Search

The quasar target selection for the upcoming survey of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will be fixed for the next 5 yr. The aim of this work is to validate the quasar selection by studying the impact of imaging systematics as well as stellar and galactic contaminants, and to develop a procedure to mitigate them. Density fluctuations of quasar targets are found to be related to photometric properties such as seeing and depth of the Data Release 9 of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. To model this complex relation, we explore machine learning algorithms (random forest and multilayer perceptron) as an alternative to the standard linear regression. Splitting the footprint of the Legacy Imaging Surveys into three regions according to photometric properties, we perform an independent analysis in each region, validating our method using extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) EZ-mocks. The mitigation procedure is tested by comparing the angular correlation of the corrected target selection on each photometric region to the angular correlation function obtained using quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 16. With our procedure, we recover a similar level of correlation between DESI quasar targets and SDSS quasars in two-thirds of the total footprint and we show that the excess of correlation in the remaining area is due to a stellar contamination that should be removed with DESI spectroscopic data. We derive the Limber parameters in our three imaging regions and compare them to previous measurements from SDSS and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey.

The quasar target selection for the upcoming survey of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) will be fixed for the next 5 yr. The aim of this work is to validate the quasar selection by studying the impact of imaging systematics as well as stellar and galactic contaminants, and to develop a procedure to mitigate them. Density fluctuations of quasar targets are found to be related to photometric properties such as seeing and depth of the Data Release 9 of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. To model this complex relation, we explore machine learning algorithms (random forest and multilayer perceptron) as an alternative to the standard linear regression. Splitting the footprint of the Legacy Imaging Surveys into three regions according to photometric properties, we perform an independent analysis in each region, validating our method using extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) EZ-mocks. The mitigation procedure is tested by comparing the angular correlation of the corrected target selection on each photometric region to the angular correlation function obtained using quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 16. With our procedure, we recover a similar level of correlation between DESI quasar targets and SDSS quasars in two-thirds of the total footprint and we show that the excess of correlation in the remaining area is due to a stellar contamination that should be removed with DESI spectroscopic data. We derive the Limber parameters in our three imaging regions and compare them to previous measurements from SDSS and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey.

We search for the baryon acoustic oscillations in the projected cross-correlation function binned into transverse comoving radius between the SDSS-IV DR16 eBOSS quasars and a dense photometric sample of galaxies selected from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. We estimate the density of the photometric sample of galaxies in this redshift range to be about 2900 deg−2, which is deeper than the official DESI emission line galaxy selection, and the density of the spectroscopic sample is about 20 deg−2. In order to mitigate the systematics related to the use of different imaging surveys close to the detection limit, we use a neural network approach that accounts for complex dependences between the imaging attributes and the observed galaxy density. We find that we are limited by the depth of the imaging surveys that affects the density and purity of the photometric sample and its overlap in redshift with the quasar sample, which thus affects the performance of the method. When cross-correlating the photometric galaxies with quasars in the range 0.6 ≤ z ≤ 1.2, the cross-correlation function can provide better constraints on the comoving angular distance DM (6 per cent precision) compared to the constraint on the spherically averaged distance DV (9 per cent precision) obtained from the autocorrelation. Although not yet competitive, this technique will benefit from the arrival of deeper photometric data from upcoming surveys that will enable it to go beyond the current limitations we have identified in this work.

We present the cosmological implications from final measurements of clustering using galaxies, quasars, and Lyα forests from the completed Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) lineage of experiments in large-scale structure. These experiments, composed of data from SDSS, SDSS-II, BOSS, and eBOSS, offer independent measurements of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements of angular-diameter distances and Hubble distances relative to the sound horizon, rd, from eight different samples and six measurements of the growth rate parameter, fσ8, from redshift-space distortions (RSD). This composite sample is the most constraining of its kind and allows us to perform a comprehensive assessment of the cosmological model after two decades of dedicated spectroscopic observation. We show that the BAO data alone are able to rule out dark-energy-free models at more than eight standard deviations in an extension to the flat, ΛCDM model that allows for curvature. When combined with Planck Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements of temperature and polarization, under the same model, the BAO data provide nearly an order of magnitude improvement on curvature constraints relative to primary CMB constraints alone. Independent of distance measurements, the SDSS RSD data complement weak lensing measurements from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) in demonstrating a preference for a flat ΛCDM cosmological model when combined with Planck measurements. The combined BAO and RSD measurements indicate σ8=0.85±0.03, implying a growth rate that is consistent with predictions from Planck temperature and polarization data and with General Relativity. When combining the results of SDSS BAO and RSD, Planck, Pantheon Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), and DES weak lensing and clustering measurements, all multiple-parameter extensions remain consistent with a ΛCDM model. Regardless of cosmological model, the precision on each of the three parameters, ωΛ, H0, and σ8, remains at roughly 1%, showing changes of

