Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Research Articles

An Independent Measure of the Kinematic Dipole from SDSS

We utilize the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey catalogs with precise spectroscopic redshifts to estimate the kinematic redshift dipole caused by the proper motion of the solar system. We find that the velocity extracted from the kinematic dipole is consistent with cosmic microwave background (CMB) inferred values. Although the small sky coverage and limited number density of the SDSS sources constrain us from obtaining precise and robust measurements, we leverage the redshift dipole method to estimate the kinematic dipole. The velocity measurements in this study are insensitive to intrinsic clustering, associated with the source count dipole. The kinematic dipole measured in this work and its consistency with CMB values do not guarantee isotropy at large scales. The anisotropy (excess dipole) measured with the NRAO VLA Sky Survey and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Catalog could be due to the intrinsic distribution of galaxies. The results in this work focus solely on the kinematic dipole term.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Measurement of the matter-radiation equality scale using the extended baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey quasar sample

ABSTRACT The position of the peak of the matter power spectrum, the so-called turnover scale, is set by the horizon size at the epoch of matter-radiation equality. It can easily be predicted in terms of the physics of the universe in the relativistic era, and so can be used as a standard ruler, independent of other features present in the matter power spectrum, such as baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs). We use the distribution of quasars measured by the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) to determine the turnover scale in a model-independent fashion statistically. We avoid modelling the BAO by down-weighting affected scales in the covariance matrix using the mode deprojection technique. We measure the wavenumber of the peak to be $k_\mathrm{TO} = \left(17.6^{+1.9}_{-1.8} \right) \times 10^{-3}h/\mathrm{Mpc}$, corresponding to a dilation scale of $D_\mathrm{V}(z_\mathrm{eff} = 1.48) = \left(31.1^{+4.1}_{-3.4}\right)r_\mathrm{H}$. This is not competitive with current BAO distance measures in terms of determining the expansion history but does provide a useful cross-check. We combine this measurement with low-redshift distance measurements from type-Ia supernova data from Pantheon and BAO data from eBOSS to make a sound-horizon free estimate of the Hubble–Lemaître parameter and find it to be $H_0=64.8^{+8.4}_{-7.8} \ \mathrm{km/s/Mpc}$ with Pantheon, and $H_0=63.3^{+8.2}_{-6.9} \ \mathrm{km/s/Mpc}$ with eBOSS BAO. We make predictions for the measurement of the turnover scale by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) survey, the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE), and MegaMapper, which will make more precise and accurate distance determinations.

The Alcock–Paczyński effect from Lyman-α forest correlations: analysis validation with synthetic data

ABSTRACT The three-dimensional distribution of the Ly α forest has been extensively used to constrain cosmology through measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) scale. However, more cosmological information could be extracted from the full shapes of the Ly α forest correlations through the Alcock–Paczyński (AP) effect. In this work, we prepare for a cosmological analysis of the full shape of the Ly α forest correlations by studying synthetic data of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). We use a set of 100 eBOSS synthetic data sets in order to validate such an analysis. These mocks undergo the same analysis process as the real data. We perform a full-shape analysis on the mean of the correlation functions measured from the 100 eBOSS realizations, and find that our model of the Ly α correlations performs well on current data sets. We show that we are able to obtain an unbiased full-shape measurement of DM/DH(zeff), where DM is the transverse comoving distance, DH is the Hubble distance, and zeff is the effective redshift of the measurement. We test the fit over a range of scales, and decide to use a minimum separation of rmin = 25 h−1Mpc. We also study and discuss the impact of the main contaminants affecting Ly α forest correlations, and give recommendations on how to perform such analysis with real data. While the final eBOSS Ly α BAO analysis measured DM/DH(zeff = 2.33) with 4 per cent statistical precision, a full-shape fit of the same correlations could provide an $\sim 2~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ measurement.

Beyond – ΛCDM constraints from the full shape clustering measurements from BOSS and eBOSS

ABSTRACT We analyse the full shape of anisotropic clustering measurements from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey quasar sample together with the combined galaxy sample from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. We obtain constraints on the cosmological parameters independent of the Hubble parameter h for the extensions of the Lambda cold dark matter (ΛCDM) models, focusing on cosmologies with free dark energy equation of state parameter w. We combine the clustering constraints with those from the latest cosmic microwave background data from Planck to obtain joint constraints for these cosmologies for w and the additional extension parameters – its time evolution wa, the physical curvature density ωK and the neutrino mass sum ∑mν. Our joint constraints are consistent with a flat ΛCDM cosmological model within 68 per cent confidence limits. We demonstrate that the Planck data are able to place tight constraints on the clustering amplitude today, σ12, in cosmologies with varying w and present the first constraints for the clustering amplitude for such cosmologies, which is found to be slightly higher than the ΛCDM value. Additionally, we show that when we vary w and allow for non-flat cosmologies and the physical curvature density is used, Planck prefers a curved universe at 4σ significance, which is ∼2σ higher than when using the relative curvature density ΩK. Finally, when w is varied freely, clustering provides only a modest improvement (of 0.021 eV) on the upper limit of ∑mν.

