Mapping the Real Space Distributions of Galaxies in SDSS DR7. II. Measuring the Growth Rate, Clustering Amplitude of Matter, and Biases of Galaxies at Redshift 0.1

We extend the real-space mapping method developed in Shi et al. so that it can be applied to flux-limited galaxy samples. We use an ensemble of mock catalogs to demonstrate the reliability of this extension, showing that it allows for an accurate recovery of the real-space correlation functions and galaxy biases. We also demonstrate that, using an iterative method applied to intermediate-scale clustering data, we can obtain an unbiased estimate of the growth rate of structure f sigma(8), which is related to the clustering amplitude of matter, to an accuracy of similar to 10%. Applying this method to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7), we construct a real-space galaxy catalog spanning the redshift range 0.01 <= z <= 0.2, which contains 584,473 galaxies in the northern Galactic cap. Using these data, we infer f sigma(8) = 0.376 +/- 0.038 at a median redshift z = 0.1, which is consistent with the WMAP9 cosmology at the la level. By combining this measurement with the real-space clustering of galaxies and with galaxy-galaxy weak lensing measurements for the same sets of galaxies, we are able to break the degeneracy between f, sigma(8 ,) and b. From the SDSS DR7 data alone, we obtain the following cosmological constraints at redshift z = 0.1: f = 0.464(-0.040)(+0.040), sigma(8) = 0.769(-0.089)(+0.121) , and b = 1.910(-0.089)(+0.121), 1.449(-0.196)(+0.194), 1.3011(-0.177)(+0.170 )and 1961(-0.161)(+0.159) for galaxies within different absolute magnitude bins( 0.1)M(r )-5 log h = [-23, 0, -22.0], [ -22, 0, -21.0], [21.0, -20.0], and [20.0, -19.0], respectively.