and the bias of these halos naturally decreases as the Universe evolves.
We measure the angular 2-point correlation functions of galaxies in a volume limited, photometrically selected galaxy sample from the fifth data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We split the sample both by luminosity and galaxy type and use a halo-model analysis to find halo-occupation distributions that can simultaneously model the clustering of all, early-, and late-type galaxies in a given sample. Our results for the full galaxy sample are generally consistent with previous results using the SDSS spectroscopic sample, taking the differences between the median redshifts of the photom…
The present paper analyses the quasar clustering using the two-point correlation function (2pCF) and the largest existing sample of photometrically selected quasars: the SDSS NBCKDE catalogue (from the SDSS DR6). A new technique of random catalogue generation was developed for this purpose, that allows to take into account the original homogeneity of the survey without knowledge of its imaging mask. When averaged over photometrical redshifts 0.8<z_phot<2.2 the 2pCF of photometrically selected quasars is found to be approximated well with the power law w(θ)=(θ/θ_0)^{-α} with θ_0=4".5+/-1".4, α=…
We present the cosmological analysis of 752 photometrically-classified Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) obtained from the full Sloan Digital Sky Survey II (SDSS-II) Supernova (SN) Survey, supplemented with host-galaxy spectroscopy from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Our photometric-classification method is based on the SN typing technique of Sako et al. (2011), aided by host galaxy redshifts (0.05<z<0.55). SNANA simulations of our methodology estimate that we have a SN Ia typing efficiency of 70.8%, with only 3.9% contamination from core-collapse (non-Ia) SNe. We demon…
We introduce a new photometric estimator of the HI mass fraction (M_HI/M_*) in local galaxies, which is a linear combination of four parameters: stellar mass, stellar surface mass density, NUV-r colour, and g-i colour gradient. It is calibrated using samples of nearby galaxies (0.025<z<0.05) with HI line detections from the GASS and ALFALFA surveys, and it is demonstrated to provide unbiased M_HI/M_* estimates even for HI-rich galaxies. We apply this estimator to a sample of ~24,000 galaxies from the SDSS/DR7 in the same redshift range. We then bin these galaxies by stellar mass and HI mass fr…
We measure the projected spatial correlation function w_p(r_p) from a large sample combining GALEX ultraviolet imaging with the SDSS spectroscopic sample. We study the dependence of the clustering strength for samples selected on (NUV - r)_abs color, specific star formation rate (SSFR), and stellar mass. We find that there is a smooth transition in the clustering of galaxies as a function of this color from weak clustering among blue galaxies to stronger clustering for red galaxies. The clustering of galaxies within the "green valley" has an intermediate strength, and is consistent with that e…
We perform a tomographic structure growth and expansion rate analysis using the monopole, quadrupole and hexadecapole of the redshift-space galaxy power spectrum derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 12 combined sample, which covers the redshift range of $0.20<z<0.75$. By allowing for overlap between neighbouring redshift slices in order to extract information on the light-cone, we successfully obtain joint BAO and RSD constraints with a precision of $2-3\%$ for $D_A$, $3-10\%$ for $H$ and $9-12\%$ for $fσ_8$ with a red…
Using a void catalog from the SDSS survey, we present the first measurements of void clustering and the corresponding void bias. Over the range 30-200 Mpc/h the void auto-correlation is detected at 5-sigma significance for voids of radius 15-20 Mpc/h. We also measure the void-galaxy cross-correlation at higher signal-to-noise and compare the inferred void bias with the autocorrelation results. Void bias is constant with scale for voids of a given size, but its value falls from 5.6 +/- 1.0 to below zero as the void radius increases from 15 to 30 Mpc/h. The comparison of our measurements with ca…
Context: The huge and still rapidly growing amount of galaxies in modern sky surveys raises the need of an automated and objective classification method. Unsupervised learning algorithms are of particular interest, since they discover classes automatically. Aims: We briefly discuss the pitfalls of oversimplified classification methods and outline an alternative approach called "clustering analysis". Methods: We categorise different classification methods according to their capabilities. Based on this categorisation, we present a probabilistic classification algorithm that automatically detects…
Clustering of dark matter halos has been shown to depend on halo properties beyond mass such as halo concentration, a phenomenon referred to as halo assembly bias. Standard halo occupation models (HOD) in large scale structure studies assume that halo mass alone is sufficient in characterizing the connection between galaxies and halos. Modeling of galaxy clustering can face systematic effects if the number of galaxies within a halo is correlated with other halo properties. Using the Small MultiDark-Planck high resolution $N$-body simulation and the clustering measurements of the Sloan Digital …
