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Optimizing baryon acoustic oscillation surveys - I. Testing the concordance ΛCDM cosmology

Parkinson, David ; Blake, Chris ; Kunz, Martin ; Bassett, Bruce A. ; Nichol, Robert C. ; Glazebrook, Karl

In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007, vol. 377, no. 1, p. 185-197

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    Titre
    • Optimizing baryon acoustic oscillation surveys - I. Testing the concordance ΛCDM cosmology
    Auteur
    • Parkinson, David. Astronomy Centre, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QH
    • Blake, Chris. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of British Columbia, 6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1
    • Kunz, Martin. Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Geneva, 24 quai Ernest Ansermet, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland
    • Bassett, Bruce A.. Institute of Cosmology & Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth P01 2EG
    • Nichol, Robert C.. Institute of Cosmology & Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth P01 2EG
    • Glazebrook, Karl. Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
    Type de document
    • Postprint
    Langue
    • Anglais
    Publié dans
    • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007, vol. 377, no. 1, p. 185-197. Blackwell Publishing Ltd
    Autre version électronique
    Identifiant OAI-PMH
    • oai:doc.rero.ch:302090
    Summary
    We optimize the design of future spectroscopic redshift surveys for constraining the dark energy via precision measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs), with particular emphasis on the design of the Wide-Field Multi-Object Spectrograph. We develop a model that predicts the number density of possible target galaxies as a function of exposure time and redshift. We use this number counts model together with fitting formulae for the accuracy of the BAO measurements to determine the effectiveness of different surveys and instrument designs. We search through the available survey parameter space to find the optimal survey with respect to the dark energy equation-of-state parameters according to the Dark Energy Task Force Figure-of-Merit, including predictions of future measurements from the Planck satellite. We optimize the survey to test the Lambda cold dark matter model, assuming that galaxies are pre-selected using photometric redshifts to have a constant number density with redshift, and using a non-linear cut-off for the matter power spectrum that evolves with redshift. We find that line-emission galaxies are strongly preferred as targets over continuum emission galaxies. The optimal survey covers a redshift range 0.8 < z < 1.4, over the widest possible area (6000 deg2 from 1500 h observing time). The most efficient number of fibres for the spectrograph is 2000, and the survey performance continues to improve with the addition of extra fibres until a plateau is reached at 10 000 fibres. The optimal point in the survey parameter space is not highly peaked and is not significantly affected by including constraints from upcoming supernovae surveys and other BAO experiments