Precision cosmology with voids: definition, methods, dynamics

Author: Lavaux Guilhem   Wandelt Benjamin D.  

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISSN: 0035-8711

Source: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol.403, Iss.3, 2010-04, pp. : 1392-1408

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Abstract

ABSTRACTWe propose a new definition of cosmic voids based on methods of Lagrangian orbit reconstruction as well as an algorithm to find them in actual data called DynamIcal Void Analysis. Our technique is intended to yield results which can be modelled sufficiently accurately to create a new probe of precision cosmology. We then develop an analytical model of the ellipticity of voids found by our method based on the Zel'dovich approximation. We measure in N-body simulation that this model is precise at the ∼0.1 per cent level for the mean ellipticity of voids of size greater than ∼4 h−1 Mpc . We estimate that at this scale we are able to predict the ellipticity with an accuracy of σɛ∼ 0.02 . Finally, we compare the distribution of void shapes in N-body simulation for two different equations of state w of the dark energy. We conclude that our method is far more accurate than Eulerian methods and is therefore promising as a precision probe of dark energy phenomenology.

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