Clustering and Large-Scale Structure with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

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Abstract
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will provide a complete imaging and spectroscopic survey of the high-latitude northern sky. The 2D survey will image the sky in five colors and will contain nearly 5 x 107 galaxies to g ~ 23m. The spectroscopic survey will obtain spectra of the brightest 106 galaxies, 105 quasars, and 103.5 rich clusters of galaxies (to g~18.3-19.3m, respectively). I summarize some of the science opportunities that will be made possible by this survey for studying the clustering and large-scale structure of the universe. The survey will identify a complete sample of several thousand rich clusters of galaxies, both in 2D and 3D - the largest automated sample yet available. The extensive cluster sample can be used to determine critical clustering properties such as the luminosity-function, velocity-function, and mass-function of clusters of galaxies (a critical test for cosmological models), detailed cluster dynamics and W(dyn), the cluster correlation function and its dependence on richness, cluster evolution, superclustering and voids to the largest scales yet observed, the motions of clusters and their large-scale peculiar velocity field, as well as detailed correlations between x-ray and optical properties of clusters, the density-morphology relation, and cluster-quasar associations. The large redshift survey, reaching to a depth of 600h-1 Mpc, will accurately map the largest scales yet observed, determine the power-spectrum and correlation function on these large scales for different type galaxies, and study the clustering of quasars to high redshifts (z 4). The implications of the survey for cosmological models, the dark matter, and W are also discussed.
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