Lyman-alpha Forest Tomography from Background Galaxies: The First Megaparsec-Resolution Large-Scale Structure Map at z>2

Abstract

We present the first observations of foreground Lyman-$\alpha$ forest absorption from high-redshift galaxies, targeting 24 star-forming galaxies (SFGs) with $z\sim 2.3-2.8$ within a $5^{\prime }\times 15^{\prime }$ region of the COSMOS field. The transverse sightline separation is $\sim 2h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$ comoving, allowing us to create a tomographic reconstruction of the 3D Ly$\alpha$ forest absorption field over the redshift range $2.20\le z\le 2.45$. The resulting map covers $6h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}\times 14h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$ in the transverse plane and $230h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$ along the line-of-sight with a spatial resolution of $\approx 3.5h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$, and is the first high-fidelity map of large-scale structure on $\sim \mathrm{Mpc}$ scales at $z>2$. Our map reveals significant structures with $\gtrsim 10h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}$ extent, including several spanning the entire transverse breadth, providing qualitative evidence for the filamentary structures predicted to exist in the high-redshift cosmic web. Simulated reconstructions with the same sightline sampling, spectral resolution, and signal-to-noise ratio recover the salient structures present in the underlying 3D absorption fields. Using data from other surveys, we identified 18 galaxies with known redshifts coeval with our map volume enabling a direct comparison to our tomographic map. This shows that galaxies preferentially occupy high-density regions, in qualitative agreement with the same comparison applied to simulations. Our results establishes the feasibility of the CLAMATO survey, which aims to obtain Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra for $\sim 1000$ SFGs over $\sim 1{\mathrm{deg}}^2$ of the COSMOS field, in order to map out IGM large-scale structure at $⟨z⟩\sim 2.3$ over a large volume $(100h^{-1}\mathrm{Mpc}{)}^3$.

Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters; 8 pages and 5 figures

References in corpus (38)

• Starburst99: Synthesis Models for Galaxies with Active Star Formation
• The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III
• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• Rest-Frame Ultraviolet Spectra of z~3 Lyman Break Galaxies
• COSMOS Photometric Redshifts with 30-bands for 2-deg2
• zCOSMOS: A Large VLT/VIMOS redshift survey covering 0 < z < 3 in the COSMOS field
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyα forest of BOSS DR11 quasars
• The First Release COSMOS Optical and Near-IR Data and Catalog
• The COSMOS Survey: Hubble Space Telescope / Advanced Camera for Surveys (HST/ACS) Observations and Data Processing
• 3D-HST: A wide-field grism spectroscopic survey with the Hubble Space Telescope
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Ly-α forest of BOSS quasars
• A Survey of Star-Forming Galaxies in the z=1.4-2.5 `Redshift Desert': Overview
• Gravitational Collapse of Small-Scale Structure as the Origin of the Lyman Alpha Forest
• The Lyman-alpha Forest Power Spectrum from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Towards a Precise Measurement of Matter Clustering: Lyman-alpha Forest Data at Redshifts 2-4
• Multi-Wavelength Constraints on the Cosmic Star Formation History from Spectroscopy: the Rest-Frame UV, H-alpha, and Infrared Luminosity Functions at Redshifts 1.9<z<3.4
• Recovery of the Power Spectrum of Mass Fluctuations from Observations of the Lyman-alpha Forest
• The DESI Experiment, a whitepaper for Snowmass 2013
• Ancient Light from Young Cosmic Cities: Physical and Observational Signatures of Galaxy Proto-Clusters
• The VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey: ~10,000 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts to study galaxy assembly at early epochs 2<z<~6
• A Library of Theoretical Ultraviolet Spectra of Massive, Hot Stars for Evolutionary Synthesis
• Dissecting Photometric redshift for Active Galactic Nuclei using XMM- and Chandra-COSMOS samples
• Wiener Reconstruction of The Large Scale Structure
• The one-dimensional Ly-alpha forest power spectrum from BOSS
• A Refined Measurement of the Mean Transmitted Flux in the Ly-alpha Forest over 2 < z < 5 Using Composite Quasar Spectra
• The Statistics of Density Peaks and the Column Density Distribution of the Lyman-Alpha Forest
• Inversion of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest: 3D investigation of the intergalactic medium
• IGM Constraints from the SDSS-III/BOSS DR9 Ly-alpha Forest Flux Probability Distribution Function
• The BOSS Lyman-alpha Forest Sample from SDSS Data Release 9
• Mean-flux Regulated PCA Continuum Fitting of SDSS Lyman-alpha Forest Spectra
• Observational Requirements for Lyman-alpha Forest Tomographic Mapping of Large-Scale Structure at z ~ 2
• Probing the Circumgalactic Medium at High-Redshift Using Composite BOSS Spectra of Strong Lyman-alpha Forest Absorbers
• Proto-groups at 1.8<z<3 in the zCOSMOS-deep sample
• A Simulation of Ly-alpha Absorption Forests in Linear Approximation in Cold and Cold+Hot Dark Matter Models
• Particle mesh simulations of the Lyman-alpha forest and the signature of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the intergalactic medium
• Stacked Rest-Frame UV Spectra of Ly$\alpha$-Emitting and Continuum-Selected Galaxies at 2<z<3.5
• The Lyman-alpha forest of a Lyman Break Galaxy: VLT Spectra of MS1512-cB58 at z=2.724
• Nonparametric 3D map of the IGM using the Lyman-alpha forest

