English

DESI DR1 Ly$\alpha$ forest: 3D full-shape analysis and cosmological constraints

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-09-22 v1

Abstract

We perform an analysis of the full shapes of Lyman-α\alpha (Lyα\alpha) forest correlation functions measured from the first data release (DR1) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Our analysis focuses on measuring the Alcock-Paczynski (AP) effect and the cosmic growth rate times the amplitude of matter fluctuations in spheres of 88 h1Mpch^{-1}\text{Mpc}, fσ8f\sigma_8. We validate our measurements using two different sets of mocks, a series of data splits, and a large set of analysis variations, which were first performed blinded. Our analysis constrains the ratio DM/DH(zeff)=4.525±0.071D_M/D_H(z_\mathrm{eff})=4.525\pm0.071, where DH=c/H(z)D_H=c/H(z) is the Hubble distance, DMD_M is the transverse comoving distance, and the effective redshift is zeff=2.33z_\mathrm{eff}=2.33. This is a factor of 2.42.4 tighter than the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) constraint from the same data. When combining with Lyα\alpha BAO constraints from DESI DR2, we obtain the ratios DH(zeff)/rd=8.646±0.077D_H(z_\mathrm{eff})/r_d=8.646\pm0.077 and DM(zeff)/rd=38.90±0.38D_M(z_\mathrm{eff})/r_d=38.90\pm0.38, where rdr_d is the sound horizon at the drag epoch. We also measure fσ8(zeff)=0.37  0.065+0.055(stat)±0.033(sys)f\sigma_8(z_\mathrm{eff}) = 0.37\; ^{+0.055}_{-0.065} \,(\mathrm{stat})\, \pm 0.033 \,(\mathrm{sys}), but we do not use it for cosmological inference due to difficulties in its validation with mocks. In Λ\LambdaCDM, our measurements are consistent with both cosmic microwave background (CMB) and galaxy clustering constraints. Using a nucleosynthesis prior but no CMB anisotropy information, we measure the Hubble constant to be H0=68.3±1.6  kms1Mpc1H_0 = 68.3\pm 1.6\;\,{\rm km\,s^{-1}\,Mpc^{-1}} within Λ\LambdaCDM. Finally, we show that Lyα\alpha forest AP measurements can help improve constraints on the dark energy equation of state, and are expected to play an important role in upcoming DESI analyses.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.15308,
  title  = {DESI DR1 Ly$\alpha$ forest: 3D full-shape analysis and cosmological constraints},
  author = {Andrei Cuceu and Hiram K. Herrera-Alcantar and Calum Gordon and César Ramírez-Pérez and E. Armengaud and A. Font-Ribera and J. Guy and B. Joachimi and P. Martini and S. Nadathur and I. Pérez-Ràfols and J. Rich and J. Aguilar and S. Ahlen and A. Anand and S. Bailey and A. Bault and D. Bianchi and A. Brodzeller and D. Brooks and J. Chaves-Montero and T. Claybaugh and K. S. Dawson and A. de la Macorra and J. Della Costa and P. Doel and S. Ferraro and J. E. Forero-Romero and E. Gaztañaga and S. Gontcho A Gontcho and A. X. Gonzalez-Morales and D. Green and G. Gutierrez and C. Hahn and M. Herbold and K. Honscheid and V. Iršič and M. Ishak and R. Joyce and N. G. Karaçaylı and D. Kirkby and T. Kisner and A. Kremin and O. Lahav and A. Lambert and C. Lamman and M. Landriau and J. M. Le Goff and L. Le Guillou and M. E. Levi and M. Manera and A. Meisner and R. Miquel and J. Moustakas and A. Muñoz-Gutiérrez and J. A. Newman and G. Niz and N. Palanque-Delabrouille and W. J. Percival and Matthew M. Pieri and C. Poppett and F. Prada and C. Ravoux and G. Rossi and E. Sanchez and D. Schlegel and M. Schubnell and H. Seo and J. Silber and F. Sinigaglia and D. Sprayberry and T. Tan and G. Tarlé and M. Walther and B. A. Weaver and C. Yèche and R. Zhou and H. Zou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.15308},
  year   = {2025}
}