The Statistical Analysis of Anisotropies

Abstract

One of the many uses to which a radio survey may be put is an analysis of the distribution of the radio sources on the celestial sphere to find out whether they are bunched into clusters or lie in preferred regions of space. There are many methods of testing for clustering in point processes and since they are not all equally good this contribution is presented as a brief guide to what seem to be the best of them. The radio sources certainly do not show very strong clustering and may well be entirely unclustered so if a statistical method is to be useful it must be both powerful and flexible. A statistic is powerful in this context if it can efficiently distinguish a weakly clustered distribution of sources from an unclustered one, and it is flexible if it can be applied in a way which avoids mistaking defects in the survey for true peculiarities in the distribution of sources.