Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Research Articles

The 3D Lyman-α forest power spectrum from eBOSS DR16

Abstract We measure the three-dimensional power spectrum (P3D) of the transmitted flux in the Lyman-α (Ly-α) forest using the complete extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey data release 16 (eBOSS DR16). This sample consists of ∼ 205,000 quasar spectra in the redshift range 2 ≤ z ≤ 4 at an effective redshift z = 2.334. We propose a pair-count spectral estimator in configuration space, weighting each pair by exp (ik · r), for wave vector k and pixel pair separation r, effectively measuring the anisotropic power spectrum without the need for fast Fourier transforms. This accounts for the window matrix in a tractable way, avoiding artifacts found in Fourier-transform based power spectrum estimators due to the sparse sampling transverse to the line-of-sight of Ly-α skewers. We extensively test our pipeline on two sets of mocks: (i) idealized Gaussian random fields with a sparse sampling of Ly-α skewers, and (ii) log-normal LyaCoLoRe mocks including realistic noise levels, the eBOSS survey geometry and contaminants. On eBOSS DR16 data, the Kaiser formula with a non-linear correction term obtained from hydrodynamic simulations yields a good fit to the power spectrum data in the range (0.02 ≤ k ≤ 0.35) h Mpc−1 at the 1 − 2σ level with a covariance matrix derived from LyaCoLoRe mocks. We demonstrate a promising new approach for full-shape cosmological analyses of Ly-α forest data from cosmological surveys such as eBOSS, the currently observing Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and future surveys such as the Prime Focus Spectrograph, WEAVE-QSO and 4MOST.

Optimal constraints on Primordial non-Gaussianity with the eBOSS DR16 quasars in Fourier space

We present constraints on the amplitude of local Primordial Non-Gaussianities (PNG), f NL, using the quasar sample in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) Data Release 16 (DR16). We analyze the power spectrum monopole, testing for the presence of scale-dependent galaxy bias induced by local PNG. Our analysis makes use of optimal redshift weights that maximize the response of the quasar sample to the possible presence of non-zero PNG. We find -4 < f NL < 27 at 68% confidence level, which is among the strongest bounds with Large Scale Structure data. The optimal analysis reduces the error bar by ~10% compared to the standard one, but this improvement is lower than the one expected from previous forecasts. In addition, the larger volume of this dataset, when compared to previous releases of the eBOSS quasar catalog, does not always correspond to a reduction of the final uncertainty on local PNG. This could suggest the presence of still unknown systematic effects in the data.If the quasars have a lower response to local PNG, our optimal constraint becomes -23 < f NL < 21 at 68%, with an improvement of 30% over standardanalyses. We alsoshow how to use the optimal weights to put data-driven priors on the sample's response tolocal PNG.

A new measurement of the mean transmitted flux in the Ly α and Ly β forest

ABSTRACT We present new measurements of the mean transmitted flux in the hydrogen $\rm {Ly\,\alpha }$ and a relative transmitted flux measurement in $\rm {Ly\,\beta }$ using 27 008 quasar spectra from the Fourteenth Data Release (DR14) of the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Individual spectra are first combined into 16 composites with mean redshifts in the range of $2.8\lt z\lt 4.9$. We then apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) inference to produce a piecewise fit of the effective $\tau _{\rm {Ly\,\alpha }}$ (corrected for metal lines and optically thick absorption) assuming a spline point distribution. We also perform a relative $\Delta \tau _{\rm {Ly\,\beta }}$ measurement with the same data set, finding $\Delta \tau _{\rm {Ly\,\beta }}\lt 0.35$ at $z\lt 4.8$. The 6–8 per cent precision measurements in the rest frame 1075–1150 Å at ${\it z} \ \lt \rm {4.0}$ and 10–12 per cent precision measurements in the same region at ${\it z} \ \gt \rm {4.0}$ on $\tau _{\rm {Ly\,\alpha }}$, and our determinations of $\Delta \tau _{\rm {Ly\,\beta }}$, are dominated by systematic errors, likely arising from bias and uncertainties in estimates of the quasar continuum. Our $\tau _{\rm {Ly\,\alpha }}$ values show a smooth increase by a factor of 5 over the redshift range $z=2.4-4.4$.

