Prospects for constraining quasar ages with fiber spectrographs: quasar-induced Ly$\alpha$ emission from the intergalactic medium

Abstract

We present a theoretical framework for linking quasar properties, such as quasar age, to the surrounding Ly$\alpha$ emission intensity. In particular, we focus on a method for mapping the large-scale structure of Ly$\alpha$ emission intensity with galaxy spectra from wide-field spectroscopic surveys, e.g., the Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) or the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), and consider the quasar-induced Ly$\alpha$ emission from the intergalactic medium (IGM). To do this, we construct a theoretical model based on two physical processes: resonant scattering of quasar Ly$\alpha$ photons and fluorescence due to quasar ionizing photons, finding that the fluorescence contribution due to optically thick gas clouds is dominant. Taking into account the light cone effect and assuming a typical quasar spectrum, we calculate the fluorescence contribution to the spectrum stacked within each bin of the separation angle from the quasar as a function of quasar age. Furthermore, we compute the quasar-Ly$\alpha$ emission cross-correlation and its SNR for the planned PFS survey. The predicted signal can only account for $\sim 10\%$ of the measurements indicated from the BOSS and eBOSS surveys in the outer region of $>10\mathrm{cMpc}{\mathrm{h}}^{-1}$, and the predicted SNR is not sufficient to detect the quasar-induced contribution. However, we found that our model, combined with the contribution of star-forming galaxies, is not in conflict with these measurements. We discuss other possible contributions to the Ly$\alpha$ emission excess around quasars, the efficiency of using spectroscopic fibers, and the redshift dependence of our model.

20 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS; moderate changes to match published version

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Measurements of quasar proximity zones with the Ly$\alpha$ forest of DESI Y1 quasars