The Clustering of High-redshift (2.9 ≤z≤ 5.1) Quasars in SDSS Stripe 82 (original) (raw)

Probing the Dark Energy with Quasar Clustering

Physical Review Letters, 2002

We show, through Monte Carlo simulations, that the Alcock-Paczynski test, as applied to quasar clustering, is a powerful tool to probe the cosmological density and equation of state parameters, Omega_{m0}, Omega_{x0} and w. By taking into account the effect of peculiar velocities upon the correlation function we obtain, for the Two-Degree Field QSO Redshift Survey (2QZ), the predicted confidence contours for the cosmological constant (w = -1) and spatially flat (Omega_{m0} + Omega_{x0}=1) cases. It turns out that, for w = -1, the test is especially sensitive to the difference Omega_{m0} - Omega_{Lambda 0}, thus being ideal to combine with CMB results. We also find out that, for the flat case, it is competitive with future supernova and galaxy number count tests, besides being complementary to them.