title: Cosmology with void-galaxy correlations.
abstract: Galaxy bias, the unknown relationship between the clustering of galaxies and the underlying dark matter density field is a major hurdle for cosmological inference from large-scale structure. While traditional analyses focus on the absolute clustering amplitude of high-density regions mapped out by galaxy surveys, we propose a relative measurement that compares those to the underdense regions, cosmic voids. On the basis of realistic mock catalogs we demonstrate that cross correlating galaxies and voids opens up the possibility to calibrate galaxy bias and to define a static ruler thanks to the observable geometric nature of voids. We illustrate how the clustering of voids is related to mass compensation and show that volume-exclusion significantly reduces the degree of stochasticity in their spatial distribution. Extracting the spherically averaged distribution of galaxies inside voids from their cross correlations reveals a remarkable concordance with the mass-density profile of voids.
authors.affiliation: Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Univ Paris 06), 75014 Paris, France and Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Nico
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hamaus
authors.affiliation: Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Univ Paris 06), 75014 Paris, France and Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Benjamin D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Wandelt
authors.affiliation: Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Univ Paris 06), 75014 Paris, France and Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA and Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA.
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Sutter
authors.affiliation: Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS - Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Univ Paris 06), 75014 Paris, France and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada and Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada and Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H8, Canada.
authors.forename: Guilhem
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lavaux
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
authors.forename: Michael S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Warren