PSCz Superclusters: Detection, Shapes & Cosmological Implications

Abstract

We study the possibility of correctly identifying superclusters, from the smooth galaxy density field of the PSCz redshift catalogue, and of recovering their true shapes in the presence of a bias introduced by the coupling between the selection function and the constant radius smoothing. Using simulations we quantify such systematic biases in the smoothed PSCz density field and after applying the necessary corrections we study the PSCz supercluster multiplicity and morphologies using a differential geometry definition of shape. Our results strongly suggest that filamentariness is the dominant morphological feature of PSCz superclusters. Finally, we compare our results with those expected in three different cosmological models and find that the LCDM model performs better than Omega_m=1 CDM models.