Large-scale analysis of the SDSS-III DR8 photometric luminous galaxies
  angular correlation function
  We analyse the large-scale angular correlation function (ACF) of the CMASS
luminous galaxies (LGs), a photometric-redshift catalogue based on the Data
Release 8 (DR8) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III. This catalogue contains
over $600 \, \, 000$ LGs in the range $0.45 \leq z \leq 0.65$, which was split
into four redshift shells of constant width. First, we estimate the constraints
on the redshift-space distortion (RSD) parameters $b\sigma_8$ and $f\sigma_8$,
where $b$ is the galaxy bias, $f$ the growth rate and $\sigma_8$ is the
normalization of the perturbations, finding that they vary appreciably among
different redshift shells, in agreement with previous results using DR7 data.
When assuming constant RSD parameters over the survey redshift range, we obtain
$f\sigma_8 = 0.69 \pm 0.21$, which agrees at the $1.5\sigma$ level with Baryon
Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey DR9 spectroscopic results. Next, we performed
two cosmological analyses, where relevant parameters not fitted were kept fixed
at their fiducial values. In the first analysis, we extracted the baryon
acoustic oscillation peak position for the four redshift shells, and combined
with the sound horizon scale from 7-year \textit{Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
Probe} $(WMAP7)$ to produce the constraints $\Omega_{m}=0.249 \pm 0.031$ and
$w=-0.885 \pm 0.145$. In the second analysis, we used the ACF full shape
information to constrain cosmology using real data for the first time, finding
$\Omega_{m} = 0.280 \pm 0.022$ and $f_b = \Omega_b/\Omega_m = 0.211 \pm 0.026$.
These results are in good agreement with $WMAP7$ findings, showing that the ACF
can be efficiently applied to constrain cosmology in future photometric galaxy
surveys.
