The clustering of galaxies and galaxy clusters: constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity from future wide-field surveys

Abstract

We investigate the constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity with varied bispectrum shapes that can be derived from the power spectrum of galaxies and clusters of galaxies detected in future wide field optical/near-infrared surveys. Having in mind the proposed ESA space mission Euclid as a specific example, we combine the spatial distribution of spectroscopically selected galaxies with that of weak lensing selected clusters. We use the physically motivated halo model in order to represent the correlation function of arbitrary tracers of the large-scale structure in the Universe. As naively expected, we find that galaxies are much more effective in jointly constrain the level of primordial non-Gaussianity fNL and the amplitude of the matter power spectrum σ8 than clusters of galaxies, due to the much lower abundance of the latter that is not adequately compensated by the larger effect on the power spectrum. Nevertheless, combination of the galaxy power spectrum with the cluster–galaxy cross-spectrum can decrease the error on the determination of fNL by up to a factor of ∼2. This decrement is particularly evident for the less studied non-Gaussian bispectrum shapes, the so-called enfolded and the orthogonal ones. Setting constraints on these models can shed new light on various aspects of the physics of the early Universe, and hence it is of extreme importance. By combining the power spectra of clusters and galaxies with the cluster–galaxy cross-spectrum we find constraints on primordial non-Gaussianity of the order ΔfNL∼ a few, competitive and possibly superior to future cosmic microwave background experiments.