Projected 3pt Correlation Function in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Cameron McBride (Pitt)
Large scale redshift surveys, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS),
have brought about a new era in accuracy for understanding large scale
structure. The wealth of data in these surveys poses interesting challenges;
new statistical methods and efficient means of computation are required to
mine their scientific content. We use the projected three point correlation
function (3PCF), a complement to recent bispectrum and redshift-space
analyses, to study the non-Gaussianity of the galaxy distribution and
non-spherical nature of large scale structure. The higher order information
contained in the 3PCF allows both the linear and quadratic bias terms to be
constrained to better address whether galaxies are unbiased tracers of mass.
In this talk, I will highlight recent advances in the 3PCF determination and
its application to the SDSS main galaxy sample.