A multitracer analysis for the eBOSS galaxy sample based on the effective field theory of large-scale structure

ABSTRACT We perform a multitracer full-shape analysis in Fourier space based on the effective field theory of large-scale structure (EFTofLSS) using the complete Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) DR16 luminous red galaxy (LRG) and emission line galaxy (ELG) samples. We study in detail the impact of the volume projection effect and different prior choices when doing the full-shape analysis based on the EFTofLSS model. We show that adopting a combination of Jeffreys prior and Gaussian prior can mitigate the volume effect and avoid exploring unphysical regions in the parameter space at the same time, which is crucial when jointly analysing the eBOSS LRG and ELG samples. We validate our pipeline using 1000 eBOSS EZmocks. By performing a multitracer analysis on mocks with comparable footprints, we find that cosmological constraints can be improved by $\sim 10-35~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ depending on whether we assume zero stochastic terms in the cross power spectrum, which breaks the degeneracy and boosts the constraints on the standard deviation of matter density fluctuation σ8. Combining with the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) prior and fixing the spectral tilt ns to Planck value, our multitracer full-shape analysis measures H0 = 70.0 ± 2.3 km s−1Mpc−1, $\Omega _m=0.317^{+0.017}_{-0.021}$, $\sigma _8=0.787_{-0.062}^{+0.055}$, and $S_8=0.809_{-0.078}^{+0.064}$, consistent with the Planck 2018 results. In particular, the constraint on σ8 is improved beyond that obtained from the single tracer analysis by 18 per cent, or by 27 per cent when assuming zero stochastic terms in the cross power spectrum.

High-accuracy emulators for observables in ΛCDM, Neff, Σmν, and w cosmologies

ABSTRACT We use the emulation framework CosmoPower to construct and publicly release neural network emulators of cosmological observables, including the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization power spectra, matter power spectrum, distance-redshift relation, baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) and redshift-space distortion (RSD) observables, and derived parameters. We train our emulators on Einstein–Boltzmann calculations obtained with high-precision numerical convergence settings, for a wide range of cosmological models including ΛCDM, wCDM, ΛCDM + Neff, and ΛCDM + Σmν. Our CMB emulators are accurate to better than 0.5 per cent out to ℓ = 104, which is sufficient for Stage-IV data analysis, and our P(k) emulators reach the same accuracy level out to $k=50 \, \, \mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$, which is sufficient for Stage-III data analysis. We release the emulators via an online repository (CosmoPower Organisation), which will be continually updated with additional extended cosmological models. Our emulators accelerate cosmological data analysis by orders of magnitude, enabling cosmological parameter extraction analyses, using current survey data, to be performed on a laptop. We validate our emulators by comparing them to class and camb and by reproducing cosmological parameter constraints derived from Planck TT, TE, EE, and CMB lensing data, as well as from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Data Release 4 CMB data, Dark Energy Survey Year-1 galaxy lensing and clustering data, and Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 12 BAO and RSD data.

Analysis of BOSS galaxy data with weighted skew-spectra

We present the first application of the weighted skew-spectra to analyze non-Gaussian information in galaxy survey data. Using the tree-level galaxy skew-spectra together with the one-loop power spectrum multipoles, we analyze the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) galaxy clustering data, and target our search towards the equilateral bispectrum shape of primordial non-Gaussianity. We use the Effective Field Theory model for the galaxy power spectrum and bispectrum, and account for systematic effects, such as the survey geometry. From our likelihood analysis, we find f NL equil = -34+296 -334 at 68% CL, consistent with previous works, while systematic errors from our treatment of the survey geometry lead to an unreliable estimation of f NL ortho. We further constrain the bias and counterterm parameters, while keeping the cosmology fixed to Planck 2018 values. As a check, we also validate our analysis pipeline using the Nseries simulation suite.

Light fields during inflation from BOSS and future galaxy surveys

Primordial non-Gaussianity generated by additional fields present during inflation offers a compelling observational target for galaxy surveys. These fields are of significant theoretical interest since they offer a window into particle physics in the inflaton sector. They also violate the single-field consistency conditions and induce a scale-dependent bias in the galaxy power spectrum. In this paper, we explore this particular signal for light scalar fields and study the prospects for measuring it with galaxy surveys. We find that the sensitivities of current and future surveys are remarkably stable for different configurations, including between spectroscopic and photometric redshift measurements. This is even the case at non-zero masses where the signal is not obviously localized on large scales. For realistic galaxy number densities, we demonstrate that the redshift range and galaxy bias of the sample have the largest impact on the sensitivity in the power spectrum. These results additionally motivated us to explore the potentially enhanced sensitivity of Vera Rubin Observatory's LSST through multi-tracer analyses. Finally, we apply this understanding to current data from the last data release of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS DR12) and place new constraints on light fields coupled to the inflaton.

