We measure the large-scale cross-correlation of quasars with the Lyman alpha 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=147.49Mpc), we can translate these results to a measurement of the Hubble parameter of H(z=2.36)=226±8km/s/Mpc and of the angular diameter distance of DA(z=2.36)=1590±60Mpc. The measured cross-correlation function and an update of the code to fit the BAO scale (baofit) are made publicly available.
@article{arxiv.1311.1767,
title = {Quasar-Lyman $\alpha$ Forest Cross-Correlation from BOSS DR11 : Baryon Acoustic Oscillations},
author = {Andreu Font-Ribera and David Kirkby and Nicolas Busca and Jordi Miralda-Escudé and Nicholas P. Ross and Anže Slosar and Jim Rich and Éric Aubourg and Stephen Bailey and Vaishali Bhardwaj and Julian Bautista and Florian Beutler and Dmitry Bizyaev and Michael Blomqvist and Howard Brewington and Jon Brinkmann and Joel R. Brownstein and Bill Carithers and Kyle S. Dawson and Timothée Delubac and Garrett Ebelke and Daniel J. Eisenstein and Jian Ge and Karen Kinemuchi and Khee-Gan Lee and Viktor Malanushenko and Elena Malanushenko and Moses Marchante and Daniel Margala and Demitri Muna and Adam D. Myers and Pasquier Noterdaeme and Daniel Oravetz and Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille and Isabelle Pâris and Patrick Petitjean and Matthew M. Pieri and Graziano Rossi and Donald P. Schneider and Audrey Simmons and Matteo Viel and Christophe Yeche and Donald G. York},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.1767},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
26 pages, 7 figures, version published by JCAP, with some extra comments suggested by the referee. Results unchanged from previous version