Recent Advances in Redshift Surveys of the Local Universe

Abstract

I review progress in the past few years in studying the large-scale structure of the universe through redshift surveys of galaxies. Of the many statistical methods used to describe the galaxy distribution, I concentrate here on the power spectrum, and go into some detail about the factors which complicate (and make interesting!) its interpretation, such as redshift space distortions, non-linear effects, and the relative bias of galaxies and dark matter. I also discuss two large redshift surveys which are just starting, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and the Two Degree Field Redshift Survey, which promise to increase the number of redshifts measured of galaxies in uniform surveys by more than an order of magnitude.