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Matter power spectrum from the Lyman-alpha forest: myth or reality?
- Source :
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . 7/21/2002, Vol. 334 Issue 1, p107-116. 10p. - Publication Year :
- 2002
-
Abstract
- We investigate possible systematic errors in the recent measurement of the matter power spectrum from the Lyman-alpha forest by Croft et al. We find that for a large set of prior cosmological models the Croft et al. result holds quite well, with systematic errors being comparable with random ones, when a dependence of the recovered-matter power spectrum on the cosmological parameters at zā¼3 is taken into account. We find that peculiar velocities cause the flux power spectrum to be smoothed over about 100ā300 km s[sup -1] , depending on scale. Consequently, the recovered-matter power spectrum is a smoothed version of the underlying true power spectrum. Uncertainties in the recovered power spectrum are thus correlated over about 100ā300 km s[sup -1] . As a side effect, we find that residual fluctuations in the ionizing background, while having almost no effect on the recovered-matter power spectrum, significantly bias estimates of the baryon density from the Lyman-alpha forest data. We therefore conclude that the Croft et al. result provides a powerful new constraint on cosmological parameters and models of structure formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *GALAXIES
*METAPHYSICAL cosmology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00358711
- Volume :
- 334
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 6969665
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05490.x