Redshift-space effects in voids and their impact on cosmological tests. Part II: the void-galaxy cross-correlation function

TL;DR

This paper investigates how redshift-space distortions affect the void-galaxy cross-correlation function, revealing new effects like off-centring and ellipticity distortions, which are crucial for unbiased cosmological measurements and understanding large-scale structure.

Contribution

It is the first to detect and quantify distortions due to off-centring and ellipticity in voids, enhancing models for cosmological analysis from spectroscopic surveys.

Findings

Detected and quantified off-centring effects in voids.

Quantified ellipticity-induced distortions in voids.

Validated the robustness of the Gaussian streaming model with these effects.

Abstract

This is the second part of a thorough investigation of the redshift-space effects that affect void properties and the impact they have on cosmological tests. Here, we focus on the void-galaxy cross-correlation function, specifically, on the projected versions that we developed in a previous work. The pillar of the analysis is the one-to-one relationship between real and redshift-space voids above the shot-noise level identified with a spherical void finder. Under this mapping, void properties are affected by three effects: (i) a systematic expansion as a consequence of the distortions induced by galaxy dynamics, (ii) the Alcock-Paczynski volume effect, which manifests as an overall expansion or contraction depending on the fiducial cosmology, and (iii) a systematic off-centring along the line of sight as a consequence of the distortions induced by void dynamics. We found that correlations are also affected by an additional source of distortions: the ellipticity of voids. This is the first time that distortions due to the off-centring and ellipticity effects are detected and quantified. With a simplified test, we verified that the Gaussian streaming model is still robust provided all these effects are taken into account, laying the foundations for improvements in current models in order to obtain unbiased cosmological constraints from spectroscopic surveys. Besides this practical importance, this analysis also encodes key information about the structure and dynamics of the Universe at the largest scales. Furthermore, some of the effects constitute cosmological probes by themselves, as is the case of the void ellipticity.