Dark energy and curvature from a future baryonic acoustic oscillation survey using the Lyman-alpha forest

Abstract

We explore the requirements for a Lyman-alpha forest (LyaF) survey designed to measure the angular diameter distance and Hubble parameter at 2~<z~<4 using the standard ruler provided by baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO). The goal would be to obtain a high enough density of sources to probe the three-dimensional density field on the scale of the BAO feature. A percent-level measurement in this redshift range can almost double the Dark Energy Task Force Figure of Merit, relative to the case with only a similar precision measurement at z~1, if the Universe is not assumed to be flat. This improvement is greater than the one obtained by doubling the size of the z~1 survey, with Planck and a weak SDSS-like z=0.3 BAO measurement assumed in each case. Galaxy BAO surveys at z~1 may be able to make an effective LyaF measurement simultaneously at minimal added cost, because the required number density of quasars is relatively small. We discuss the constraining power as a function of area, magnitude limit (density of quasars), resolution, and signal-to-noise of the spectra. For example, a survey covering 2000 sq. deg. and achieving S/N=1.8 per Ang. at g=23 (~40 quasars per sq. deg.) with an R~>250 spectrograph is sufficient to measure both the radial and transverse oscillation scales to 1.4% from the LyaF (or better, if fainter magnitudes and possibly Lyman-break galaxies can be used). At fixed integration time and in the sky-noise-dominated limit, a wider, noisier survey is generally more efficient; the only fundamental upper limit on noise being the need to identify a quasar and find a redshift. Because the LyaF is much closer to linear and generally better understood than galaxies, systematic errors are even less likely to be a problem.

18 pages including 6 figures, submitted to PRD

References in corpus (3)

• Cosmological parameters from combining the Lyman-alpha forest with CMB, galaxy clustering and SN constraints
• A Spectroscopic Survey of Faint Quasars in the SDSS Deep Stripe: I. Preliminary Results from the Co-added Catalog
• Optimising Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Surveys - I: Testing the concordance LCDM cosmology

Cited by in corpus (51)

• DESI 2024 VI: Cosmological Constraints from the Measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Lyα forest of BOSS DR11 quasars
• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Ly-α forest of BOSS quasars
• DESI DR2 Results II: Measurements of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations and Cosmological Constraints
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: twelfth data release
• Clustering of dark matter tracers: generalizing bias for the coming era of precision LSS
• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• Baryon acoustic oscillations from the complete SDSS-III Ly$\alpha$-quasar cross-correlation function at $z=2.4$
• Think Outside the Color Box: Probabilistic Target Selection and the SDSS-XDQSO Quasar Targeting Catalog
• Primordial non-Gaussianity: large-scale structure signature in the perturbative bias model
• Minimally Parametric Power Spectrum Reconstruction from the Lyman-alpha Forest
• Quasar Selection Based on Photometric Variability
• IGM Constraints from the SDSS-III/BOSS DR9 Ly-alpha Forest Flux Probability Distribution Function
• Identifying galaxies, quasars, and stars with machine learning: A new catalogue of classifications for 111 million SDSS sources without spectra
• LyaCoLoRe: Synthetic Datasets for Current and Future Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest BAO Surveys
• The Acoustic Peak in the Lyman Alpha Forest
• Prospects for Constraining Neutrino Mass Using Planck and Lyman-Alpha Forest Data
• Early Dark Energy at High Redshifts: Status and Perspectives
• Reconstruction of the neutrino mass as a function of redshift
• Classification of Broad Absorption Line Quasars with a Convolutional Neural Network
• Large-scale structure perturbation theory without losing stream crossing
• Forecasting the Dark Energy Measurement with Baryon Acoustic Oscillations: Prospects for the LAMOST surveys
• The 3D Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest Power Spectrum from eBOSS DR16
• The Alcock-Paczyński effect from Lyman-$\alpha$ forest correlations: Analysis validation with synthetic data
• Lenses in the forest: cross-correlation of the Lyman-alpha flux with CMB lensing
• The clustering of critical points in the evolving cosmic web
• Direct cosmological inference from three-dimensional correlations of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest
• Primordial Non-Gaussianity in the Forest: 3D Bispectrum of Ly-alpha Flux Spectra Along Multiple Lines of Sight
• Synthetic spectra for Lyman-$\alpha$ forest analysis in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
• The impact of temperature fluctuations on the large-scale clustering of the Ly$\alpha$ forest
• The C IV forest as a probe of baryon acoustic oscillations
• Constraining dark energy using the cross correlations of weak lensing with post-reionization probes of neutral hydrogen
• The ACCEL2 Project: Precision Measurements of EFT Parameters and BAO Peak Shifts for the Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest
• Planting a Lyman alpha forest on AbacusSummit
• Post-reionization HI 21-cm signal: A probe of negative cosmological constant
• Using the redshift evolution of the Lyman-$\alpha$ effective opacity as a probe of dark matter models
• The redshifted HI 21 cm signal from the post-reionization epoch: Cross-correlations with other cosmological probes
• Probing primordial non-Gaussianity: The 3D Bispectrum of Ly-alpha forest and the redshifted 21-cm signal from the post reionization epoch
• Extracting the astrophysics of reionization from the Ly$\alpha$ forest power spectrum: a first forecast
• Constraining warm dark matter power spectrum using the cross-correlation of HI 21 cm signal and the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest
• Optimizing BAO measurements with non-linear transformations of Lyman-alpha forest
• Separating the memory of reionization from cosmology in the Ly$\alpha$ forest power spectrum at the post-reionization era
• Lowering the Horizon on Dark Energy: A Late-Time Response to Early Solutions for the Hubble Tension
• The Compressed 3D Lyman-Alpha Forest Bispectrum
• Reionization relics in the cross-correlation between the Ly$\alpha$ forest and 21 cm intensity mapping in the post-reionization era
• Modeling the Cosmological Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest at the Field Level
• The Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest from LBGs: First 3D Correlation Measurement with DESI and Prospects for Cosmology
• A semi-cosmographic approach to study cosmological evolution in phase space
• Bridging Simulations and EFT: A Hybrid Model of the Lyman-Alpha Forest Field
• The dynamics of background evolution and structure formation in phase space: a semi-cosmographic reconstruction
• Probing dark energy using anisotropies in the clustering of post-EoR HI distribution