Photometric Objects Around Cosmic Webs (PAC). VI. High Satellite Fraction of Quasars

The Photometric objects Around Cosmic webs (PAC) approach developed in Xu et al. has the advantage of making full use of spectroscopic and deeper photometric surveys. With the merits of PAC, the excess surface density n¯2wp of neighboring galaxies can be measured down to stellar mass 1010.80 M ⊙ around quasars at redshift 0.8 < z s < 1.0, with the data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument Legacy Imaging Surveys. We find that n¯2wp generally increases quite steeply with the decrease of the separation. Using the subhalo abundance-matching method, we can accurately model the n¯2wp both on small and large scales. We show that the steep increase of n¯2wp toward the quasars requires that a large fraction fsate=0.29−0.06+0.05 of quasars should be satellites in massive halos, and we find that this fraction measurement is insensitive to the assumptions of our modeling. This high satellite fraction indicates that the subhalos have nearly the same probability of hosting quasars as the halos for the same (infall) halo mass and that the large-scale environment has negligible effect on the quasar activity. We show that even with this high satellite fraction, each massive halo on average does not host more than one satellite quasar, due to the sparsity of quasars.

Changing-look Active Galactic Nuclei. I. Tracking the Transition on the Main Sequence of Quasars

This paper is the first in a series of papers that prepare and analyze spectral and other properties for a database of already-discovered changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL AGNs). Here we focus on the spectral fitting and analysis of broad emission lines in a sample of 93 CL AGNs collected from the literature with existing Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)/Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS)/extended-BOSS spectroscopy where the Hβ emission-line profile does not completely disappear in any epochs. Additionally, we have gathered older/newer spectral epochs from all the available SDSS data releases to make the database more complete. We use PyQSOFit and perform a homogeneous spectral decomposition of all of our SDSS spectra and tabulate the AGN continuum and emission-line properties per epoch per source, chronologically. This further allows us to categorize the sources in our sample as Turn-On or Turn-Off and subsequently check for repeated occurrences of such phases. We then estimate the black hole mass (M BH) and the Eddington ratio (λ Edd) per epoch per source where the required parameters are available and well estimated. We demonstrate the movement of the source in the M BH–λ Edd plane, allowing us to check for systematic changes in the source’s fundamental properties. We then track their transition along the optical plane of the Eigenvector 1 schema and categorize sources that either stay within the same population (A or B) or make an interpopulation movement as a function of spectral epoch. We also test the Balmer decrement (Hα/Hβ) of a subset of our sample of CL AGNs as a function of time and AGN luminosity.

The Kullback–Leibler Divergence and the Convergence Rate of Fast Covariance Matrix Estimators in Galaxy Clustering Analysis

We present a method to quantify the convergence rate of the fast estimators of the covariance matrices in the large-scale structure analysis. Our method is based on the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence, which describes the relative entropy of two probability distributions. As a case study, we analyze the delete-d jackknife estimator for the covariance matrix of the galaxy correlation function. We introduce the information factor or the normalized KL divergence with the help of a set of baseline covariance matrices to diagnose the information contained in the jackknife covariance matrix. Using a set of quick particle mesh mock catalogs designed for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey DR11 CMASS galaxy survey, we find that the jackknife resampling method succeeds in recovering the covariance matrix with 10 times fewer simulation mocks than that of the baseline method at small scales (s ≤ 40 h −1 Mpc). However, the ability to reduce the number of mock catalogs is degraded at larger scales due to the increasing bias on the jackknife covariance matrix. Note that the analysis in this paper can be applied to any fast estimator of the covariance matrix for galaxy clustering measurements.

Classifying Emission-line Galaxies Using a Dense Neural Network and Support Vector Machine

In this study we present an innovative approach to classifying emission-line galaxies, specifically categorizing them as Star-forming, Seyfert, Low Ionization Nuclear Emission Line Regions, or Composites. Leveraging both a Dense Neural Network and Support Vector Machine, we use key emission-line flux ratios as input features extracted from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey data within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The high accuracy in classification for both Machine Learning models showcases their effectiveness and viability in accurately classifying emission-line galaxies with slightly different inputs and target classifications compared to past Machine Learning models.