The star-formation history in the last 10 billion years from CIB cross-correlations

ABSTRACT The cosmic infrared background (CIB) traces the emission of star-forming galaxies throughout all cosmic epochs. Breaking down the contribution from galaxies at different redshifts to the observed CIB maps would allow us to probe the history of star formation. In this paper, we cross-correlate maps of the CIB with galaxy samples covering the range z ≲ 2 to measure the bias-weighted star-formation rate (SFR) density 〈bρSFR〉 as a function of time in a model independent way. This quantity is complementary to direct measurements of the SFR density ρSFR, giving a higher weight to more massive haloes, and thus provides additional information to constrain the physical properties of star formation. Using cross-correlations of the CIB with galaxies from the DESI Legacy Survey and the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, we obtain high signal-to-noise ratio measurements of 〈bρSFR〉, which we then use to place constraints on halo-based models of the star-formation history. We fit halo-based SFR models to our data and compare the recovered ρSFR with direct measurements of this quantity. We find a qualitatively good agreement between both independent data sets, although the details depend on the specific halo model assumed. This constitutes a useful robustness test for the physical interpretation of the CIB, and reinforces the role of CIB maps as valuable astrophysical probes of the large-scale structure. We report our measurements of 〈bρSFR〉 as well as a thorough account of their statistical uncertainties, which can be used to constrain star-formation models in combination with other data.

Effect of the metallicity of the intergalactic medium in the Lyman‐α forest correlation function

AbstractThe Lyman‐α (Lyα) forest allows to constraint cosmological parameters at redshifts above using the technique of standard rulers determined by baryon acoustic oscillations. This makes it an important tracer for the study of the universe at high redshift. For this work, several synthetic datasets have been generated to understand the astrophysical effects and contaminants that contribute to the shape of the Lyα flux correlation function, and to be able to reproduce the correlation function measured with data spectra from different galaxy surveys (extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument). Among these phenomena the presence of metals in the intergalactic medium translate into an important bias in the flux correlation function with respect to the flux correlation function calculated considering an only Hydrogen in the intergalactic medium. In this work we study the influence of the metallicity in the Lyα flux correlation function, simulating the presence of four Silicon transitions in synthetic spectra developed in preparation for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and compared with the data obtained in the 14th data release of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. These results were used for the analysis of the 16th data release of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, and are currently being used for the analysis of the first data release of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument survey.

Baryon acoustic oscillations from a joint analysis of the large-scale clustering in Fourier and configuration space

Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) are a powerful probe of the expansion history of our Universe and are typically measured in the two-point statistics of a galaxy survey, either in Fourier space or in configuration space. In this work, we report a first measurement of BAOs from a joint fit of power spectrum and correlation function multipoles. We tested our new framework with a set of 1000 mock catalogs and showed that our method yields smaller biases on BAO parameters than individually fitting power spectra or correlation functions, or when combining them with the Gaussian approximation method. Our estimated uncertainties are slightly larger than those from the Gaussian approximation, likely due to noise in our sample covariance matrix, the larger number of nuisance parameters, or the fact that our new framework does not rely on the assumption of Gaussian likelihoods for the BAO parameters. However, we argue that our uncertainties are more reliable since they rely on fewer assumptions, and because our method takes correlations between Fourier and configuration space at the level of the two-point statistics. We performed a joint analysis of the luminous red galaxy sample of the extended baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey (eBOSS) data release 16, obtaining DH/rd = 19.27 ± 0.48 and DM/rd = 17.77 ± 0.37, in excellent agreement with the official eBOSS consensus BAO-only results DH/rd = 19.33 ± 0.53 and DM/rd = 17.86 ± 0.33.

Model-independent Test for the Cosmic Distance–Duality Relation with Pantheon and eBOSS DR16 Quasar Sample

In this Paper, we carry out a new model-independent cosmological test for the cosmic distance–duality relation (CDDR) by combining the latest five baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements and the Pantheon type Ia supernova (SNIa) sample. Particularly, the BAO measurement from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey data release 16 quasar sample at effective redshift z = 1.48 is used, and two methods, i.e., a compressed form of the Pantheon sample and the artificial neural network combined with the binning SNIa method, are applied to overcome the redshift-matching problem. Our results suggest that the CDDR is compatible with the observations, and the high-redshift BAO and SNIa data can effectively strengthen the constraints on the violation parameters of CDDR with the confidence interval decreasing by more than 20%. In addition, we find that the compressed form of observational data can provide a more rigorous constraint on the CDDR, and thus can be generalized to the applications of other actual observational data with limited sample size in the test for CDDR.

Abundance matching analysis of the emission-line galaxy sample in the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

ABSTRACT We present the measurements of the small-scale clustering for the emission-line galaxy (ELG) sample from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). We use conditional abundance matching method to interpret the clustering measurements from 0.34 to $70\, h^{-1}\, \textrm {Mpc}$. In order to account for the correlation between properties of ELGs and their environment, we add a secondary connection between star formation rate of ELGs and halo accretion rate. Three parameters are introduced to model the ELG [O ii] luminosity and to mimic the target selection of eBOSS ELGs. The parameters in our models are optimized using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. We find that by conditionally matching star formation rate of galaxies and the halo accretion rate, we are able to reproduce the eBOSS ELG small-scale clustering within 1σ error level. Our best-fitting model shows that the eBOSS ELG sample only consists of $\sim 12{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of all star-forming galaxies, and the satellite fraction of eBOSS ELG sample is 19.3 per cent. We show that the effect of assembly bias is $\sim 20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ on the two-point correlation function and $\sim 5{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ on the void probability function at scale of $r\sim 20 \, h^{-1}\, \rm Mpc$.

Erratum: The completed SDSS-IV extended baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey: geometry and growth from the anisotropic void–galaxy correlation function in the luminous red galaxy sample

Erratum: The completed SDSS-IV extended baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey: geometry and growth from the anisotropic void–galaxy correlation function in the luminous red galaxy sample