We search for the baryon acoustic oscillations in the projected cross-correlation function binned into transverse comoving radius between the SDSS-IV DR16 eBOSS quasars and a dense photometric sample of galaxies selected from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. We estimate the density of the photometric sample of galaxies in this redshift range to be about 2900 deg−2, which is deeper than the official DESI emission line galaxy selection, and the density of the spectroscopic sample is about 20 deg−2. In order to mitigate the systematics related to the use of different imaging surveys close to the detection limit, we use a neural network approach that accounts for complex dependences between the imaging attributes and the observed galaxy density. We find that we are limited by the depth of the imaging surveys that affects the density and purity of the photometric sample and its overlap in redshift with the quasar sample, which thus affects the performance of the method. When cross-correlating the photometric galaxies with quasars in the range 0.6 ≤ z ≤ 1.2, the cross-correlation function can provide better constraints on the comoving angular distance DM (6 per cent precision) compared to the constraint on the spherically averaged distance DV (9 per cent precision) obtained from the autocorrelation. Although not yet competitive, this technique will benefit from the arrival of deeper photometric data from upcoming surveys that will enable it to go beyond the current limitations we have identified in this work.

There is paucity of data regarding the geographical distribution, incidence, and phylogenetics of multi-drug resistant (MDR) Salmonella Typhi in sub-Saharan Africa. Here we present a phylogenetic reconstruction of whole genome sequenced 249 contemporaneous S. Typhi isolated between 2008-2015 in 11 sub-Saharan African countries, in context of the 2,057 global S. Typhi genomic framework. Despite the broad genetic diversity, the majority of organisms (225/249; 90%) belong to only three genotypes, 4.3.1 (H58) (99/249; 40%), 3.1.1 (97/249; 39%), and 2.3.2 (29/249; 12%). Genotypes 4.3.1 and 3.1.1 are confined within East and West Africa, respectively. MDR phenotype is found in over 50% of organisms restricted within these dominant genotypes. High incidences of MDR S. Typhi are calculated in locations with a high burden of typhoid, specifically in children aged <15 years. Antimicrobial stewardship, MDR surveillance, and the introduction of typhoid conjugate vaccines will be critical for the control of MDR typhoid in Africa.

We present a Bayesian phase-space reconstruction of the cosmic large-scale matter density and velocity fields from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillations Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 12 CMASS galaxy clustering catalogue. We rely on a given ∧ cold dark matter cosmology, a mesh resolution in the range of 6-10 h-1 Mpc, and a lognormal-Poisson model with a redshift-dependent non-linear bias. The bias parameters are derived from the data and a general renormalized perturbation theory approach. We use combined Gibbs and Hamiltonian sampling, implemented in the ARGO code, to iteratively reconstruct the darkmatter density field and the coherent peculiar velocities of individual galaxies, correcting hereby for coherent redshift space distortions. Our tests relying on accurate N-body-based mock galaxy catalogues show unbiased real space power spectra of the non-linear density field up to k ~ 0.2 h Mpc-1, and vanishing quadrupoles down to r ~ 20 h-1 Mpc. We also demonstrate that the non-linear cosmic web can be obtained from the tidal field tensor based on the Gaussian component of the reconstructed density field. We find that the reconstructed velocities have a statistical correlation coefficient compared to the true velocities of each individual lightcone mock galaxy of r ~ 0.68 including about 10 per cent of satellite galaxies with virial motions (about r = 0.75 without satellites). The power spectra of the velocity divergence agree well with theoretical predictions up to k ~ 0.2 h Mpc-1. This work will be especially useful to improve, for example, baryon acoustic oscillation reconstructions, kinematic Sunyaev- Zeldovich, integrated Sachs-Wolfe measurements or environmental studies.

