An improved measurement of the flux distribution of the Ly-alpha forest in QSO absorption spectra: the effect of continuum fitting, metal contamination and noise properties

T. -S. Kim, J. S. Bolton, M. Viel +2

We have performed an extensive Voigt profile analysis of the neutral hydrogen (HI) and metal absorption present in a sample of 18 high resolution, high signal-to-noise QSO spectra…