Distances to the $k$-nearest-neighbor ($k$NN) data points from volume-filling query points are a sensitive probe of spatial clustering. Here we present the first application of $k$NN summary statistics to observational clustering measurement, using the 1000 richest redMaPPer clusters ($0.1\leqslant z\leqslant 0.3$) from the SDSS DR8 catalog. A clustering signal is defined as a difference in the cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) of $k$NN distances from fixed query points to the observed clusters versus a set of unclustered random points. We find that the $k=1,2$-NN CDFs of redMaPPer devi…
The cosmological information contained in anisotropic galaxy clustering measurements can often be compressed into a small number of parameters whose posterior distribution is well described by a Gaussian. We present a general methodology to combine these estimates into a single set of consensus constraints that encode the total information of the individual measurements, taking into account the full covariance between the different methods. We illustrate this technique by applying it to combine the results obtained from different clustering analyses, including measurements of the signature of …
We use Shen et al.'s (2009) measurements of luminosity-dependent clustering in the SDSS Data Release 5 Quasar Catalog, at redshifts 0.4 < z < 2.5, to constrain the relation between quasar luminosity and host halo mass and to infer the duty cycle f_opt, the fraction of black holes that shine as optically luminous quasars at a given time. We assume a monotonic mean relation between quasar luminosity and host halo mass, with log-normal scatter Σ. For specified f_opt and Σ, matching the observed quasar space density determines the normalization of the luminosity-halo mass relation, from which we p…
We use data from the SDSS to investigate the evolution of the large-scale galaxy bias as a function of luminosity for red galaxies. We carefully consider correlation functions of galaxies selected from both photometric and spectroscopic data, and cross-correlations between them, to obtain multiple measurements of the large-scale bias. We find, for our most robust analyses, a strong increase in bias with luminosity for the most luminous galaxies, an intermediate regime where bias does not evolve strongly over a range of two magnitudes in galaxy luminosity, and no evidence for an upturn in bias …
In current and future surveys, quasars play a key role. The new data will extend our knowledge of the Universe as it will be used to better constrain the cosmological model at redshift $z>1$ via baryon acoustic oscillation and redshift space distortion measurements. Here, we present the first clustering study of quasars observed by the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We measure the clustering of $\sim 70,000$ quasars located in the redshift range $0.9<z<2.2$ that cover 1,168 deg$^2$. We model the clustering and produce high-fidelity quasar mock catalogues based on the BigMult…
This is the third paper in a series that reports on our investigation of the clustering properties of AGNs identified in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). In this paper, we extend the redshift range to 0.07<z<0.50 and measure the clustering amplitudes of both X-ray and optically-selected SDSS broad-line AGNs with and without radio detections as well as for X-ray selected narrow-line RASS/SDSS AGNs. We measure the clustering amplitude through cross-correlation functions (CCFs) with SDSS galaxies and derive the bias by applying a halo occupation distribution (H…
We perform a tomographic analysis of structure growth and expansion rate from the anisotropic galaxy clustering of the combined sample of Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 12, which covers the redshift range of $0.2<z<0.75$. In order to extract the redshift information of anisotropic galaxy clustering, we analyse this data set in nine overlapping redshift slices in configuration space and perform the joint constraints on the parameters $(D_V, F_{\mathrm{AP}}, fσ_8)$ using the correlation function multipoles. The analysis pipeline is validated using the MultiDark-Patch…
We explore the cosmological implications of the angle-averaged correlation function, xi(s), and the clustering wedges, xi_perp(s) and xi_para(s), of the LOWZ and CMASS galaxy samples from Data Release 10 and 11 of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Our results show no significant evidence for a deviation from the standard LCDM model. The combination of the information from our clustering measurements with recent data from the cosmic microwave background is sufficient to constrain the curvature of the Universe to Omega_k = 0.0010 +- 0.0029, the total neutrino mass to Sum m_nu…
We present a measurement of the anisotropic and isotropic Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 14 quasar sample with optimal redshift weights. Applying the redshift weights improves the constraint on the BAO dilation parameter $α(z_{\rm eff})$ by 17\%. We reconstruct the evolution history of the BAO distance indicators in the redshift range of $0.8<z<2.2$. This paper is part of a set that analyses the eBOSS DR14 quasar sample.
