Velocity Fields as a Probe of Cosmology

Abstract

Analyses of peculiar velocity surveys face several challenges, including low signal--to--noise in individual velocity measurements and the presence of small--scale, nonlinear flows. I will present three new analyses that attempt to address these inherent problems. The first is geared towards the better understanding of the estimated errors in the surveys, specifically sampling errors, and the resolution of the seeming disagreements between the surveys. Another develops a new statistic that does not suffer from the usual problems and gives robust results that are galaxy--morphology and distance--estimator independent. The third introduces a formalism that allows for the accounting of most of the non--linear signal whereby the signal to noise is increased and small--scale aliasing is removed.