Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Application Of Wavelet Methods To The Search For Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, Kevin Michael Kadowaki

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

We use the method of wavelet transforms to investigate the clustering of matter on galactic scales in search of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs). In particular, we develop a method of wavelet packet analysis to measure the power spectrum of a galaxy distribution and apply this method to the CMASS galaxy catalogue from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) collaboration. Using a variant of HEALPix, we project the data from the celestial sphere onto a square signal matrix, and take the two-dimensional Wavelet Packet Transform of this signal. We use this transform and techniques of spectrum …