The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: improved distance measurements to z = 1 with reconstruction of the baryonic acoustic feature

Abstract

We present significant improvements in cosmic distance measurements from the Wig-gleZ Dark Energy Survey, achieved by applying the reconstruction of the baryonic acoustic feature technique. We show using both data and simulations that the reconstruction technique can often be effective despite patchiness of the survey, significant edge effects and shot-noise. We investigate three redshift bins in the redshift range 0.2 < z < 1, and in all three find improvement after reconstruction in the detection of the baryonic acoustic feature and its usage as a standard ruler. We measure model independent distance measures D V r fid s /r s of 1716± 83 Mpc, 2221± 101 Mpc, 2516± 86 Mpc (68% CL) at effective redshifts z = 0.44, 0.6, 0.73, respectively, where D V is the volume-average-distance, and r s is the sound horizon at the end of the baryon drag epoch. These significantly improved 4.8, 4.5 and 3.4 per-cent accuracy measurements are equivalent to those expected from surveys with up to 2.5 times the volume of WiggleZ without reconstruction applied. These measurements are fully consistent with cosmologies allowed by the analyses of the Planck Collaboration and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We provide the D V r fid s /r s posterior probability distributions and their covariances. When combining these measurements with temperature fluctuations measurements of Planck, the polarization of WMAP9, and the 6dF Galaxy Survey baryonic acoustic feature, we do not detect deviations from a flat ΛCDM model. Assuming this model we constrain the current expansion rate to H 0 = 67.15 ± 0.98 kms −1 Mpc −1 . Allowing the equation of state of dark energy to vary we obtain w DE = −1.080 ± 0.135. When assuming a curved ΛCDM model we obtain a curvature value of Ω K = −0.0043 ± 0.0047. c 0000 RAS 2 Kazin E., Koda J., Blake C. et al.

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“…The distance priors were subtracted by Huang, Wang & Wang (2015) with the Planck CMB data released in 2015. The BAO data include 6dFGS (Beutler et al 2011), SDSS MGS (Ross et al 2015), and WiggleZ (Kazin et al 2014). The LSS data include the anisotropic clustering of LOWZ and CMASS galaxies (Gil-Marin et al 2016).…”

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“…To constrain the expansion history we use the following BAO measurements: WiggleZ reconstructed from Kazin et al (2014), reconstructed DR11-CMASS and DR11-LOWZ from Anderson et al (2014), and the 6dFGS measurement from Beutler et al (2011). By 'reconstructed' we are referring to the process of sharpening the acoustic peak by using information from the local density field (cf.…”