We present baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale measurements determined from the clustering of 1.2 million massive galaxies with redshifts 0.2 < z < 0.75 distributed over 9300 deg2, as quantified by their redshift-space correlation function. In order to facilitate these measurements, we define, describe, and motivate the selection function for galaxies in the final data release (DR12) of the SDSS III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This includes the observational footprint, masks for image quality and Galactic extinction, and weights to account for density relationships intrinsic to the imaging and spectroscopic portions of the survey. We simulate the observed systematic trends in mock galaxy samples and demonstrate that they impart no bias on BAO scale measurements and have a minor impact on the recovered statistical uncertainty. We measure transverse and radial BAO distance measurements in 0.2 < z < 0.5, 0.5 < z < 0.75, and (overlapping) 0.4 < z < 0.6 redshift bins. In each redshift bin, we obtain a precision that is 2.7 per cent or better on the radial distance and 1.6 per cent or better on the transverse distance. The combination of the redshift bins represents 1.8 per cent precision on the radial distance and 1.1 per cent precision on the transverse distance. This paper is part of a set that analyses the final galaxy clustering data set from BOSS. The measurements and likelihoods presented here are combined with others in Alam et al. to produce the final cosmological constraints from BOSS.

© 2017 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press. We present cosmological results from the final galaxy clustering data set of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our combined galaxy sample comprises 1.2 million massive galaxies over an effective area of 9329 deg 2 and volume of 18.7 Gpc 3 , divided into three partially overlapping redshift slices centred at effective redshifts 0.38, 0.51 and 0.61. We measure the angular diameter distance D M and Hubble parameterHfrom the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) method, in combinationwith a cosmic microwave background prior on the sound horizon scale, after applying reconstruction to reduce non-linear effects on the BAO feature. Using the anisotropic clustering of the pre-reconstruction density field, we measure the product D M H from the Alcock-Paczynski (AP) effect and the growth of structure, quantified by fσ 8 (z), from redshift-space distortions (RSD). We combine individual measurements presented in seven companion papers into a set of consensus values and likelihoods, obtaining constraints that are tighter and more robust than those from any one method; in particular, the AP measurement from sub-BAO scales sharpens constraints from post-reconstruction BAOs by breaking degeneracy between D M and H. Combined with Planck 2016 cosmic microwave background measurements, our distance scale measurements simultaneously imply curvature ωK = 0.0003 ± 0.0026 and a dark energy equation-of-state parameter ω =-1.01 ± 0.06, in strong affirmation of the spatially flat cold dark matter (CDM) model with a cosmological constant (ΛCDM). Our RSD measurements of fσ 8 , at 6 per cent precision, are similarly consistent with this model. When combined with supernova Ia data, we find H 0 = 67.3 ± 1.0 kms -1 Mpc -1 even for our most general dark energy model, in tension with some direct measurements. Adding extra relativistic species as a degree of freedom loosens the constraint only sli

We present a Bayesian phase-space reconstruction of the cosmic large-scale matter density and velocity fields from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillations Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 12 CMASS galaxy clustering catalogue. We rely on a given ∧ cold dark matter cosmology, a mesh resolution in the range of 6-10 h-1 Mpc, and a lognormal-Poisson model with a redshift-dependent non-linear bias. The bias parameters are derived from the data and a general renormalized perturbation theory approach. We use combined Gibbs and Hamiltonian sampling, implemented in the ARGO code, to iteratively reconstruct the darkmatter density field and the coherent peculiar velocities of individual galaxies, correcting hereby for coherent redshift space distortions. Our tests relying on accurate N-body-based mock galaxy catalogues show unbiased real space power spectra of the non-linear density field up to k ~ 0.2 h Mpc-1, and vanishing quadrupoles down to r ~ 20 h-1 Mpc. We also demonstrate that the non-linear cosmic web can be obtained from the tidal field tensor based on the Gaussian component of the reconstructed density field. We find that the reconstructed velocities have a statistical correlation coefficient compared to the true velocities of each individual lightcone mock galaxy of r ~ 0.68 including about 10 per cent of satellite galaxies with virial motions (about r = 0.75 without satellites). The power spectra of the velocity divergence agree well with theoretical predictions up to k ~ 0.2 h Mpc-1. This work will be especially useful to improve, for example, baryon acoustic oscillation reconstructions, kinematic Sunyaev- Zeldovich, integrated Sachs-Wolfe measurements or environmental studies.

