Related papers: Explaining the Lyman-alpha forest
We report results on the incidence and cosmological mass density of damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) systems at redshifts less that 1.65. We used HST and an efficient non-traditional (but unbiased) survey technique to discover DLA systems at…
We show that it is now possible to image optically thick $\lya$ clouds in fluorescent $\lya$ emission with a relatively long ($\sim 20 $hr) integration on a large ($\sim 10 $m) telescope. For a broad range of column densities ($N\gsim…
The Ly$\alpha$ forest provides one of the best means of mapping large-scale structure at high redshift, including our tightest constraint on the distance-redshift relation before cosmic noon. We describe how the large-scale correlations in…
The forest of Lyman-alpha absorption lines seen in the spectra of distant quasars has become an important probe of the distribution of matter in the Universe. We use large, hydrodynamical simulations from the OWLS project to investigate the…
The Lyman-$\alpha$ forest is a valuable probe of dark matter models featuring a scale-dependent suppression of the power spectrum as compared to $\Lambda$CDM. In this work, we present a new estimator of the Lyman-$\alpha$ flux power…
A variety of independent observational studies have now reported a significant decline in the fraction of Lyman-break galaxies which exhibit Ly-a emission over the redshift interval z=6-7. In combination with the strong damping wing…
Using a sample of approximately 14,000 z>2.1 quasars observed in the first year of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), we measure the three-dimensional correlation function of absorption in the Lyman-alpha forest. The…
The Ly$\alpha$ forest transmission probability distribution function (PDF) is an established probe of the intergalactic medium (IGM) astrophysics, especially the temperature-density relationship of the IGM. We measure the transmission PDF…
We present intermediate resolution ($\sim3$ \AA ) spectra of the Ly$\alpha$ emission from 15 high redshift radio galaxies ($z>2$). Together with previously published spectra we analyze data for a sample of 18 objects. In 11 of the 18 radio…
We present an analysis of the evolution of the Ly alpha absorption lines in the redshift interval 0.0 to \sim 1.5 based upon a sample of 987 lines identified in the spectra of 63 QSOs obtained with the Faint Object Spectrograph on the…
We examine the impact of gas pressure on the transverse coherence of high-redshift (2 <= z <= 4) Lyman-alpha forest absorption along neighboring lines of sight that probe the gas Jeans scale (projected separation Delta r <= 500 kpc/h…
We investigate the relationship between the Lyman-alpha (Lya) forest transmission in the intergalactic medium (IGM) and the environmental density of galaxies, focusing on its implications for the measurement of ionizing radiation escape…
We present VLT-UVES echelle spectra of the Lyman alpha emission and absorption in five radio galaxies at redshifts z=2.55-4.1. Together with data from our pilot study, we have a sample of 7 such systems with radio source sizes ~ 1-90 kpc…
We describe a moderate-resolution (20-25 km/s) FUSE study of the low-redshift intergalactic medium. We report on studies of 7 extragalactic sightlines and 12 Ly-beta absorbers that correspond to Ly-alpha lines detected by HST/GHRS and STIS.…
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…
A sample of 8 QSOs with 1.7 < z_em < 3.7 has been observed with VLT/UVES at a typical resolution 45000 and S/N~40-50. Thanks to the two-arm design of the spectrograph, a remarkable efficiency has been achieved below 400nm and above 800nm,…
We investigate the physical state of HI absorbing gas at low redshift (z = 0.25) using a subset of cosmological, hydrodynamic simulations from the OWLS project, focusing in particular on broad (b_HI > 40 km/s) HI Lyman-Alpha absorbers…
We present results from an efficient, non-traditional survey to discover damped Lyman-alpha (DLA) absorption-line systems with neutral hydrogen column densities N(HI)>2x10^{20} atoms cm^{-2} and redshifts z<1.65. Contrary to previous…
Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) spectra provide insights into the small-scale structure and kinematics of neutral hydrogen (HI) within galaxies as well as the ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM). The former defines the intrinsic…
We present predictions of the correlation between the Lyman-alpha forest absorption in quasar spectra and the mass within \sim 5 Mpc/h (comoving) of the line of sight, using fully hydrodynamic and hydro-PM numerical simulations of the cold…