Comparing the SBF Survey Velocity Field with the Gravity Field from Redshift Surveys

Blakeslee, J. P.; Davis, M.; Tonry, J. L.; Ajhar, E. A.; Dressler, A.

Comparing the SBF Survey Velocity Field with the Gravity Field from Redshift Surveys

Authors

Description

We compare the predicted local peculiar velocity field from the IRAS 1.2 Jy flux-limited redshift survey and the Optical Redshift Survey (ORS) to the measured peculiar velocities from the recently completed SBF Survey of Galaxy Distances. The analysis produces a value of β= Ω^{0.6}/b for the redshift surveys, where b is the linear biasing factor, and a tie to the Hubble flow, i.e., a value of H_0, for the SBF Survey. There is covariance between these parameters, but we find good fits with H_0 \approx 74 \kmsM for the SBF distances, β_I \approx 0.44 for the IRAS survey predictions, and β_O \approx 0.3 for the ORS. The small-scale velocity error \sigv \sim 200 \kms is similar to, though slightly larger than, the value obtained in our parametric flow modeling with SBF.
8 LaTex pages with 6 figures. To appear in the proceedings of the "Cosmic Flows" workshop, held in Victoria, Canada, July 1999, ASP series, eds. S. Courteau, M.A. Strauss, & J.A. Willick