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J. D. Schmidt, B. S. Ryden, A. L. Melott (Ohio State U.)
We investigate different void-finding algorithms for detecting and defining voids in three-dimensional galaxy surveys. We find the most useful algorithm is an adaptation of that originated by Aikio & Mähönen (1998). We apply the algorithm to a cold dark matter based n-body simulation intended to mimic possible results of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and present images of the voids found. To characterize the shapes of the voids, we define a statistic which measures the elongations of the voids along the line of sight. We find that in redshift space (including the effects of peculiar velocity distortions) voids are larger than in real space, but do not show a significant tendency to be preferentially squashed or stretched along the line of sight. A further goal of our investigation is to compare the size and shape properties of voids for different galaxy sampling densities, to see what number density of voids is required to accurately delineate the voids. This work was supported by a grant from the Ohio Supercomputer Center.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jschmidt@mps.ohio-state.edu