Quasar-Lyman α forest cross-correlation from BOSS DR11: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
Pâris, Isabelle; Petitjean, Patrick; Aubourg, Éric; Ross, Nicholas P.; Myers, Adam D.; Bailey, Stephen; Bizyaev, Dmitry; Brewington, Howard; Brownstein, Joel R.; Ebelke, Garrett; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Ge, Jian; Kinemuchi, Karen; Malanushenko, Elena; Malanushenko, Viktor; Marchante, Moses; Miralda-Escudé, Jordi; Muna, Demitri; Noterdaeme, Pasquier; Oravetz, Daniel; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie; Schneider, Donald P.; Simmons, Audrey; Viel, Matteo; York, Donald G.; Eisenstein, Daniel J.; Rossi, Graziano; Kirkby, David; Bautista, Julian; Rich, James; Beutler, Florian; Bhardwaj, Vaishali; Dawson, Kyle S.; Margala, Daniel; Brinkmann, Jon; Slosar, Anže; Pieri, Matthew M.; Blomqvist, Michael; Lee, Khee-Gan; Delubac, Timothée; Busca, Nicolas; Carithers, Bill; Yeche, Christophe
Switzerland, United States, France, Spain, Germany, Chile, United Kingdom, Italy
Abstract
We measure the large-scale cross-correlation of quasars with the Lyα forest absorption, using over 164,000 quasars from Data Release 11 of the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We extend the previous study of roughly 60,000 quasars from Data Release 9 to larger separations, allowing a measurement of the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale along the line of sight c/(H(z = 2.36)rs) = 9.0±0.3 and across the line of sight DA(z = 2.36)/rs = 10.8±0.4, consistent with CMB and other BAO data. Using the best fit value of the sound horizon from Planck data (rs = 147.49 Mpc), we can translate these results to a measurement of the Hubble parameter of H(z = 2.36) = 226±8 km s-1 Mpc-1 and of the angular diameter distance of DA(z = 2.36) = 1590±60 Mpc. The measured cross-correlation function and an update of the code to fit the BAO scale (baofit) are made publicly available.