Hybrid bias and displacement emulators for field-level modelling of galaxy clustering in real and redshift space

ABSTRACT Recently, hybrid bias expansions have emerged as a powerful approach to modelling the way in which galaxies are distributed in the Universe. Similarly, field-level emulators have recently become possible, thanks to advances in machine learning and N-body simulations. In this paper, we explore whether both techniques can be combined to provide a field-level model for the clustering of galaxies in real and redshift space. Specifically, here we will demonstrate that field-level emulators are able to accurately predict all the operators of a second-order hybrid bias expansion. The precision achieved in real and redshift space is similar to that obtained for the non-linear matter power spectrum. This translates to roughly 1–2 per cent precision for the power spectrum of a BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey) and a Euclid-like galaxy sample up to $k\sim 0.6\ h\, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. Remarkably, this combined approach also delivers precise predictions for field-level galaxy statistics. Despite all these promising results, we detect several areas where further improvements are required. Therefore, this work serves as a road map for the developments required for a more complete exploitation of upcoming large-scale structure surveys.

Optimal data compression for Lyman-α forest cosmology

ABSTRACT The Lyman-α three-dimensional correlation functions have been widely used to perform cosmological inference using the baryon acoustic oscillation scale. While the traditional inference approach employs a data vector with several thousand data points, we apply near-maximal score compression down to tens of compressed data elements. We show that carefully constructed additional data beyond those linked to each inferred model parameter are required to preserve meaningful goodness of fit tests that guard against unknown systematics, and to avoid information loss due to non-linear parameter dependences. We demonstrate, on suites of realistic mocks and Data Release 16 data from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, that our compression approach is lossless and unbiased, yielding a posterior that is indistinguishable from that of the traditional analysis. As an early application, we investigate the impact of a covariance matrix estimated from a limited number of mocks, which is only well conditioned in compressed space.

Line-of-sight structure of troughs identified in Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Year 3 weak lensing mass maps

ABSTRACT We perform the weak lensing mass mapping analysis to identify troughs, which are defined as local minima in the mass map. Since weak lensing probes the projected matter distribution along the line of sight, these troughs can be produced by single or multiple voids projected along the line of sight. To scrutinize the origins of the weak lensing troughs, we systematically investigate the line-of-sight structure of troughs selected from the latest Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Year 3 weak lensing data covering $433.48 \, \mathrm{deg}^2$. From a curved sky mass map constructed with the HSC data, we identify 15 troughs with the signal-to-noise ratio higher than 5.7 and address their line-of-sight density structure utilizing redshift distributions of two galaxy samples, photometric luminous red galaxies observed by HSC and spectroscopic galaxies detected by Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. While most weak lensing signals due to the troughs are explained by multiple voids aligned along the line of sight, we find that two of the 15 troughs potentially originate from single voids at redshift ∼0.3. The single void interpretation appears to be consistent with our three-dimensional mass mapping analysis. We argue that single voids can indeed reproduce observed weak lensing signals at the troughs if these voids are not spherical but are highly elongated along the line-of-sight direction.

3D correlations in the Lyman-α forest from early DESI data

We present the first measurements of Lyman-α (Lyα) forest correlations using early data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). We measure the auto-correlation of Lyα absorption using 88 509 quasars at z > 2, and its cross-correlation with quasars using a further 147 899 tracer quasars at z ≳ 1.77. Then, we fit these correlations using a 13-parameter model based on linear perturbation theory and find that it provides a good description of the data across a broad range of scales. We detect the BAO peak with a signal-to-noise ratio of 3.8σ, and show that our measurements of the auto- and cross-correlations are fully-consistent with previous measurements by the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS).Even though we only use here a small fraction of the final DESI dataset, our uncertainties are only a factor of 1.7 larger than those from the final eBOSS measurement. We validate the existing analysis methods of Lyα correlations in preparation for making a robust measurement of the BAO scale with the first year of DESI data.

