Cosmology with photometric redshift surveys
Abstract
We explore the utility of future photometric redshift imaging surveys for delineating the large-scale structure of the Universe, and assess the resulting constraints on the cosmological model. We perform two complementary types of analysis: (1) We quantify the statistical confidence and accuracy with which such surveys will be able to detect and measure characteristic features in the clustering power spectrum such as the acoustic oscillations and the turnover, in a model-independent fashion. For example, we show that a 10000 sq deg imaging survey with depth r = 22.5 and photometric redshift accuracy dz/(1+z) = 0.03 will detect the acoustic oscillations with 99.9% confidence, measuring the associated cosmological scale with 2% precision. Such a survey will also detect the turnover with 95% confidence, determining the corresponding scale with 20% accuracy. (2) By assuming a Lambda-CDM cosmology we calculate the confidence with which a non-zero baryon fraction can be deduced from such future surveys. After marginalizing over the other cosmological parameters, we find that this analysis produces `acoustic oscillations detections' with statistical significances exceeding the above model-independent method by around 1.5-sigma. We also simulate the constraints on the running of the spectral index when these power spectrum data are combined with CMB measurements. We conclude that the precision with which the clustering pattern may be inferred from future photometric redshift surveys will be very competitive with contemporaneous spectroscopic surveys, and note that an analysis of Luminous Red Galaxies in the SDSS may yield a marginal detection of the acoustic oscillations.Keywords
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