Related papers: Weak lensing of the Lyman-alpha forest
We present some statistical features of the large number of \lya absorption lines detected in high redshift quasar spectra, obtained by using the multifractal approach. In the analysed sample of 12 QSO sight--lines, 11 show scaling…
The evolution of the expansion rate of the Universe results in a drift in the redshift of distant sources over time. A measurement of this drift would provide us with a direct probe of expansion history. The Lyman alpha forest has been…
Weak gravitational lensing is a unique probe of the dark side of the universe: it provides a direct way to map the distribution of dark matter around galaxies, clusters of galaxies and on cosmological scales. Furthermore, the measurement of…
The z > 2 Lyman-alpha (Lya) forest traces the underlying dark-matter distribution on large scales and, given sufficient sightlines, can be used to create 3D maps of large-scale structure. We examine the observational requirements to…
Weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies can probe the total projected mass distribution of foreground gravitational structures on all scales and has been used successfully to map the projected mass distribution of rich intermediate…
Weak gravitational lensing provides a unique method to map directly the distribution of dark matter in the universe and to measure cosmological parameters. This cosmic-shear technique is based on the measurement of the weak distortions that…
We present the target selection, observations, and data reduction and analysis process for a program aimed at discovering numerous, weak (equivalent width < 100 mA) Lya absorption lines in the local Universe (0.003 < z < 0.069). The purpose…
We present moderate resolution data for 39 QSOs at z $\approx$ 2 obtained at the Multiple Mirror Telescope. These data are combined with spectra of comparable resolution of 60 QSOs with redshifts greater than 1.7 found in the literature to…
The Lyman-$\alpha$ forest refers to the series of absorption features observed in the spectra of distant quasars that are produced by neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium. Observed over a wide range of redshifts with both ground-…
The coherent image distortions induced by weak gravitational lensing can be used to measure the power spectrum of density inhomogeneities in the universe. We present our on-going effort to detect this effect with the FIRST radio survey,…
By exploiting small-scale structure formation probed by Lyman-$\alpha$ forest observations, we study constraints on a model of dark matter from dark sector decay. We compute the phase space distribution of the dark matter and the linear…
We present a theoretical estimate for a new observable: the cross-correlation between the Lyman-alpha flux fluctuations in quasar (QSO) spectra and the convergence of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) as measured along the same…
We present results on the evolution and clustering of Ly-alpha lines at low z. The sample contains 1298 Ly-alpha lines from 165 quasar spectra mined from the archives of the HST/FOS. Our sample extends to z=1.7, slightly higher than the…
This paper reviews statistical methods recently developed to reconstruct and analyze dark matter mass maps from weak lensing observations. The field of weak lensing is motivated by the observations made in the last decades showing that the…
The quasar Q1208+1011 (z_{em}=3.8) is the second highest redshift double quasar ever detected. Several indications point toward it being a gravitational lensed system, although a definitive proof is still lacking. We present new evidence of…
Using data from the HST Medium Deep Survey, a long-term Key Project, together with generically similar archived data, we have discovered evidence for weak gravitational `shear' of background field galaxies (I = 22 -- 26) in the vicinity of…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) represents a unique source for the study of gravitational lensing. It is extended across the entire sky, partially polarized, located at the extreme distance of z=1100, and is thought to have the…
We examine the statistics of the low-redshift Lyman-alpha forest from smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations in light of recent improvements in the estimated evolution of the cosmic ultraviolet background (UVB) and recent observations…
Recent work has shown that the z~2.5 Lyman-alpha forest on large scales encodes information about the galaxy and quasar populations that keep the intergalactic medium photoionized. We present the first forecasts for constraining the…
We investigate the possibility of constraining primordial non-Gaussianity using the 3D bispectrum of Ly-alpha forest. The strength of the quadratic non-Gaussian correction to an otherwise Gaussian primordial gravitational field is assumed…