The BOSS-WiggleZ overlap region - I. Baryon acoustic oscillations

Abstract

We study the large-scale clustering of galaxies in the overlap region of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) CMASS sample and the WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey. We calculate the auto-correlation and cross-correlation functions in the overlap region of the two data sets and detect a Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) signal in each of them. The BAO measurement from the cross-correlation function represents the first such detection between two different galaxy surveys. After applying density-field reconstruction we report distance-scale measurements D_V r_s^fid / r_s = (1970 ± 45, 2132 ± 65, 2100 ± 200) Mpc from CMASS, the cross-correlation and WiggleZ, respectively. The distance scales derived from the two data sets are consistent, and are also robust against switching the displacement fields used for reconstruction between the two surveys. We use correlated mock realizations to calculate the covariance between the three BAO constraints. This approach can be used to construct a correlation matrix, permitting for the first time a rigorous combination of WiggleZ and CMASS BAO measurements. Using a volume-scaling technique, our result can also be used to combine WiggleZ and future CMASS DR12 results. Finally, we show that the relative velocity effect, a possible source of systematic uncertainty for the BAO technique, is consistent with zero for our samples