We explore the benefits of using a passively evolving population of galaxies to measure the evolution of the rate of structure growth between z=0.25 and z=0.65 by combining data from the SDSS-I/II and SDSS-III surveys. The large-scale linear bias of a population of dynamically passive galaxies, which we select from both surveys, is easily modeled. Knowing the bias evolution breaks degeneracies inherent to other methodologies, and decreases the uncertainty in measurements of the rate of structure growth and the normalization of the galaxy power-spectrum by up to a factor of two. If we translate…
We present the distance measurement to z = 0.32 using the 11th data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Survey (BOSS). We use 313,780 galaxies of the low-redshift (LOWZ) sample over 7,341 square-degrees to compute $D_V = (1264 \pm 25)(r_d/r_{d,fid})$ - a sub 2% measurement - using the baryon acoustic feature measured in the galaxy two-point correlation function and power-spectrum. We compare our results to those obtained in DR10. We study observational systematics in the LOWZ sample and quantify potential effects due to photometric offsets between the northe…
We investigate the anisotropic clustering of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 12 (DR12) sample, which consists of $1\,198\,006$ galaxies in the redshift range $0.2 < z < 0.75$ and a sky coverage of $10\,252\,$deg$^2$. We analyse this dataset in Fourier space, using the power spectrum multipoles to measure Redshift-Space Distortions (RSD) simultaneously with the Alcock-Paczynski (AP) effect and the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale. We include the power spectrum monopole, quadrupole and hexadecapole in our analysis and compare our measurements with a perturb…
This work presents the application of a new tool, Obiwan , which uses image simulations to determine the selection function of a galaxy redshift survey and calculate 3-dimensional (3D) clustering statistics. This is a forward model of the process by which images of the night sky are transformed into a 3D large--scale structure catalog. The photometric pipeline automatically detects and models galaxies and then generates a catalog of such galaxies with detailed information for each one of them, including their location, redshift and so on. Systematic biases in the imaging data are therefore imp…
The traditional clustering analyses of galaxy redshift surveys compress the clustering data into a set of late-time physical variables in a model-independent way. This approach has recently been extended by an additional shape variable encoding early-time physics information. We apply this new technique, ShapeFit, to SDSS-III BOSS data and show that it matches the constraining power of alternative, model-dependent approaches, which directly constrain the model's parameters adopting a cosmological model ab-initio. ShapeFit is $\sim30$ times faster, model-independent, naturally splits early- and…
We explore the cosmological implications of anisotropic clustering measurements of the quasar sample from Data Release 14 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) in configuration space. The $\sim 147,000$ quasar sample observed by eBOSS offers a direct tracer of the density field and bridges the gap of previous BAO measurements between redshift $0.8<z<2.2$. By analysing the two-point correlation function characterized by clustering wedges $ξ_{\rm w_i}(s)$ and multipoles $ξ_{\ell}(s)$, we measure the angular diameter distance, Hubble parameter…
We extend the real-space mapping method developed in Shi et at. (2016) so that it can be applied to flux-limited galaxy samples. We use an ensemble of mock catalogs to demonstrate the reliability of this extension, showing that it allows for an accurate recovery of the real-space correlation functions and galaxy biases. We also demonstrate that, using an iterative method applied to intermediate-scale clustering data, we can obtain an unbiased estimate of the growth rate of structure $fσ_8$, which is related to the clustering amplitude of matter, to an accuracy of $\sim 10\%$. Applying this met…
We present measurements of the local primordial non-Gaussianity parameter \fNLloc from the clustering of 343,708 quasars with redshifts 0.8 < z < 2.2 distributed over 4808 square degrees from the final data release (DR16) of the extended Baryon acoustic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), the largest volume spectroscopic survey up to date. Our analysis is performed in Fourier space, using the power spectrum monopole at very large scales to constrain the scale dependent halo bias. We carefully assess the impact of systematics on our measurement and test multiple contamination removal meth…