A forward modeling approach to analyzing galaxy clustering with SimBIG

We present cosmological constraints from a simulation-based inference (SBI) analysis of galaxy clustering from the SimBIG forward modeling framework. SimBIG leverages the predictive power of high-fidelity simulations and provides an inference framework that can extract cosmological information on small nonlinear scales. In this work, we apply SimBIG to the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) CMASS galaxy sample and analyze the power spectrum, [Formula: see text], to [Formula: see text]. We construct 20,000 simulated galaxy samples using our forward model, which is based on 2,000 high-resolution Quijote[Formula: see text]-body simulations and includes detailed survey realism for a more complete treatment of observational systematics. We then conduct SBI by training normalizing flows using the simulated samples and infer the posterior distribution of [Formula: see text]CDM cosmological parameters: [Formula: see text]. We derive significant constraints on [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], which are consistent with previous works. Our constraint on [Formula: see text] is 27% more precise than standard [Formula: see text] analyses because we exploit additional cosmological information on nonlinear scales beyond the limit of current analytic models, [Formula: see text]. This improvement is equivalent to the statistical gain expected from a standard [Formula: see text] analysis of galaxy sample [Formula: see text]60% larger than CMASS. While we focus on [Formula: see text] in this work for validation and comparison to the literature, SimBIG provides a framework for analyzing galaxy clustering using any summary statistic. We expect further improvements on cosmological constraints from subsequent SimBIG analyses of summary statistics beyond [Formula: see text].

Correction to: Measurement of the matter-radiation equality scale using the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Quasar Sample

Correction to: Measurement of the matter-radiation equality scale using the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Quasar Sample

Void BAO measurements on quasars from eBOSS

Abstract We present the clustering of voids based on the quasar (QSO) sample of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 16 in configuration space. We define voids as overlapping empty circumspheres computed by Delaunay tetrahedra spanned by quartets of quasars, allowing for an estimate of the depth of underdense regions. To maximise the BAO signal-to-noise ratio, we consider only voids with radii larger than 36h−1Mpc. Our analysis shows a negative BAO peak in the cross-correlation of QSOs and voids. The joint BAO measurement of the QSO auto-correlation and the corresponding cross-correlation with voids shows an improvement in 70% of the QSO mocks with an average improvement of $\sim 5\%$. However, on the SDSS data, we find no improvement compatible with cosmic variance. For both mocks and data, adding voids does not introduce any bias. We find under the flat ΛCDM assumption, a distance joint measurement on data at the effective redshift zeff = 1.51 of DV(zeff) = 26.558 ± 0.553. A forecast of a DESI-like survey with 1000 boxes with a similar effective volume recovers the same results as for light-cone mocks with an average of 4.8% improvement in 68% of the boxes.

Isolating the linear signal when making redshift space distortion measurements

ABSTRACT Constraints on the linear growth rate, fσ8, using small-scale redshift space distortion measurements have a significant statistical advantage over those made on large scales. However, these measurements need to carefully disentangle the linear and non-linear information when interpreting redshift space distortions in terms of fσ8. It is particularly important to do this given that some previous measurements found a significant deviation from the expectation based on the Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model constrained by Planck cosmic microwave background data. We construct a new emulator-based model for small-scale galaxy clustering with scaling parameters for both the linear and non-linear velocities of galaxies, allowing us to isolate the linear growth rate. We train the emulator using simulations from the AbacusCosmos suite, and apply it to data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey luminous red galaxy sample. We obtain a value of fσ8(z = 0.737) = 0.368 ± 0.041, in 2.3σ tension with the Planck 2018 ΛCDM expectation, and find less dependence on the minimum measurement scale than previous analyses.

Cosmological Constraints from the BOSS DR12 Void Size Function

We present the first cosmological constraints derived from the analysis of the void size function. This work relies on the final Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 12 (DR12) data set, a large spectroscopic galaxy catalog, ideal for the identification of cosmic voids. We extract a sample of voids from the distribution of galaxies, and we apply a cleaning procedure aimed at reaching high levels of purity and completeness. We model the void size function by means of an extension of the popular volume-conserving model, based on two additional nuisance parameters. Relying on mock catalogs specifically designed to reproduce the BOSS DR12 galaxy sample, we calibrate the extended size function model parameters and validate the methodology. We then apply a Bayesian analysis to constrain the Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) model and one of its simplest extensions, featuring a constant dark energy equation of state parameter, w. Following a conservative approach, we put constraints on the total matter density parameter and the amplitude of density fluctuations, finding Ωm = 0.29 ± 0.06 and . Testing the alternative scenario, we derive w = −1.1 ± 0.2, in agreement with the ΛCDM model. These results are independent and complementary to those derived from standard cosmological probes, opening up new ways to identify the origin of potential tensions in the current cosmological paradigm.