Intensity mapping with SDSS/BOSS Lyman-α emission, quasars, and their Lyman-α forest

Abstract

We investigate the large-scale structure of Lyα emission intensity in the Universe at redshifts z = 2-3.5 using cross-correlation techniques. Our Lyα emission samples are spectra of BOSS Luminous Red Galaxies from Data Release 12 with the best-fitting model galaxies subtracted. We cross-correlate the residual flux in these spectra with BOSS quasars, and detect a positive signal on scales 1 ~ 15 h -1 Mpc. We identify and remove a source of contamination not previously accounted for, due to the effects of quasar clustering on cross-fibre light. Corrected, our quasar - Lyα emission cross-correlation is 50 per cent lower than that seen by Croft et al. for DR10, but still significant. Because only ~3 per cent of space is within 15 h -1 Mpc of a quasar, the result does not fully explore the global large-scale structure of Lyα emission. To do this, we cross-correlate with the Lyα forest. We find no signal in this case. The 95 per cent upper limit on the global Lyα mean surface brightness from Lyα emission - Lyα forest crosscorrelation is 〈μα〉 < 1.2 × 10-22 erg s-1 cm-2 Å -1 arcsec-2. This null result rules out the scenario where the observed quasar - Lyα emission cross-correlation is primarily due to the large-scale structure of star-forming galaxies. Taken in combination, our results suggest that Lyα emitting galaxies contribute, but quasars dominatewithin 15 h -1 Mpc. Asimplemodel for Lyα emission from quasars based on hydrodynamic simulations reproduces both the observed forest - Lyα emission and quasar - Lyα emission signals. The latter is also consistent with extrapolation of observations of fluorescent emission from smaller scales r < 1 h -1 Mpc.