Felipe Oliveira Franco (Oxford): First measurement of projected phase correlations on real data

Phase correlations have been proposed as an efficient higher-order statistic able to extract cosmological and astrophysical information that is largely independent from the two-point function or power spectrum. In this talk, I will present an estimator for the line correlation function of projected fields, corresponding to the correlation between the harmonic-space phases of the field at three equi-distant points on a great circle. I will then use this estimator to make a first measurement of phase correlations on data from the 2MASS photometric survey. Finally, I will demonstrate that the projected line correlation function contains information that is largely orthogonal to the power spectrum. Focusing on the galaxy-halo connection, I will show this can lead to a dramatic reduction in the final parameter uncertainties.