Related papers: Weak lensing of the Lyman-alpha forest
The apparent angular positions of quasars are deflected on the sky by the gravitational field sourced by foreground matter. This weak lensing effect is measurable through the distortions it introduces in the lensed quasar spectra.…
We have proposed a method for measuring weak lensing using the Lyman-alpha forest. Here we estimate the noise expected in weak lensing maps and power spectra for different sets of observational parameters. We find that surveys of the size…
In Lyman-alpha forest measurements it is generally assumed that quasars are mere background light sources which are uncorrelated with the forest. Gravitational lensing of the quasars violates this assumption. This effect leads to a…
We evaluate the performance of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest weak gravitational lensing estimator of Metcalf et al. on forest data from hydrodynamic simulations and ray-traced simulated lensing potentials. We compare the results to those…
We demonstrate a method for reconstructing the weak lensing potential from the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest data. We derive an optimal estimator for the lensing potential on the sky based on the correlation between pixels in real space. This…
The distribution of absorption lines in the spectra of distant quasars, called the Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly-$\alpha$) forest, is a unique probe of cosmology and the intergalactic medium at high redshifts and small scales. The statistical power of…
We review recent developments in the theory of the Lyman-alpha forest and their implications for the role of the forest as a test of cosmological models. Simulations predict a relatively tight correlation between the local Lya optical depth…
The Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) forest is a key tracer of large-scale structure at redshifts z > 2, traditionally studied using spectra of quasars. Here, we explore the viability Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) as alternative background sources…
We present the first detection of a correlation between the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing. For each Lyman-$\alpha$ forest in SDSS-III/BOSS DR12, we correlate the one-dimensional power spectrum with the…
Faint star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 2-3$ can be used as alternative background sources to probe the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest in addition to quasars, yielding high sightline densities that enable 3D tomographic reconstruction of the…
We present the results of microlens ray-tracing simulations showing the effect of absorbing material between a source quasar and a lensing galaxy in a gravitational lens system. We find that, in addition to brightness fluctuations due to…
We discuss the feasibility of measuring the cosmological metric using the redshift space correlation function of the Lya forest in multiple lines of sight, as a function of angular and velocity separation. The geometric parameter that is…
The hydrogen Ly$\alpha$ forest is an important probe of the $z>2$ Universe that is otherwise challenging to observe with galaxy redshift surveys, but this technique has traditionally been limited to 1D studies in front of bright quasars.…
The next frontier of Lyman-alpha forest studies is the reconstruction of 3D correlations from a dense sample of background sources. The measurement of 3D correlations has the potential to improve constraints on fundamental cosmological…
We present results from end-to-end simulations of observations designed to constrain the rate of change in the expansion history of the Universe using the redshift drift of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest absorption lines along the lines-of-sight…
We present constraints on the amplitude and shape of the matter power spectrum and the density of dark matter within the framework of a standard LambdaCDM model. We use a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach to combine independent measurements…
Observations of redshifted Lyman alpha forest absorption in the spectra of quasistellar objects (QSOs) provide a highly sensitive probe of the distribution of gaseous matter in the universe. Over the past two decades optical spectroscopy…
This paper describes a study of the Lyman-alpha forest absorption clouds along the quasar sightline Q0000-26 (zem=4.1). The spectrum was obtained with the High Resolution Spectrometer on the 10m Keck telescope. We derive accurate H I column…
The intense radiation emitted by luminous quasars dramatically alters the ionization state of their surrounding IGM. This so-called proximity effect extends out to tens of Mpc, and manifests as large coherent regions of enhanced…
Cosmological studies of the Lyman-Alpha (Lya) forest typically constrain parameters using two-point statistics. However, higher-order statistics, such as the three-point function (or its Fourier counterpart, the bispectrum) offer additional…