Related papers: Small Scale Structure at High Redshift: III. The C…
We briefly discuss the relevance of Lyman alpha forest observations for measuring cosmological parameters, comparing the properties of high z QSO spectra with those of artifical spectra from hydrodynamic simulations, based on hierarchical…
We examine the statistics of the low-redshift Ly-alpha forest in an adaptive mesh refinement hydrodynamic cosmological simulation of sufficient volume to include distinct large-scale environments. We compare our HI column density…
We present the first results from a survey of the relative spatial distributions of galaxies, intergalactic neutral hydrogen, and intergalactic metals at high redshift. We obtained high-resolution spectra of 8 bright QSOs at 3.1<z<4.1 and…
We identify a concordant model for the intergalactic medium (IGM) at redshift z=1.9 that uses popular values for cosmological and astrophysical parameters and accounts for all baryons with an uncertainty of 6%. We have measured the amount…
The low-redshift Ly-alpha forest of absorption lines provides a probe of large-scale baryonic structures in the intergalactic medium, some of which may be remnants of physical conditions set up during the epoch of galaxy formation. We…
Cosmological simulations with gas dynamics suggest that the Lyman-alpha forest is produced mainly by "small scale structure" --- filaments and sheets that are the high redshift analog of today's galaxy superclusters. There is no sharp…
We study the kinematics of the gaseous cosmic web at high redshift with Lyman alpha forest absorption in multiple QSO sightlines. Using a simple analytic model and a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation we constrain the underlying…
Observations of absorption systems in close, multiple lines of sight to gravitationally lensed QSOs can be used to infer the density fluctuations and motions of the gas clouds giving rise to the Lyman alpha forest phenomenon and to QSO…
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…
We measure the amount of absorption in the Lyman-alpha forest at 0 < z < 1.6 in HST FOS spectra of 74 QSOs. At 0 < z < 1.6 we find that 79% of the absorption is from the low density intergalactic medium, 12% from metals and 9% from the…
We have obtained high resolution (FWHM = 4.4 km/s) Keck spectra of images A and C of the gravitationally lensed QSO Q1422+231. The images are separated by 1.3" on the sky. In an absorption system at z = 3.538 gas column density variations…
We examine the relationship between galaxies and the intergalactic medium at z < 1 using a group of three closely spaced background QSOs with z_em ~1 observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. Using a new grouping algorithm, we identify…
Cosmological simulations with gas provide a detailed description of the intergalactic medium, making possible predictions of neutral hydrogen absorption in the spectra of background QSOs. We present results from a high-resolution…
We examine the Ly-alpha absorber population at z<0.3 detected in spectra of the QSOs PG0953+415 and H1821+643 taken with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. We compare their statistical properties to…
We use cosmological hydrodynamic simulations with stellar feedback from the FIRE project to study the physical nature of Lyman limit systems (LLSs) at z<1. At these low redshifts, LLSs are closely associated with dense gas structures…
We report the serendipitous detection of a 0.2 L$^*$, Lyman-$\alpha$ emitting galaxy at redshift 2.5 at an impact parameter of 50 kpc from a bright background QSO sightline. A high-resolution spectrum of the QSO reveals a partial…
Lyman-alpha forest lines in QSO spectra have typical widths of 20-50 km/s. Low column density absorbers in cosmological simulations are large, diffuse structures, and the Hubble flow across the spatially extended absorber is usually the…
We use a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of a cold dark matter universe to investigate theoretically the relationship between high redshift galaxies and the Lyman=alpha forest at redshift z=3. Galaxies in the simulation are surrounded…
Maps of the large-scale structure of the Universe at redshifts 2-4 can be made with the Lyman-alpha forest which are complementary to low redshift galaxy surveys. We apply the Wiener interpolation method of Caucci et al. to construct…
We present composite spectra constructed from a sample of 242,150 Lyman-alpha (Lya) forest absorbers at redshifts 2.4<z<3.1 identified in quasar spectra from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) as part of Data Release 9 of…