We perform the first fit to the anisotropic clustering of SDSS-III CMASS DR10 galaxies on scales of ~ 0.8 - 32 Mpc/h. A standard halo occupation distribution model evaluated near the best fit Planck LCDM cosmology provides a good fit to the observed anisotropic clustering, and implies a normalization for the peculiar velocity field of M ~ 2 x 10^13 Msun/h halos of f*sigma8(z=0.57) = 0.450 +/- 0.011. Since this constraint includes both quasi-linear and non-linear scales, it should severely constrain modified gravity models that enhance pairwise infall velocities on these scales. Though model de…
We analyze the three-year SDSS-II Superernova (SN) Survey data and identify a sample of 1070 photometric SN Ia candidates based on their multi-band light curve data. This sample consists of SN candidates with no spectroscopic confirmation, with a subset of 210 candidates having spectroscopic redshifts of their host galaxies measured, while the remaining 860 candidates are purely photometric in their identification. We describe a method for estimating the efficiency and purity of photometric SN Ia classification when spectroscopic confirmation of only a limited sample is available, and demonstr…
The mapping between the distributions of the observed galaxy stellar mass and the underlying dark matter halos provides the crucial link from theories of large-scale structure formation to interpreting the complex phenomena of galaxy formation and evolution. We develop a novel statistical method, based on the Halo Occupation Distribution model (HOD), to solve for this mapping by jointly fitting the galaxy clustering and the galaxy-galaxy lensing measured from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The method, called the iHOD model, extracts maximum information from the survey by including ~80% m…
We explore the cosmological implications of anisotropic clustering measurements in configuration space of the final galaxy samples from Data Release 12 of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We implement a new detailed modelling of the effects of non-linearities, galaxy bias and redshift-space distortions that can be used to extract unbiased cosmological information from our measurements for scales $s \gtrsim 20\,h^{-1}{\rm Mpc}$. We combined the galaxy clustering information from BOSS with the latest cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations and Type Ia supernovae sampl…
We study the dependence of quasar clustering on quasar luminosity and black hole mass by measuring the angular overdensity of photometrically selected galaxies imaged by WISE about z $\sim$ 0.8 quasars from SDSS. By measuring the quasar-galaxy cross-correlation function and using photometrically selected galaxies, we achieve a higher density of tracer objects and a more sensitive detection of clustering than measurements of the quasar autocorrelation function. We test models of quasar formation and evolution by measuring the luminosity dependence of clustering amplitude. We find a significant …
We explore the cosmological implications of the clustering wedges, xi_perp(s) and xi_para(s), of the CMASS Data Release 9 (DR9) sample of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). These clustering wedges are defined by averaging the full two-dimensional correlation function, xi(mu,s), over the ranges 0<mu<0.5 and 0.5<mu<1, respectively. These measurements allow us to constrain the parameter combinations D_A(z)/r_s(z_d)=9.03 +- 0.21 and cz/(r_s(z_d)H(z)) = 12.14 +- 0.43 at the mean redsfhit of the sample, z=0.57. We combine the information from the clustering wedges with recent measur…
Improvement in the precision of measurements of cosmological parameters with Type Ia Supernovae (SNIa) is expected to come from large photometrically identified (photometric) SN samples. Here we re-analyse the SDSS photometric SN sample, with roughly 700 high-quality, likely but unconfirmed SNIa light-curves, to develop new analysis tools aimed at evaluating systematic uncertainties on the dark energy equation-of-state parameter $w$. Since we require a spectroscopically measured host galaxy redshift for each SN, we determine the associated selection efficiency of host galaxies in order to simu…
We measure the growth rate and its evolution using the anisotropic clustering of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) Data Release 14 (DR14) quasar sample, which includes $148\,659$ quasars covering the wide redshift range of $0.8 < z < 2.2$ and a sky area of $2112.90$ $\rm deg^2$. To optimise measurements we deploy a redshift-dependent weighting scheme, which allows us to avoid binning, and perform the data analysis consistently including the redshift evolution across the sample. We perform the analysis in Fourier space, and use the redshift evolving power spectrum mul…