We present baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale measurements determined from the clustering of 1.2 million massive galaxies with redshifts 0.2 < z < 0.75 distributed over 9300 deg2, as quantified by their redshift-space correlation function. In order to facilitate these measurements, we define, describe, and motivate the selection function for galaxies in the final data release (DR12) of the SDSS III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This includes the observational footprint, masks for image quality and Galactic extinction, and weights to account for density relationships intrinsic to the imaging and spectroscopic portions of the survey. We simulate the observed systematic trends in mock galaxy samples and demonstrate that they impart no bias on BAO scale measurements and have a minor impact on the recovered statistical uncertainty. We measure transverse and radial BAO distance measurements in 0.2 < z < 0.5, 0.5 < z < 0.75, and (overlapping) 0.4 < z < 0.6 redshift bins. In each redshift bin, we obtain a precision that is 2.7 per cent or better on the radial distance and 1.6 per cent or better on the transverse distance. The combination of the redshift bins represents 1.8 per cent precision on the radial distance and 1.1 per cent precision on the transverse distance. This paper is part of a set that analyses the final galaxy clustering data set from BOSS. The measurements and likelihoods presented here are combined with others in Alam et al. to produce the final cosmological constraints from BOSS.

We describe the algorithm used to select the luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample for the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) using photometric data from both the SDSS and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. LRG targets are required to meet a set of color selection criteria and have z-band and i-band MODEL magnitudes z < 19.95 and 19.9 < i < 21.8, respectively. Our algorithm selects roughly 50 LRG targets per square degree, the great majority of which lie in the redshift range 0.6 < z < 1.0 (median redshift 0.71). We demonstrate that our methods are highly effective at eliminating stellar contamination and lower-redshift galaxies. We perform a number of tests using spectroscopic data from SDSS-III/BOSS ancillary programs to determine the redshift reliability of our target selection and its ability to meet the science requirements of eBOSS. The SDSS spectra are of high enough signal-to-noise ratio that at least ∼89% of the target sample yields secure redshift measurements. We also present tests of the uniformity and homogeneity of the sample, demonstrating that it should be clean enough for studies of the large-scale structure of the universe at higher redshifts than SDSS-III/BOSS LRGs reached.

We describe the algorithm used to select the luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample for the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) using photometric data from both the SDSS and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. LRG targets are required to meet a set of color selection criteria and have z-band and i-band MODEL magnitudes z < 19.95 and 19.9 < i < 21.8, respectively. Our algorithm selects roughly 50 LRG targets per square degree, the great majority of which lie in the redshift range 0.6 < z < 1.0 (median redshift 0.71). We demonstrate that our methods are highly effective at eliminating stellar contamination and lower-redshift galaxies. We perform a number of tests using spectroscopic data from SDSS-III/BOSS ancillary programs to determine the redshift reliability of our target selection and its ability to meet the science requirements of eBOSS. The SDSS spectra are of high enough signal-to-noise ratio that at least ∼89% of the target sample yields secure redshift measurements. We also present tests of the uniformity and homogeneity of the sample, demonstrating that it should be clean enough for studies of the large-scale structure of the universe at higher redshifts than SDSS-III/BOSS LRGs reached.

We present measurements of the angular diameter distance to and Hubble parameter at z = 0.57 from the measurement of the baryon acoustic peak in the correlation of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Our analysis is based on asample from Data Release 9 of 264 283 galaxies over 3275 square degrees in the redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.70. We use two different methods to provide robust measurement of the acoustic peak position across and along the line of sight in order to measure the cosmological distance scale. We find DA(0.57) = 1408 ± 45 Mpc and H(0.57) = 92.9 ± 7.8 km s-1 Mpc-1 for our fiducial value of the sound horizon. These results from the anisotropic fitting are fully consistent with the analysis of the spherically averaged acoustic peak position presented in Anderson et al. Our distance measurements are a close match to the predictions of the standard cosmological model featuring a cosmological constant and zero spatial curvature. © 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

We present measurements of the angular diameter distance to and Hubble parameter at z = 0.57 from the measurement of the baryon acoustic peak in the correlation of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Our analysis is based on asample from Data Release 9 of 264 283 galaxies over 3275 square degrees in the redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.70. We use two different methods to provide robust measurement of the acoustic peak position across and along the line of sight in order to measure the cosmological distance scale. We find DA(0.57) = 1408 ± 45 Mpc and H(0.57) = 92.9 ± 7.8 km s-1 Mpc-1 for our fiducial value of the sound horizon. These results from the anisotropic fitting are fully consistent with the analysis of the spherically averaged acoustic peak position presented in Anderson et al. Our distance measurements are a close match to the predictions of the standard cosmological model featuring a cosmological constant and zero spatial curvature. © 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.