Cited by in corpus (71)

• Dark matter direct-detection experiments
• The realm of the galaxy protoclusters
• Baryons in the CosmicWeb of IllustrisTNG - I: Gas in Knots, Filaments, Sheets and Voids
• QSO MUSEUM I: A sample of 61 extended Ly$\alpha$-emission nebulae surrounding $z\sim 3$ quasars
• Reionization and galaxy inference from the high-redshift Lyα forest
• First Data Release of the COSMOS Lyman-Alpha Mapping And Tomography Observations: 3D Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest Tomography at 2.05 < z < 2.55
• Surveying Galaxy Proto-clusters in Emission: A Large-scale Structure at z=2.44 and the Outlook for HETDEX
• IGM Constraints from the SDSS-III/BOSS DR9 Ly-alpha Forest Flux Probability Distribution Function
• MAHALO Deep Cluster Survey I. Accelerated and enhanced galaxy formation in the densest regions of a protocluster at z=2.5
• Shadow of a Colossus: A z=2.45 Galaxy Protocluster Detected in 3D Ly-a Forest Tomographic Mapping of the COSMOS Field
• Deep HeII and CIV Spectroscopy of a Giant Lyman alpha Nebula: Dense Compact Gas Clumps in the Circumgalactic Medium of a z~2 Quasar
• The impact of the connectivity of the cosmic web on the physical properties of galaxies at its nodes
• LATIS: The Ly$\alpha$ Tomography IMACS Survey
• Large scale structure around a z=2.1 cluster
• Galaxies Probing Galaxies in PRIMUS - I. Sample, Spectroscopy, and Characteristics of the z~0.5 MgII-Absorbing Circumgalactic Medium
• Protocluster Discovery in Tomographic Ly$\alpha$ Forest Flux Maps
• Dark Galaxy Candidates at Redshift ~3.5 Detected with MUSE
• Helium Reionization Simulations. II. Signatures of Quasar Activity on the IGM
• Second Data Release of the COSMOS Lyman-alpha Mapping and Tomographic Observation: The First 3D Maps of the Detailed Cosmic Web at 2.05<z<2.55
• Environmental Dependence of Galactic Properties Traced by Ly$\alpha$ Forest Absorption: Diversity among Galaxy Populations
• A tomographic map of the large-scale matter distribution using the eBOSS Stripe 82 Ly-$\alpha$ forest
• Voids in Lyα Forest Tomographic Maps
• Revealing the z~2.5 Cosmic Web With 3D Lyman-Alpha Forest Tomography: A Deformation Tensor Approach
• The Hyper Suprime-Cam SSP Transient Survey in COSMOS: Overview
• BIRTH of the COSMOS Field: Primordial and Evolved Density Reconstructions During Cosmic High Noon
• Small-scale structure and the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest baryon acoustic oscillation feature
• Evaluating Lya Emission as a Tracer of the Largest Cosmic Structure at z~2.47
• Probing Feedback via IGM tomography and Ly$\alpha$ forest with Subaru PFS, TMT/ELT, and JWST
• Simba: The average properties of the circumgalactic medium of $2\le z\le 3$ quasars are determined primarily by stellar feedback
• Statistical correlation between the distribution of Ly$\alpha$ emitters and IGM HI at $z\sim 2.2$ mapped by Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam
• Mapping quasar light echoes in 3D with Lyα forest tomography
• A Fundamental Test for Galaxy Formation Models: Matching the Lyman-$\alpha$ Absorption Profiles of Galactic Halos over Three Decades in Distance
• Cosmic Galaxy-IGM HI Relation at $z\sim 2-3$ Probed in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA $1.6$ deg${}^2$ Field
• Simulating MOS science on the ELT: Ly$\alpha$ forest tomography
• The cosmic web in Lyman-alpha emission
• A new model framework for circumgalactic Ly$\alpha$ radiative transfer constrained by galaxy-Ly$\alpha$ forest clustering
