Validation of the DESI DR2 Ly$\alpha$ BAO analysis using synthetic datasets
Abstract
The second data release (DR2) of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), containing data from the first three years of observations, doubles the number of Lyman- (Ly) forest spectra in DR1 and it provides the largest dataset of its kind. To ensure a robust validation of the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) analysis using Ly forests, we have made significant updates compared to DR1 to both the mocks and the analysis framework used in the validation. In particular, we present CoLoRe-QL, a new set of Ly mocks that use a quasi-linear input power spectrum to incorporate the non-linear broadening of the BAO peak. We have also increased the number of realisations used in the validation to 400, compared to the 150 realisations used in DR1. Finally, we present a detailed study of the impact of quasar redshift errors on the BAO measurement, and we compare different strategies to mask Damped Lyman- Absorbers (DLAs) in our spectra. The BAO measurement from the Ly dataset of DESI DR2 is presented in a companion publication.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.14741,
title = {Validation of the DESI DR2 Ly$\alpha$ BAO analysis using synthetic datasets},
author = {L. Casas and H. K. Herrera-Alcantar and J. Chaves-Montero and A. Cuceu and A. Font-Ribera and M. Lokken and M. Abdul-Karim and C. Ramírez-Pérez and J. Aguilar and S. Ahlen and U. Andrade and E. Armengaud and A. Aviles and S. Bailey and S. BenZvi and D. Bianchi and A. Brodzeller and D. Brooks and R. Canning and A. Carnero Rosell and M. Charles and E. Chaussidon and T. Claybaugh and K. S. Dawson and A. de la Macorra and A. de Mattia and Arjun Dey and Biprateep Dey and Z. Ding and P. Doel and D. J. Eisenstein and W. Elbers and S. Ferraro and J. E. Forero-Romero and C. Garcia-Quintero and Lehman H. Garrison and E. Gaztañaga and H. Gil-Marín and S. Gontcho A Gontcho and A. X. Gonzalez-Morales and C. Gordon and G. Gutierrez and J. Guy and M. Herbold and K. Honscheid and C. Howlett and D. Huterer and M. Ishak and S. Juneau and R. Kehoe and D. Kirkby and T. Kisner and A. Kremin and O. Lahav and M. Landriau and J. M. Le Goff and L. Le Guillou and A. Leauthaud and M. E. Levi and Q. Li and M. Manera and P. Martini and A. Meisner and J. Mena-Fernández and R. Miquel and J. Moustakas and D. Muñoz Santos and A. D. Myers and S. Nadathur and L. Napolitano and G. Niz and H. E. Noriega and E. Paillas and N. Palanque-Delabrouille and W. J. Percival and Matthew M. Pieri and C. Poppett and F. Prada and I. Pérez-Ràfols and C. Ravoux and G. Rossi and E. Sanchez and D. Schlegel and M. Schubnell and H. Seo and F. Sinigaglia and D. Sprayberry and T. Tan and G. Tarlé and P. Taylor and W. Turner and M. Vargas-Magaña and M. Walther and B. A. Weaver and M. Wolfson and C. Yèche and P. Zarrouk and R. Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.14741},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
This DESI Collaboration Publication is part of the Data Release 2 publication series (see https://data.desi.lbl.gov/doc/papers)