The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: mapping the distance–redshift relation with baryon acoustic oscillations

Creators: Blake, Chris; Forster, Karl; Martin, D. Christopher; Wyder, Ted K.

Abstract

We present measurements of the baryon acoustic peak at redshifts z= 0.44, 0.6 and 0.73 in the galaxy correlation function of the final data set of the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. We combine our correlation function with lower redshift measurements from the 6-degree Field Galaxy Survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey, producing a stacked survey correlation function in which the statistical significance of the detection of the baryon acoustic peak is 4.9σ relative to a zero-baryon model with no peak. We fit cosmological models to this combined baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) data set comprising six distance–redshift data points, and compare the results with similar cosmological fits to the latest compilation of supernovae (SNe) and cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. The BAO and SNe data sets produce consistent measurements of the equation-of-state w of dark energy, when separately combined with the CMB, providing a powerful check for systematic errors in either of these distance probes. Combining all data sets we determine w=−1.03 ± 0.08 for a flat universe, consistent with a cosmological constant model. Assuming dark energy is a cosmological constant and varying the spatial curvature, we find Ω_k=−0.004 ± 0.006.

Additional Information

© 2011 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS. Accepted 2011 August 5. Received 2011 August 4; in original form 2011 July 1. Article first published online: 4 Oct. 2011. We thank the anonymous referee for careful and constructive comments that improved this study. We acknowledge financial support from the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project grants DP0772084 and DP1093738 funding the positions of SB, DP, MP, GP and TMD. SC and DC acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council through QEII Fellowships. MJD thanks the Gregg Thompson Dark Energy Travel Fund for financial support. We thank the LasDamas project for making their mock catalogues publicly available. In particular EK is much obliged to Cameron McBride for supplying mock catalogues on demand. EK also thanks Ariel S´anchez for fruitful lengthy discussions. EK was partially supported by a Google Research Award and NASA Award. FB is supported by the Australian Government through the International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) and by scholarships from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). GALEX is a NASA Small Explorer, launched in 2003 April. We gratefully acknowledge NASA's support for construction, operation and science analysis for the GALEX mission, developed in cooperation with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales of France and the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology. Finally, the WiggleZ survey would not be possible without the dedicated work of the staff of the Australian Astronomical Observatory in the development and support of the AAOmega spectrograph, and the running of the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT).

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