The Completed SDSS-IV Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Baryon Acoustic Oscillations with Lyα Forests
Hélion du Mas des Bourboux, James Rich, Andreu Font-Ribera, Victoria de Sainte Agathe, James Farr, Thomas Etourneau, Jean-Marc Le Goff, Andrei Cuceu, Christophe Balland, Julian E. Bautista, Michael Blomqvist, Jonathan Brinkmann, Joel R. Brownstein, Solène Chabanier, Edmond Chaussidon, Kyle Dawson, Alma X. González-Morales, Julien Guy, Brad W. Lyke, Axel de la Macorra, Eva-Maria Mueller, Adam D. Myers, Christian Nitschelm, Andrea Muñoz Gutiérrez, Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille, James Parker, Will J. Percival, Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols, Patrick Petitjean, Matthew M. Pieri, Corentin Ravoux, Graziano Rossi, Donald P. Schneider, Hee-Jong Seo, Anže Slosar, Julianna Stermer, M. Vivek, Christophe Yèche, Samantha Youles
Abstract
Abstract We present a measurement of baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAOs) from Ly α absorption and quasars at an effective redshift using the complete extended Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). The 16th and final eBOSS data release (SDSS DR16) contains all data from eBOSS and its predecessor, the Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), providing 210,005 quasars with z q > 2.10 that are used to measure Ly α absorption. We measure the BAO scale both in the autocorrelation of Ly α absorption and in its cross-correlation with 341,468 quasars with redshift z q > 1.77. Apart from the statistical gain from new quasars and deeper observations, the main improvements over previous work come from more accurate modeling of physical and instrumental correlations and the use of new sets of mock data. Combining the BAO measurement from the auto- and cross-correlation yields the constraints of the two ratios and , where the error bars are statistical. These results are within 1.5 σ of the prediction of the flat-ΛCDM cosmology of Planck (2016). The analysis code, picca , the catalog of the flux transmission field measurements, and the Δ χ 2 surfaces are publicly available.