Tracing the Large-Scale Structure at Cosmic Noon with the ODIN survey
Vandana Ramakrishnan
A persistent challenge in understanding how the large-scale structure (LSS) impacts galaxy formation and evolution has been the absence of large and robust observational samples of (proto)clusters and filaments at high redshift, during the peak epoch of star formation and AGN activity. This has hindered statistical analyses of the dependence of galaxy properties on their location within the LSS. The One-hundred-deg^2 DECam Imaging in Narrowbands (ODIN) survey, the widest-area deep narrowband survey undertaken to date, seeks to address this issue by identifying massive structures using Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs). LAEs, which are thought to be low-mass, star-forming galaxies with minimal bias, serve as excellent tracers of the LSS within a well defined cosmic volume. The ODIN survey has detected ~ 60 protocluster candidates at z = 4.5, 3.1 and 2.4 – bracketing Cosmic Noon – together with associated filaments
of the Cosmic Web from two of our seven fields. These structures are in good agreement with expectations from simulations, measuring ~ 10 cMpc in size, displaying highly irregular in morphology and clustering in extended overdensity complexes. Each protocluster candidate is linked to multiple filaments that connect objects within these overdensity complexes and bridge
different complexes. Analysis of the protocluster-LAE cross-correlation function suggests that these structures have high biases and likely represent massive halos which could evolve into Coma or Virgo-type clusters by z = 0. Spectroscopic follow-up has confirmed many of our structures and provided insight into their three-dimensional morphology, validating the LAE, protocluster and filament samples identified by ODIN.
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