Lyman-alpha Forest Tomography of the z>2 Cosmic Web

Abstract

The hydrogen Ly$\alpha$ forest is an important probe of the $z>2$ Universe that is otherwise challenging to observe with galaxy redshift surveys, but this technique has traditionally been limited to 1D studies in front of bright quasars. However, by pushing to faint magnitudes ($g>23$) with 8-10m large telescopes it becomes possible to exploit the high area density of high-redshift star-forming galaxies to create 3D tomographic maps of large-scale structure in the foreground. I describe the first pilot observations using this technique, as well discuss future surveys and the resulting science possibilities for galaxy evolution and cosmology.

4 pages, 2 figures. Conference proceedings for IAU308 Symposium on "The Zel'dovich Universe: Genesis and Growth of the Cosmic Web"

References in corpus (10)

• The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) -- Overview
• 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
• 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
• Ancient Light from Young Cosmic Cities: Physical and Observational Signatures of Galaxy Proto-Clusters
• Luminosity Function from dedicated SDSS-III and MMT data of quasars in 0.7<z<4.0 selected with a new approach
• Lyman-alpha Forest Tomography from Background Galaxies: The First Megaparsec-Resolution Large-Scale Structure Map at z>2
• Observational Requirements for Lyman-alpha Forest Tomographic Mapping of Large-Scale Structure at z ~ 2
• Tomography of the intergalactic medium with Ly-alpha forests in close QSO pairs
• Nonparametric 3D map of the IGM using the Lyman-alpha forest