A cosmological test using the abundance of Popcorn voids

DANTE PAZ

Córdoba

Conferencia; XII Friends of Friends Meeting; 2023

IATE - OAC

We present a new definition of cosmic void and a publicly available code with the algorithm that implements it. In this void finder, underdense regions are defined as free-form objects, called popcorn voids, made from the union of spheres of maximum volume with a given joint integrated underdensity contrast. This provides, for the first time, a definition of a void in the matter field whose abundance can be faithfully reproduced by excursion set theory, in particular using the Vdn model without any adjustment or cleaning process. We also analysed the abundance of voids in biased tracer samples in redshift space. We show how the void abundance can be used to measure the geometric distortions due to the assumed fiducial cosmology, in a proof similar to an Alcock-Paczyński test. Using the formalism derived from previous works, we show how to correct the abundance of popcorn voids for redshift-space distortions. Using this treatment, in combination with the excursion set theory, we demonstrate the feasibility of void abundance measurements as cosmological probes. We obtain unbiased estimates of the target parameters, albeit with large degeneracies in the parameter space. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed test in combination with other cosmological probes has potential to improve current cosmological parameter constraints.