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The quasi-linear nearby Universe

Nature Astronomy volume 2, pages 680–687 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

The local Universe provides a unique opportunity for testing cosmology and theories of structure formation. As the velocities of galaxies respond to the distribution of matter—both visible and dark—the velocity field provides structural information. Here, we present an original method for the reconstruction of the quasi-linear matter density and velocity fields from galaxy peculiar velocities and apply it to the Cosmicflows-2 database of velocites. The method consists of constructing an ensemble of cosmological simulations, constrained by the standard cosmological model and the observational data. The quasi-linear density field is the geometric mean and variance of the fully nonlinear density fields of the simulations. The main nearby clusters (Virgo, Centaurus and Coma), superclusters (Shapley and Perseus–Pisces) and voids (Dipole Repeller) are robustly reconstructed. Galaxies are born ‘biased‘ with respect to the underlying dark matter distribution. Using our quasi-linear framework, we demonstrate that the luminosity-weighted density field derived from the 2M++ redshift compilations is nonlinearly biased with respect to the matter density field. The bias diminishes in the linear regime.

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Fig. 1: Three-dimensional visualization of the density field by means of isosurfaces.
Fig. 2: Contour maps of the QL density field and its statistical uncertainty.
Fig. 3: Comparison of the QL, 2M++ raw and the 2M++ bias-free density fields.
Fig. 4: Comparison and probability distribution functions of the raw and bias-free 2M++ and QL density fields.
Fig. 5: Bias power index α plotted against the Gaussian smoothing length, Rs.
Fig. 6: Local Group-centric spherical mean densities as a function of depth.
Fig. 7: Virgocentric density and velocity profiles.

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Acknowledgements

The help provided by G. Lavaux in using the 2M++ density field is highly appreciated. A. Nusser is gratefully acknowledged for careful reading of the paper and critical remarks. Support has been provided by the Israel Science Foundation (1013/12), Institut Universitaire de France, US National Science Foundation, Space Telescope Science Institute (observations with Hubble Space Telescope), Jet Propulsion Lab (observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope) and NASA (analysis of data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer). J.G.S. acknowledges support from the Astronomy ESFRI and Research Infrastructure Cluster ASTERICS project, funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme (GA 653477), as well as from the l′Oréal-UNESCO Pour les Femmes et la Science and Centre National d′Études Spatiales postdoctoral fellowship programmes. G.Y. thanks MINECO/FEDER (Spain) for financial support under project grant AYA2015-63810-P. We thank the Red Española de Supercomputación for granting us computing time using the MareNostrum Supercomputer at the BSC-CNS where the simulations used for this paper were performed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

    Yehuda Hoffman & Edoardo Carlesi

  2. Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), Potsdam, Germany

    Edoardo Carlesi, Stefan Gottlöber, Noam I. Libeskind & Jenny G. Sorce

  3. Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l’Univers, CEA Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Daniel Pomarède

  4. Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA

    R. Brent Tully

  5. Université de Lyon, Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS/IN2P3, IPNL, France

    Hélène M. Courtois

  6. Univ. Lyon, Univ. Lyon1, Ens de Lyon, CNRS, Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon UMR 5574, Saint-Genis-Laval, France

    Jenny G. Sorce

  7. Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg, UMR 7550, Strasbourg, France

    Jenny G. Sorce

  8. Departamento de Fsica Teórica and CIAFF, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Gustavo Yepes

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Contributions

Y.H. and S.G. analysed the simulations. Y.H., D.P. and R.B.T. analysed the cosmography. Y.H. and D.P. prepared the figures. E.C. ran numerical simulations. D.P. produced the online visualization. R.B.T and H.M.C. prepared the CF2 data. Y.H. wrote the manuscript, with contributions from all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Yehuda Hoffman.

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Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Figures 1–4 with links to a video and Sketchfab visualization

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Hoffman, Y., Carlesi, E., Pomarède, D. et al. The quasi-linear nearby Universe. Nat Astron 2, 680–687 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0502-4

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