The topology of the large-scale structure of the universe

Abstract

It has been suggested recently that the topology of a distribution of galaxies can be characterized by the mean Gaussian curvature per unit volume of surfaces of constant density. An expression is derived which relates the mean curvature of isodensity surfaces to the power spectrum of density fluctuations in the linear regime of Gaussian fluctuations with random phases. The result may be compared to real galaxy catalogs if the galaxy density is smoothed over scales larger than a correlation length. The implications of the result for understanding the large-scale structure of the universe are discussed.