Open AccessThe one‐point PDF of the initial conditions of our local Universe from the IRAS PSC redshift catalogue
Author(s) -
Monaco P.,
Efstathiou G.,
Maddox S. J.,
Branchini E.,
Frenk C. S.,
McMahon R. G.,
Oliver S. J.,
RowanRobinson M.,
Saunders W.,
Sutherland W. J.,
Tadros H.,
White S. D. M.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03739.x
Subject(s) - physics , redshift , astrophysics , gaussian , galaxy , universe , probability density function , range (aeronautics) , statistics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , materials science , composite material
The algorithm ztrace of Monaco & Efstathiou is applied to the IRAS PSCz catalogue to reconstruct the initial conditions of our local Universe with a resolution down to ~5 h −1 Mpc. The one‐point probability distribution function (PDF) of the reconstructed initial conditions is consistent with the assumptions that: (i) IRAS galaxies trace mass on scales of ~5 h −1 Mpc and (ii) the statistics of the primordial density fluctuations are Gaussian. We use simulated PSCz catalogues, constructed from N ‐body simulations with Gaussian initial conditions, to show that local non‐linear bias can cause the recovered initial PDF (assuming no bias) to be non‐Gaussian. However, for plausible bias models, the distortions of the recovered PDF would be difficult to detect using the volume finely sampled by the PSCz catalogue. So, for Gaussian initial conditions, a range of bias models remain compatible with our PSCz reconstruction results.