The QSO proximity effect at redshift <z>=2.6 with the FLO approach

TL;DR

This study applies the FLO method to high-resolution spectra to analyze the QSO proximity effect at redshift 2.6, revealing local density enhancements near QSOs and estimating the UV background ionisation rate with reduced systematic uncertainties.

Contribution

It introduces an improved application of the FLO approach to a large spectral sample, providing refined density and ionisation rate measurements around QSOs at z~2.6.

Findings

Confirmed high-density peaks within 4 Mpc of QSOs.

Did not find significant over-density extending to 15 Mpc.

Estimated UV background ionisation rate around 10^{-12} s^{-1}.

Abstract

We revisit the proximity effect produced by QSOs at redshifts 2.1-3.3 applying the FLO approach (Saitta et al. 2008) to a sample of ~6300 Ly-alpha lines fitted in 21 high resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra. This new technique allows to recover the hydrogen density field from the HI column densities of the lines in the Ly-alpha forest, on the basis of simple assumptions on the physical state of the gas. To minimize the systematic uncertainties that could affect the density recovering in the QSO vicinity, we carefully determined the redshifts of the QSOs in our sample and modelled in detail their spectra to compute the corresponding ionising fluxes. The mean density field obtained from the observed spectra shows a significant over-density in the region within 4 proper Mpc from the QSO position, confirming that QSOs are hosted in high density peaks. The absolute value of rho/<rho> for the peak is uncertain by a factor of ~3, depending on the assumed QSO spectral slope and the minimum HI column density detectable in the spectra. We do not confirm the presence of a significant over-density extending to separations of ~15 proper Mpc from the QSO, claimed in previous works at redshifts <z>=2.5 and 3.8. Our best guess for the UV background ionisation rate based on the IGM mean density recovered by FLO is Gamma_UVB ~ 10^{-12} s^{-1}. However, values of Gamma_UVB ~ 3x10^{-12} s^{-1} could be viable if an inverted temperature-density relation with index alpha=-0.5 is adopted.