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Title: Towards physics responsible for large-scale Lyman-α forest bias parameters

Journal Article · · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
;  [1]
  1. Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bldg 510A, Upton NY 11973 (United States)

Using a series of carefully constructed numerical experiments based on hydrodynamic cosmological SPH simulations, we attempt to build an intuition for the relevant physics behind the large scale density (b{sub δ}) and velocity gradient (b{sub η}) biases of the Lyman-α forest. Starting with the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation applied to the smoothed total density field in real-space, and progressing through redshift-space with no thermal broadening, redshift-space with thermal broadening and hydrodynamically simulated baryon fields, we investigate how approximations found in the literature fare. We find that Seljak's 2012 analytical formulae for these bias parameters work surprisingly well in the limit of no thermal broadening and linear redshift-space distortions. We also show that his b{sub η} formula is exact in the limit of no thermal broadening. Since introduction of thermal broadening significantly affects its value, we speculate that a combination of large-scale measurements of b{sub η} and the small scale flux PDF might be a sensitive probe of the thermal state of the IGM. We find that large-scale biases derived from the smoothed total matter field are within 10–20% to those based on hydrodynamical quantities, in line with other measurements in the literature.

OSTI ID:
22524953
Journal Information:
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 03; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (9)

Constraint on neutrino masses from SDSS-III/BOSS Lyα forest and other cosmological probes journal February 2015
The non-linear power spectrum of the Lyman alpha forest journal December 2015
Evidence for dark matter interactions in cosmological precision data? journal February 2016
Warm dark matter as a solution to the small scale crisis: New constraints from high redshift Lyman- α forest data journal August 2013
Scale-dependent bias in the baryonic-acoustic-oscillation-scale intergalactic neutral hydrogen journal April 2014
The signatures of large-scale temperature and intensity fluctuations in the Lyman α forest: Temperature fluctuations in the Lyα forest journal June 2011
Constraining Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering with Linear Cosmology text January 2013
Probing the Intergalactic Medium with the Lyman alpha forest along multiple lines of sight to distant QSOs text January 2001
Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter: The Power Spectrum and Evaporation of Early Structures text January 2003

Cited By (5)

Scale-dependent bias and bispectrum in neutrino separate universe simulations journal June 2018
Measurement of Void Bias Using Separate Universe Simulations journal January 2020
Scale-dependent bias and bispectrum in neutrino separate universe simulations text January 2017
The Lyman-α power spectrum—CMB lensing convergence cross-correlation journal January 2018
The cross-correlation between 21cm intensity mapping maps and the Lyman-alpha forest in the post-reionization era text January 2016

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