• Scientific Objectives of the Hot Universe Baryon Surveyor (HUBS) Mission
• The clustering of critical points in the evolving cosmic web
• Observational Evidence for Large-Scale Gas Heating in a Galaxy Protocluster at z=2.30
• Synthetic spectra for Lyman-$\alpha$ forest analysis in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• Measuring alignments between galaxies and the cosmic web at $z\sim 2-3$ using IGM tomography
• FIREBall-2: The Faint Intergalactic Medium Redshifted Emission Balloon Telescope
• 3D Distribution Map of HI Gas and Galaxies Around an Enormous Ly$\alpha$ Nebula and Three QSOs at $z=2.3$ Revealed by the HI Tomographic Mapping Technique
• Three- and two-point spatial correlations of intergalactic medium at $z\sim 2$ using projected quasar triplets
• Cosmological 3D HI Gas Map with HETDEX Ly$\alpha$ Emitters and eBOSS QSOs at $z=2$: IGM-Galaxy/QSO Connection and a $\sim$ 40-Mpc Scale Giant HII Bubble Candidate
• The COSMOS-Web deep galaxy group catalog up to $z=3.7$
• Weak lensing of the Lyman-alpha forest
• Noise Estimates for Measurements of Weak Lensing from the Lyman-alpha Forest
• Constraining the Fluctuating Gunn-Peterson Approximation Using Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest Tomography at $z=2$
• Testing an indirect method for identifying galaxies with high levels of Lyman continuum leakage
• Detecting preheating in proto-clusters with Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest Tomography
• Three- and two-point spatial correlations of IGM at $z\sim 2$: Cloud based analysis using simulations
• Galaxy populations of ProtoClusters in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations
• Connection Between Galaxies and HI in the Circumgalactic and Intergalactic Media: Variation According to Galaxy Stellar Mass and Star-formation Activity
• A Novel Estimator for the Equation of State of the IGM by Ly$\alpha$ Forest Tomography
• Photometric IGM Tomography: Efficiently Mapping Quasar Light Echoes with Deep Narrow Band Imaging
• Improved Lyman Alpha Tomography using Optimized Reconstruction with Constraints on Absorption (ORCA)
• Trend Filtering -- II. Denoising Astronomical Signals with Varying Degrees of Smoothness
• Observations of Ly$\alpha$ Emitters at High Redshift
• The Role of Dust, UV Luminosity and Large-scale Environment on the Escape of Lya Photons: A Case Study of a Protocluster field at z = 3.1
• Photometric IGM tomography with Subaru/HSC: the large-scale structure of Ly$\alpha$ emitters and IGM transmission in the COSMOS field at $z\sim 5$
• Introducing cosmosTNG: simulating galaxy formation with constrained realizations of the COSMOS field
• LATIS: A Sample of IGM-selected Protoclusters and Protogroups at $z\sim 2.5$
• An Optimized Ly$\alpha$ Forest Inversion Tool Based on a Quantitative Comparison of Existing Reconstruction Methods
• Improving photometric redshifts with Ly$\alpha$ tomography
• Reconstructing HI power spectrum with minimal parameters using the dark matter distribution beyond halos
• LATIS: Comparing Galaxy and IGM Tomography Maps as Tracers of Large-scale Structure and Protoclusters at $z\sim 2.5$
• Cosmological-Scale Lyman-alpha Forest Absorption Around Galaxies and AGN Probed with the HETDEX and SDSS Spectroscopic Data
• LATIS Data Release: $\sim 4200$ Spectra of $z\sim 2-3$ Galaxies, Redshifts, and Intergalactic Medium Tomography Maps
• Intergalactic Medium Tomography with the Sunburst Arc
• Lyman-alpha Forest Tomography of the z>2 Cosmic Web