Testing gravity on large scales. The skewness of the galaxy distribution
  at z~1

Abbas, U.; Adami, C.; Arnouts, S.; Bardelli, S.; Bolzonella, M.; Bondi, M.; Bongiorno, A.; Bottini, D.; Brinchmann, J.; Brun, V. Le; Buzzi, A.; Cappi, A.; Charlot, S.; Ciliegi, P.; Contini, T.; Cucciati, O.; de la Torre, S.; de Ravel, L.; Fevre, O. Le; Foucaud, S.; Franzetti, P.; Garilli, B.; Gavignaud, I.; Gregorini, L.; Guzzo, L.; Ilbert, O.; Iovino, A.; Lamareille, F.; Maccagni, D.; Marano, B.; Marinoni, C.; Mathez, G.; Mazure, A.; McCracken, H. J.; Mellier, Y.; Meneux, B.; Merighi, R.; Merluzzi, P.; Paltani, S.; Pellò, R.; Perez-Montero, E.; Picat, J. P.; Pollo, A.; Pozzetti, L.; Radovich, M.; Scaramella, R.; Scodeggio, M.; Taxil, P.; Temporin, S.; Tresse, L.; Vergani, D.; Vettolani, G.; Virey, J. M.; Walcher, C. J.; Zamorani, G.; Zanichelli, A.; Zucca, E.

research

Testing gravity on large scales. The skewness of the galaxy distribution at z~1

Abstract

We study the evolution of the low-order moments of the galaxy overdensity distribution over the redshift interval 0.7<z<1.5. We find that the variance and the normalized skewness evolve over this redshift interval in a way that is remarkably consistent with predictions of first- and second-order perturbation theory. This finding confirms the standard gravitational instability paradigm over nearly 9 Gyrs of cosmic time and demonstrates the importance of accounting for the non-linear component of galaxy biasing to avoid disagreement between theory and observations.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of 43rd Rencontres de Moriond on Cosmology (La Thuile, 2008