We probe the higher-order galaxy clustering in the final data release (DR12) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) using germ-grain Minkowski Functionals (MFs). Our data selection contains $979,430$ BOSS galaxies from both the northern and southern galactic caps over the redshift range $z=0.2 - 0.6$. We extract the higher-order part of the MFs, detecting the deviation from the purely Gaussian case with $χ^2 \sim \mathcal{O}(10^3)$ on 24 degrees of freedom across the entire data selection. We measure significant redshift evolution in the higher-order fun…
The reconstruction algorithm introduced by \cite{Eis07}, which is widely used in clustering analysis, is based on the inference of the first order Lagrangian displacement field from the Gaussian smoothed galaxy density field in redshift space. The \modif2{smoothing scale} applied to the density field affects the inferred displacement field that is used to move {the galaxies}, and partially \modif2{erases} the nonlinear evolution {of the density field}. In this article, we explore this crucial step \modif2{in} the reconstruction algorithm. We study the performance of the reconstruction techniqu…
We present a fast method of producing mock galaxy catalogues that can be used to compute covariance matrices of large-scale clustering measurements and test the methods of analysis. Our method populates a 2nd-order Lagrangian Perturbation Theory (2LPT) matter field, where we calibrate masses of dark matter halos by detailed comparisons with N-body simulations. We demonstrate the clustering of halos is recovered at ~10 per cent accuracy. We populate halos with mock galaxies using a Halo Occupation Distribution (HOD) prescription, which has been calibrated to reproduce the clustering measurement…
We probe the higher-order clustering of the galaxies in the final data release (DR12) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) using the method of germ-grain Minkowski Functionals (MFs). Our sample consists of 410,615 BOSS galaxies from the northern Galactic cap in the redshift range 0.450--0.595. We show the MFs to be sensitive to contributions up to the six-point correlation function for this data set. We ensure with a custom angular mask that the results are more independent of boundary effects than in previous analyses of this type. We extract the high…
We create a sample of spectroscopically identified galaxies with $z < 0.2$ from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7, covering 6813 deg$^2$. Galaxies are chosen to sample the highest mass haloes, with an effective bias of 1.5, allowing us to construct 1000 mock galaxy catalogs (described in Paper II), which we use to estimate statistical errors and test our methods. We use an estimate of the gravitational potential to "reconstruct" the linear density fluctuations, enhancing the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) signal in the measured correlation function and power spectrum. Fitti…
We measure the two-point clustering of spectroscopically confirmed quasars from the final sample of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) on comoving scales of 4 < s < 22 Mpc/h. The sample covers 6950 deg^2 (~ 19 (Gpc/h)^3) and, over the redshift range 2.2 < z < 2.8, contains 55,826 homogeneously selected quasars, which is twice as many as in any similar work. We deduce b_Q = 3.54 +/- 0.10 ; the most precise measurement of quasar bias to date at these redshifts. This corresponds to a host halo mass of ~ 2 x 10^12 ~ M_sun/h with an implied quasar duty cycle of ~1 percent. The real-…
We present measurements of the anisotropic galaxy clustering from the Data Release 9 (DR9) CMASS sample of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). We analyze the broad-range shape of the monopole and quadrupole correlation functions to obtain constraints, at the effective redshift $z=0.57$ of the sample, on the Hubble expansion rate $H(z)$, the angular-diameter distance $D_A(z)$, the normalized growth rate $f(z)σ_8(z)$, the physical matter density $Ω_m h^2$, and the biased amplitude of matter fluctuation bσ_8(z). We obtain {$H(0.57)$, $D_A(0.57)$, $f(0.57)σ_8(0.57)$, $Ω_m …
We study the first year of the eBOSS quasar sample in the redshift range $0.9<z<2.2$ which includes 68,772 homogeneously selected quasars. We show that the main source of systematics in the evaluation of the correlation function arises from inhomogeneities in the quasar target selection, particularly related to the extinction and depth of the imaging data used for targeting. We propose a weighting scheme that mitigates these systematics. We measure the quasar correlation function and provide the most accurate measurement to date of the quasar bias in this redshift range, $b_Q = 2.45 \pm 0.05$ …
