Pith. sign in

REVIEW 9 cited by

The Observed Probability Distribution Function, Power Spectrum, and Correlation Function of the Transmitted Flux in the Lyman-alpha Forest

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv astro-ph/9911196 v1 pith:QHWDLDOJ submitted 1999-11-11 astro-ph

The Observed Probability Distribution Function, Power Spectrum, and Correlation Function of the Transmitted Flux in the Lyman-alpha Forest

classification astro-ph
keywords powerspectrumfluxfunctionforestnumericalobservedtransmitted
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

A sample of eight quasars observed at high resolution and signal-to-noise is used to determine the probability distribution function (PDF), the power spectrum, and the correlation function of the transmitted flux in the \lya forest, in three redshift bins centered at z=2.41, 3.00, and 3.89. All the results are presented in tabular form, with full error covariance matrices to allow for comparisons with any numerical simulations and with other data sets. The observations are compared with a numerical simulation of the \lya forest of a Lambda-CDM model with Omega=0.4, known to agree with other large-scale structure observational constraints. There is excellent agreement for the PDF, if the mean transmitted flux is adjusted to match the observations. A small difference between the observed and predicted PDF is found at high fluxes and low redshift, which may be due to the uncertain effects of fitting the spectral continuum. Using the numerical simulation, we show how the flux power spectrum can be used to recover the initial power spectrum of density fluctuations. From our sample of eight quasars, we measure the amplitude of the mass power spectrum to correspond to a linear variance per unit ln(k) of $\Delta^2_\rho(k)=0.72\pm0.09$ at k=0.04(km/s)^{-1} and z=3, and the slope of the power spectrum near the same k to be $n_p=-2.55\pm0.10$ (statistical error bars). The results are statistically consistent with Croft et. al. (1999), although our value for the rms fluctuation is lower by a factor 0.75. For the Lambda-CDM model we use, the implied primordial slope is $n=0.93\pm0.10$, and the normalization is $\sigma_8=0.68+1.16(0.95-n)\pm0.04$.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 9 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Cosmological analysis of the DESI DR1 Lyman alpha 1D power spectrum

    astro-ph.CO 2026-01 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    DESI DR1 Lyman-alpha data yields Δ²★=0.379±0.032 and n★=-2.309±0.019 at k★=0.009 km⁻¹s and z=3, sharpening N_eff, α_s, and β_s constraints by factors of 1.18-1.90 when combined with other probes.

  2. Lyman-Alpha Forest and its Cross-Correlation with High-Redshift Galaxies in Effective Field Theory at the Field Level

    astro-ph.CO 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    An EFT-based field-level forward model for the Lyman-alpha forest matches simulations at the percent level on quasi-linear scales and generates mocks for DESI and DESI-II analyses.

  3. Probing Confining Dark Sectors with Cosmological Perturbations

    hep-ph 2026-06 conditional novelty 6.0

    Composite dark matter from a keV–MeV confining phase transition sources an IR-enhanced curvature spectrum that competes with free-streaming suppression, yielding concrete CMB and Lyman-α bounds on transition strength ...

  4. Probing Confining Dark Sectors with Cosmological Perturbations

    hep-ph 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Composite dark matter from a keV-MeV confining phase transition generates curvature perturbations constrained by CMB anisotropies and Lyman-alpha forest data, offering a testable scenario even without visible sector c...

  5. The 3D clustering of Lyman Alpha Emitters measured with DESI

    astro-ph.CO 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    DESI LAE clustering measurements give a linear bias of 2.31-2.62 with constraints on radiative transfer effects and halo occupation from correlation functions and power spectra.

  6. The Compressed 3D Lyman-Alpha Forest Bispectrum

    astro-ph.CO 2025-10 conditional novelty 6.0

    The Lyman-alpha forest bispectrum can be compressed into 26 skew spectra, including a new shifted variant, with tree-level EFT predictions matching simulations at 1-2 sigma up to k≈0.17 h/Mpc.

  7. Lya2pcf: an efficient pipeline to estimate two- and three-point correlation functions of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest

    astro-ph.CO 2025-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Lya2pcf is an efficient pipeline implementing standard algorithms for 2PCF and 3PCF of the Lyman-alpha forest, with GPU speedups over PICCA and the first large-sample anisotropic 3PCF measurement up to 80 Mpc/h.

  8. DESI 2024 IV: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations from the Lyman Alpha Forest

    astro-ph.CO 2024-04 accept novelty 6.0

    DESI measures BAO from the Lyα forest at z_eff=2.33, reporting H(z) = (239.2 ± 4.8) (147.09 Mpc/rd) km/s/Mpc and DM(z) = (5.84 ± 0.14) (rd/147.09 Mpc) Gpc.

  9. Machine Learning Techniques for Astrophysics and Cosmology: Lyman-$\alpha$ forest

    astro-ph.CO 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 2.0

    Review of machine learning applications for analyzing Lyman-alpha forest observations to probe cosmology, reionization, and dark matter.