Title: The Linear Point: A cleaner cosmological standard ruler,
Abstract: We show how a characteristic length scale imprinted in the galaxy two-point
correlation function, dubbed the "linear point", can serve as a comoving
cosmological standard ruler. In contrast to the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation
peak location, this scale is constant in redshift and is unaffected by
non-linear effects to within $0.5$ percent precision. We measure the location
of the linear point in the galaxy correlation function of the LOWZ and CMASS
samples from the Twelfth Data Release (DR12) of the Baryon Oscillation
Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) collaboration. We combine our linear-point
measurement with cosmic-microwave-background constraints from the Planck
satellite to estimate the isotropic-volume distance $D_{V}(z)$, without relying
on a model-template or reconstruction method. We find $D_V(0.32)=1264\pm 28$
Mpc and $D_V(0.57)=2056\pm 22$ Mpc respectively, consistent with the quoted
values from the BOSS collaboration. This remarkable result suggests that all
the distance information contained in the baryon acoustic oscillations can be
conveniently compressed into the single length associated with the linear
point.