Cosmic bulk flows on 50 h(-1) Mpc scales: a Bayesian hyper-parameter method and multishell likelihood analysis

It has been argued recently that the galaxy peculiar velocity field provides evidence of excessive power on scales of 50 h (1) Mpc, which seems to be inconsistent with the standard Lambda cold dark matter (Lambda CDM) cosmological model. We discuss several assumptions and conventions used in studies of the large-scale bulk flow to check whether this claim is robust under a variety of conditions. Rather than using a composite catalogue we select samples from the SN, ENEAR, Spiral Field I-band Survey (SFI++) and First Amendment Supernovae (A1SN) catalogues, and correct for Malmquist bias in each according to the IRAS PSCz density field. We also use slightly different assumptions about the small-scale velocity dispersion and the parametrization of the matter power spectrum when calculating the variance of the bulk flow. By combining the likelihood of individual catalogues using a Bayesian hyper-parameter method, we find that the joint likelihood of the amplitude parameter gives sigma(8) = 0.65(0.35)(+0.47) (68 per cent confidence region), which is entirely consistent with the Lambda CDM model. In addition, the bulk flow magnitude, v similar to 310 km s(-1), and direction, (l, b) similar to (280 degrees +/- 8 degrees, 5 degrees.1 +/- 6 degrees), found by each of the catalogues are all consistent with each other, and with the bulk flow results from most previous studies. Furthermore, the bulk flow velocities in different shells of the surveys constrain (sigma(8), Omega(m)) to be (1.01(-0.20)(+0.26), 0.31(-0.14)(+0.28)) for SFI++ and (1.04(-0.24)(+0.32), 0.28(-0.14)(+0.30)) for ENEAR, which are consistent with the 7-year Wilkinson and Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP7) best-fitting values. We finally discuss the differences between our conclusions and those of the studies claiming the largest bulk flows.