We measure the luminosity and color dependence and the redshift evolution of galaxy clustering in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Ninth Data Release. We focus on the projected two-point correlation function (2PCF) of subsets of its CMASS sample, which includes about 260,000 galaxies over ~3,300 sq. deg in the redshift range 0.43<z<0.7. To minimize the selection effect on galaxy clustering, we construct well-defined luminosity and color subsamples by carefully accounting for the CMASS galaxy selection cuts. The 2PCF of the whole CMASS sample, if approxim…
Recent studies have shown that the cross-correlation coefficient between galaxies and dark matter is very close to unity on scales outside a few virial radii of galaxy halos, independent of the details of how galaxies populate dark matter halos. This finding makes it possible to determine the dark matter clustering from measurements of galaxy-galaxy weak lensing and galaxy clustering. We present new cosmological parameter constraints based on large-scale measurements of spectroscopic galaxy samples from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7). We generalise the approach of Bal…
We analyze the density field of galaxies observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) included in the SDSS Data Release Nine (DR9). DR9 includes spectroscopic redshifts for over 400,000 galaxies spread over a footprint of 3,275 deg^2. We identify, characterize, and mitigate the impact of sources of systematic uncertainty on large-scale clustering measurements, both for angular moments of the redshift-space correlation function and the spherically averaged power spectrum, P(k), in order to ensure that robust cosmological constraints will be …
We construct new galaxy angular power spectra based on the extended, updated and final SDSS II Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) photometric redshift survey: MegaZ DR7. Encapsulating 7746 deg^{2} we utilise 723,556 photometrically determined LRGs between 0.45 < z < 0.65 in a 3.3 (Gpc h^{-1})^3 spherical harmonic analysis of the galaxy distribution. By combining four photometric redshift bins we find preliminary parameter constraints of f_{b} = Ω_{b}/Ω_{m} = 0.173 +/- 0.046 and Ω_{m} = 0.260 +/- 0.035 assuming H_{0} = 75 km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1}, n_{s}=1 and Ω_{k} = 0. These limits are consistent with the CM…
With the largest spectroscopic galaxy survey volume drawn from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), we can extract cosmological constraints from the measurements of redshift and geometric distortions at quasi-linear scales (e.g. above 50 $h^{-1}$Mpc). We analyze the broad-range shape of the monopole and quadrupole correlation functions of the BOSS Data Release 12 (DR12) CMASS galaxy sample, at the effective redshift $z=0.59$, to obtain constraints on the Hubble expansion rate $H(z)$, the angular-diameter distance $D_A(z)$, the normalized growth rate $f(z)σ_8(z)$, and th…
We present baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale measurements determined from the clustering of 1.2 million massive galaxies with redshifts 0.2 < z < 0.75 distributed over 9300 square degrees, as quantified by their redshift-space correlation function. In order to facilitate these measurements, we define, describe, and motivate the selection function for galaxies in the final data release (DR12) of the SDSS III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This includes the observational footprint, masks for image quality and Galactic extinction, and weights to account for density relation…
Cosmology and Source Redshift Constraints from Galaxy Clustering and Tomographic Weak Lensing with HSC Y3 and SDSS using the Point-Mass Correction Model
We present one thousand mock galaxy catalogues for the analysis of the Low Redshift Sample (LOWZ, effective redshift z ~ 10.32) of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Releases 10 and 11. These mocks have been created following the PTHalos method of Manera13 et al. (2013) revised to include new developments. The main improvement is the introduction of a redshift dependence in the Halo Occupation Distribution in order to account for the change of the galaxy number density with redshift. These mock catalogues are used in the analyses of the LOWZ galaxy clustering by the BOSS collabor…
We analyze the anisotropic clustering of massive galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 9 (DR9) sample, which consists of 264,283 galaxies in the redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.7 spanning 3,275 square degrees. Both peculiar velocities and errors in the assumed redshift-distance relation ("Alcock-Paczynski effect") generate correlations between clustering amplitude and orientation with respect to the line-of-sight. Together with the sharp baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) standard ruler, our measurements of the broadband shape of …
