Determination of the Baryon Density from Large Scale Galaxy Redshift Surveys

We estimate the degree to which the baryon density, ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_b$, can be determined from the galaxy power spectrum measured from large scale galaxy redshift surveys, and in particular, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. A high baryon density will cause wiggles to appear in the power spectrum, which should be observable at the current epoch. We assume linear theory on scales $\geq 20h^{-1}Mpc$ and do not include the effects of redshift distortions, evolution, or biasing. With an optimum estimate of $P(k)$ to $k\sim 2\pi \mathrm{/}(20h^{-1}Mpc)$, the $1\sigma$ uncertainties in ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_b$ are roughly 0.07 and 0.016 in flat and open (${\mathrm{\Omega }}_0=0.3$) cosmological models, respectively. This result suggests that it should be possible to test for consistency with big bang nucleosynthesis estimates of ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_b$ if we live in an open universe.