Large-Scale Distribution of Total Mass versus Luminous Matter from Baryon Acoustic Oscillations: First Search in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 10.
Baryon acoustic oscillations in the early Universe are predicted to leave an as yet undetected signature on the relative clustering of total mass versus luminous matter. A detection of this effect would provide an important confirmation of the standard cosmological paradigm and constrain alternatives to dark matter as well as nonstandard fluctuations such as compensated isocurvature perturbations (CIPs). We conduct the first observational search for this effect, by comparing the number-weighted and luminosity-weighted correlation functions, using the SDSS-III BOSS Data Release 10 CMASS sample. When including CIPs in our model, we formally obtain evidence at 3.2σ of the relative clustering signature and a limit that matches the existing upper limits on the amplitude of CIPs. However, various tests suggest that these results are not yet robust, perhaps due to systematic biases in the data. The method developed in this Letter used with more accurate future data such as that from DESI, is likely to confirm or disprove our preliminary evidence.
Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
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Soumagnac
Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.|Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, Institut Lagrange de Paris, CNRS, UPMC Université Paris 06, UMR7095, 98 bis, Boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France.|Department of Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Denys Wilkinson Building, Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3RH, United Kingdom.
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Barkana
Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, 776, Daedeokdae-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-348, Korea.
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Sabiu
Astronomy Department, Harvard University, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
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Loeb
Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, The Ohio State University, 191 West Woodruff Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA.
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Ross
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E6BT, United Kingdom.|Department of Physics and Electronics, Rhodes University, PO Box 94, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa.
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Abdalla
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E6BT, United Kingdom.
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Balan
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E6BT, United Kingdom.
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Lahav