Title: The clustering of the SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey DR14 quasar sample: first measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations between redshift 0.8 and 2.2

Abstract

We present measurements of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale in redshift-space using the clustering of quasars. We consider a sample of 147,000 quasars from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) distributed over 2044 square degrees with redshifts $0.8 < z < 2.2$ and measure their spherically-averaged clustering in both configuration and Fourier space. Our observational dataset and the 1400 simulated realizations of the dataset allow us to detect a preference for BAO that is greater than 2.5$$\sigma$$. We determine the spherically averaged BAO distance to $z = 1.52$ to 4.4 per cent precision: $$D_V(z=1.52)=3855\pm170 \left(r_{\rm d}/r_{\rm d, fid}\right)\ $$Mpc. This is the first time the location of the BAO feature has been measured between redshifts 1 and 2. Our result is fully consistent with the prediction obtained by extrapolating the Planck flat $$\Lambda$$CDM best-fit cosmology. All of our results are consistent with basic large-scale structure (LSS) theory, confirming quasars to be a reliable tracer of LSS, and provide a starting point for numerous cosmological tests to be performed with eBOSS quasar samples. We combine our result with previous, independent, BAO distance measurements to construct an updated BAO distance-ladder. Using these BAO data alone and marginalizing over the length of the standard ruler, we find $$\Omega_{\Lambda} > 0$$ at 6.5$$\sigma$$ significance when testing a $$\Lambda$$CDM model with free curvature.

Authors:

Ata, Metin ^[1]; Baumgarten, Falk ^[2]; Bautista, Julian ^[3]; Beutler, Florian  ^[4];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0003-0467-5438"

Bizyaev, Dmitry ^[5]; Blanton, Michael R. ^[6]; Blazek, Jonathan A. ^[7]; Bolton, Adam S. ^[8]; Brinkmann, Jonathan ^[9]; Brownstein, Joel R. ^[3]; Burtin, Etienne ^[10]; Chuang, Chia-Hsun ^[1]; Comparat, Johan ^[11]; Dawson, Kyle S. ^[3]; de la Macorra, Axel ^[12]; Du, Wei ^[13]; du Mas des Bourboux, Hélion ^[14]; Eisenstein, Daniel J. ^[15]; Gil-Marín, Héctor ^[16]; Grabowski, Katie ^[9] more »; Guy, Julien ^[17]; Hand, Nick ^[18]; Ho, Shirley ^[19]; Hutchinson, Timothy A. ^[3]; Ivanov, Mikhail M. ^[20]; Kitaura, Francisco-Shu ^[21]; Kneib, Jean-Paul ^[22]; Laurent, Pierre ^[14]; Le Goff, Jean-Marc ^[14]; McEwen, Joseph E. ^[23]; Mueller, Eva-Maria ^[4]; Myers, Adam D. ^[3]; Newman, Jeffrey A. ^[24]; Palanque-Delabrouille, Nathalie ^[14]; Pan, Kaike ^[9]; Pâris, Isabelle ^[25]; Pellejero-Ibanez, Marcos ^[21]; Percival, Will J. ^[4]; Petitjean, Patrick ^[26]; Prada, Francisco ^[27]; Prakash, Abhishek ^[28]; Rodríguez-Torres, Sergio A. ^[29]; Ross, Ashley J.  ^[30];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-7522-9083"

Rossi, Graziano ^[31]; Ruggeri, Rossana ^[4]; Sánchez, Ariel G. ^[11]; Satpathy, Siddharth ^[32]; Schlegel, David J. ^[33]; Schneider, Donald P. ^[34]; Seo, Hee-Jong ^[35]; Slosar, Anže ^[36]; Streblyanska, Alina ^[21]; Tinker, Jeremy L. ^[6]; Tojeiro, Rita  ^[37];

• Search DOE PAGES for author "Tojeiro, Rita"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-5191-2286"

Vargas Magaña, Mariana ^[12]; Vivek, M. ^[3]; Wang, Yuting ^[38]; Yèche, Christophe ^[39]; Yu, Liang ^[40]; Zarrouk, Pauline ^[14]; Zhao, Cheng ^[40]; Zhao, Gong-Bo ^[38]; Zhu, Fangzhou ^[41] « less

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Leibniz Inst. for Astrophysics (AIP), Potsdam (Germany)
2. Leibniz Inst. for Astrophysics (AIP), Potsdam (Germany); Humboldt Univ. of Berlin (Germany). Inst. of Physics
3. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
4. Univ. of Portsmouth (United Kingdom). Inst. of Cosmology and Gravitation
5. Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State Univ., Sunspot, NM (United States); Moscow State Univ., Moscow (Russian Federation). Sternberg Astronomical Inst.
6. New York Univ. (NYU), NY (United States). Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics
7. Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (Switzlerland). Inst. of Physics
8. Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ (United States)
9. Apache Point Observatory and New Mexico State Univ., Sunspot, NM (United States)
10. Univ. of Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France
11. Max Planck Inst. for Extraterrestrial Physics, Munich (Germany)
12. National Autonomous Univ. of Mexico (Mexico). Inst. of Physics
13. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). National Astronomy Observatories
14. Univ. of Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
15. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
16. Sorbonne Univ., Paris (France); Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris (France). Lab. of Nuclear Physics and High Energy
17. Univ. Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris (France)
18. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy
19. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Dept. of Physics; Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, Dept. of Physics
20. Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (Switzlerland). Inst. of Physics; Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Moscow (Russian Federation). Inst. for Nuclear Research
21. Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), La Laguna (Spain); Univ. of La Laguna (Spain)
22. Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (Switzlerland). Inst. of Physics; Aix-Marseille Univ., Marseille (France)
23. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics
24. Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Pittsburgh Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology Center
25. Aix-Marseille Univ., Marseille (France)
26. Univ. of Paris (France). Inst. of Astrophysics
27. Autonomous Univ. of Madrid (Spain). Inst. of Theoretical Physics; Campus of International Excellence, Madrid (Spain); Inst. of Astrophysics of Andalucia, Granada (Spain)
28. Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Dept. of Physics, Astronomy and the Pittsburgh Partice Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology Center
29. Autonomous Univ. of Madrid (Spain). Inst. of Theoretical Physics, Dept. of Theoretical Physics; Campus of International Excellence, Madrid (Spain)
30. Univ. of Portsmouth (United Kingdom). Inst. of Cosmology and Gravitation; The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Center for Cosmology and Astro Particle Physics
31. Sejong Univ., Seoul (Korea, Republic of). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
32. Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Dept. of Physics; Univ. of La Laguna (ULL) (Spain). Dept. of Astrophysics
33. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
34. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Inst. for Gravitation and the Cosmos
35. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
36. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
37. Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland (United Kingdom). School of Physics and Astronomy
38. Univ. of Portsmouth (United Kingdom). Inst. of Cosmology and Gravitation; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). National Astronomy Observatories
39. Univ. of Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
40. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Tsinghua Center for Astrophysics, Dept. of Physics
41. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Dept. of Physics

Publication Date:

Tue Jun 20 00:00:00 EDT 2017

Research Org.:

The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)

OSTI Identifier:

1602479

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1392224; OSTI ID: 1398497

Report Number(s):

BNL-114222-2017-JA
Journal ID: ISSN 0035-8711; TRN: US2104020

Grant/Contract Number:  

SC0011726; SC0012704; AC02-05CH11231

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 473; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 0035-8711

Publisher:

Royal Astronomical Society

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; cosmology: observations; cosmology: large-scale structure of Universe