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

TL;DR

This study measures the large-scale distribution of Lyman-alpha emission at redshifts 2-3.5 using cross-correlation techniques with BOSS data, revealing quasar dominance near quasars and setting upper limits on emission from star-forming galaxies.

Contribution

It introduces a corrected cross-correlation analysis of Lyman-alpha emission with quasars and the forest, providing new constraints on the sources of Lyman-alpha emission in the early universe.

Findings

Detected positive quasar-Lyman-alpha emission cross-correlation on 1-15 Mpc/h scales.

Found no significant Lyman-alpha emission signal in the Lyman-alpha forest cross-correlation.

Set an upper limit on the global Lyman-alpha surface brightness, ruling out star-forming galaxies as the primary source.

Abstract

We investigate the large-scale structure of Lyman-alpha emission intensity in the Universe at redshifts z=2-3.5 using cross-correlation techniques. Our Lya emission samples are spectra of BOSS Luminous Red Galaxies from Data Release 12 with the best fit model galaxies subtracted. We cross-correlate the residual flux in these spectra with BOSS quasars, and detect a positive signal on scales 1-15 Mpc/h. 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-Lya emission cross-correlation is 50 % lower than that seen by Croft et al. for DR10, but still significant. Because only 3% of space is within 15 Mpc/h of a quasar, the result does not fully explore the global large-scale structure of Lya emission. To do this, we cross-correlate with the Lya forest. We find no signal in this case. The 95% upper limit on the global Lya mean surface brightness from Lya emission-Lya forest cross-correlation is mu < 1.2x10^-22 erg/s/cm^2/A/arcsec^2 This null result rules out the scenario where the observed quasar-Lya emission cross-correlation is primarily due to the large scale structure of star forming galaxies, Taken in combination, our results suggest that Lya emitting galaxies contribute, but quasars dominate within 15 Mpc/h. A simple model for Lya emission from quasars based on hydrodynamic simulations reproduces both the observed forest-Lya emission and quasar-Lya emission signals. The latter is also consistent with extrapolation of observations of fluorescent emission from smaller scales r < 1 Mpc.