We present the catalogue, mask, redshift data and selection function for the PSCz survey of 15 411 IRAS galaxies across 84 per cent of the sky. Most of the IRAS data are taken from the Point Source Catalog, but this has been supplemented and corrected in various ways to improve the completeness and uniformity. We quantify the known imperfections in the catalogue, and we assess the overall uniformity, completeness and data quality. We find that overall the catalogue is complete and uniform to within a few per cent at high latitudes and 10 per cent at low latitudes. Ancillary information, access details, guidelines and caveats for using the catalogue are given.

We present a self-consistent non-parametric model of the local cosmic velocity field derived from the distribution of IRAS galaxies in the PSCz redshift survey. The survey has been analysed using two independent methods, both based on the assumptions of gravitational instability and linear biasing. The two methods, which give very similar results, have been tested and calibrated on mock PSCz catalogues constructed from cosmological N-body simulations. The denser sampling provided by the PSCz survey compared with previous IRAS galaxy surveys allows an improved reconstruction of the density and velocity fields out to large distances. The most striking feature of the model velocity field is a coherent large-scale streaming motion along the baseline connecting Perseus-Pisces, the Local Supercluster, the Great Attractor and the Shapley Concentration. We find no evidence for back-infall on to the Great Attractor. Instead, material behind and around the Great Attractor is inferred to be streaming towards the Shapley Concentration, aided by the compressional push of two large nearby underdensities. The PSCz model velocities compare well with those predicted from the 1.2-Jy redshift survey of IRAS galaxies and, perhaps surprisingly, with those predicted from the distribution of Abell/ACO clusters, out to 140h(-1)Mpc. Comparison of the real-space density fields (or, alternatively, the peculiar velocity fields) inferred from the PSCz and cluster catalogues gives a relative (linear) bias parameter between clusters and IRAS galaxies of b(c) = 4.4 +/- 0.6. Finally, we implement a likelihood analysis that uses all the available information on peculiar velocities in our local Universe to estimate beta = Omega(0)(0.6)/b = 0.6(-0.15)(+0.22) (1 sigma), where b is the bias parameter for IRAS galaxies

Particle physics has an ambitious and broad experimental programme for the coming decades. This programme requires large investments in detector hardware, either to build new facilities and experiments, or to upgrade existing ones. Similarly, it requires commensurate investment in the R&D of software to acquire, manage, process, and analyse the shear amounts of data to be recorded. In planning for the HL-LHC in particular, it is critical that all of the collaborating stakeholders agree on the software goals and priorities, and that the efforts complement each other. In this spirit, this white paper describes the R&D activities required to prepare for this software upgrade.

We investigate the topology of the new Point Source Catalogue Redshift Survey (PSCz) of IRAS galaxies by means of the genus statistic. The survey maps the local Universe with approximately 15 000 galaxies over 84.1 per cent of the sky, and provides an unprecedented number of resolution elements for the topological analysis. For comparison with the PSCz data we also examine the genus of large N‐body simulations of four variants of the cold dark matter (CDM) cosmogony. The simulations are part of the Virgo project to simulate the formation of structure in the Universe. We assume that the statistical properties of the galaxy distribution can be identified with those of the dark matter particles in the simulations. We extend the standard genus analysis by examining the influence of sampling noise on the genus curve and introducing a statistic able to quantify the amount of phase correlation present in the density field, the amplitude drop of the genus compared to a Gaussian field with identical power spectrum. The results for PSCz are consistent with the hypothesis of random‐phase initial conditions. In particular, no strong phase correlation is detected on scales ranging from 10 to 32 h−1 Mpc, whereas there is a positive detection of phase correlation at smaller scales. Among the simulations, phase correlations are detected in all models at small scales, albeit with different strengths. When scaled to a common normalization, the amplitude drop depends primarily on the shape of the power spectrum. We find that the constant‐bias standard CDM model can be ruled out at high significance, because the shape of its power spectrum is not consistent with PSCz. The other CDM models with more large‐scale power all fit the PSCz data almost equally well, with a slight preference for a high‐density τCDM model.

We compute the acceleration of the Local Group using 11 206 IRAS galaxies from the recently completed all-sky PSCz redshift survey. Measuring the acceleration vector in redshift space generates systematic uncertainties caused by the redshift-space distortions in the density field. We therefore assign galaxies to their real-space positions by adopting a non-parametric model for the velocity field that relies solely on the linear gravitational instability (GI) and linear biasing hypotheses. Remaining systematic contributions to the measured acceleration vector are corrected for by using PSCz mock catalogues from N-body experiments. The resulting acceleration vector points similar to 15 degrees away from the CMB dipole apex, with a remarkable alignment between small- and large-scale contributions. A considerable fraction (similar to 65 per cent) of the measured acceleration is generated within 40 h(-1) Mpc, with a nonnegligible contribution from scales between 90 and 140 h(-1) Mpc, after which the acceleration amplitude seems to have converged. The local group acceleration from PSCz appears to be consistent with the one determined from the IRAS 1.2-Jy galaxy catalogue once the different contributions from shot noise have been taken into account. The results are consistent with the gravitational instability hypothesis and do not indicate any strong deviations from the linear biasing relation on large scales. A maximum-likelihood analysis of the cumulative PSCz dipole is performed within a radius of 150 h(-1) Mpc, in which we account for non-linear effects, shot noise and finite sample size. The aim is to constrain the beta = Omega(0.6)/b parameter and the power spectrum of density fluctuations. We obtain beta = 0.70(-0.2)(+0.35) at 1 sigma confidence level. The likelihood analysis is not very sensitive to the shape of the power spectrum, because of the rise in the amplitude of the dipole beyond 40 h(-1) Mpc and the increase in shot noise on large scales. There is, however, a weak indication that within the framework of cold dark matter (CDM) models the observed Local Group acceleration implies some excess power on large scales