We investigate the clustering properties of ~1550 broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at <z>=0.25 detected in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) through their measured cross-correlation function with ~46,000 Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. By measuring the cross-correlation of our AGN sample with a larger tracer set of LRGs, we both minimize shot noise errors due to the relatively small AGN sample size and avoid systematic errors due to the spatially varying Galactic absorption that would affect direct measurements of the auto-correlation function (ACF) of the A…
We reproduce the galaxy clustering catalogue from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Final Data Release (BOSS DR11&DR12) with high fidelity on all relevant scales in order to allow a robust analysis of baryon acoustic oscillations and redshift space distortions. We have generated (6,000) 12,288 MultiDark PATCHY BOSS (DR11) DR12 light-cones corresponding to an effective volume of $\sim192,000\,[h^{-1}\,{\rm Gpc}]^3$ (the largest ever simulated volume), including cosmic evolution in the redshift range from 0.15 to 0.75. The mocks have been calibrated using a reference galaxy ca…
We measure the small-scale clustering of the Data Release 16 extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Luminous Red Galaxy sample, corrected for fibre-collisions using Pairwise Inverse Probability weights, which give unbiased clustering measurements on all scales. We fit to the monopole and quadrupole moments and to the projected correlation function over the separation range $7-60\,h^{-1}$Mpc with a model based on the Aemulus cosmological emulator to measure the growth rate of cosmic structure, parameterized by $fσ_8$. We obtain a measurement of $fσ_8(z=0.737)=0.408\pm0.038$, which is …
We search for a galaxy clustering bias due to a modulation of galaxy number with the baryon-dark matter relative velocity resulting from recombination-era physics. We find no detected signal and place the constraint $b_v < 0.01$ on the relative velocity bias for the CMASS galaxies. This bias is an important potential systematic of Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) method measurements of the cosmic distance scale using the 2-point clustering. Our limit on the relative velocity bias indicates a systematic shift of no more than $0.3\%$ rms in the distance scale inferred from the BAO feature in th…
We examine the correlation function ξof the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Luminous Red Galaxy sample (LRG) at large scales (60<s<400 Mpc/h) using the final data release (DR7; 105,831 LRGs between 0.16<z<0.47). Using mock catalogs, we demonstrate that the observed baryonic acoustic peak and larger scale signal are consistent with LCDM at the 1.5σlevel. The signal at 155<s<200 Mpc/h tends to be high relative to theoretical expectations; this slight deviation can be attributed to a bright subsample of the LRGs. Fitting data to a non-linear, redshift-space, template based-model, we constrain the…
We present high-fidelity cosmology results from a blinded joint analysis of galaxy-galaxy weak lensing ($Δ\!Σ$) and projected galaxy clustering ($w_{\rm p}$) measured from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Year-1 (HSC-Y1) data and spectroscopic Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxy catalogs in the redshift range $0.15<z<0.7$. We define luminosity-limited samples of SDSS galaxies to serve as the tracers of $w_{\rm p}$ in three spectroscopic redshift bins, and as the lens samples for $Δ\!Σ$. For the $Δ\!Σ$ measurements, we select a single sample of 4 million source galaxies over 140 deg$^2$ from HSC-Y1 wit…
We simultaneously constrain cosmology and galaxy bias using measurements of galaxy abundances, galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We use the conditional luminosity function (which describes the halo occupation statistics as function of galaxy luminosity) combined with the halo model (which describes the non-linear matter field in terms of its halo building blocks) to describe the galaxy-dark matter connection. We explicitly account for residual redshift space distortions in the projected galaxy-galaxy correlation functions, and marginalize over…
We present the data release of the Uchuu-SDSS galaxies: a set of 32 high-fidelity galaxy lightcones constructed from the large Uchuu 2.1 trillion particle $N$-body simulation using Planck cosmology. We adopt subhalo abundance matching to populate the Uchuu-box halo catalogues with SDSS galaxy luminosities. These cubic box galaxy catalogues generated at several redshifts are combined to create the set of lightcones with redshift-evolving galaxy properties. The Uchuu-SDSS galaxy lightcones are built to reproduce the footprint and statistical properties of the SDSS main galaxy survey, along with …
