Cosmography and Power Spectrum Estimation: A Unified Approach

Abstract

We present a unified approach to the problems of reconstruction of large-scale structure distribution in the universe and determination of the underlying power spectrum. These have often been treated as two separate problems, and different analysis techniques have been developed for both. We show that there exists a simple relation between the optimal solutions to the two problems, allowing us to solve for both within the same formalism. This allows one to apply computational techniques developed for one method to the other, which often leads to a significant reduction in the computational time. It also provides a self-consistent treatment of linear reconstruction by first computing the power spectrum from the data themselves.