Baryon acoustic oscillations in the Ly α forest of BOSS DR11 quasars

We report a detection of the baryon acousticoscillation (BAO) feature in the flux-correlation function of the Lyα forest of high-redshift quasars with a statistical significance of five standard deviations. The study uses 137 562 quasars in the redshift range 2.1 ≤ z ≤ 3.5 from the data release 11 (DR11) of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of SDSS-III. This sample contains three times the number of quasars used in previous studies. The measured position of the BAO peak determines the angular distance, DA(z = 2.34) and expansion rate, H(z = 2.34), both on a scale set by the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd. We find DA/rd = 11.28 ± 0.65(1σ)+2.8-1.2 (2σ) and DH/rd = 9.18 ± 0.28(1σ) ± 0.6(2σ)…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: DE-AC02-98CH10886, FP7/2007-2013
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: AC02-98CH10886, DE-AC02, DE-AC02-
• AP
  Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• YU
  Yale University
• VU
  Vanderbilt University
• PU
  Princeton University
• OS
  Ohio State University
• HU
  Harvard University
• UO
  University of Washington
• JH
  Johns Hopkins University
• UO
  University of Arizona
• CM
  Carnegie Mellon University
• UO
  University of Portsmouth
• NM
  New Mexico State University
• YU
  York University
• EC
  European Commission

  Awards: FP7/2007-2013, 2007-2013, FP7/2007, 301665, PIIF-GA-2011
• AN
  Agence Nationale de la Recherche

  Awards: ANR-08-BLAN-0222, ANR-12, ANR-12-BS05-0015
• OO
  Office of Science

  Awards: DE-AC02-98CH10886, DE-AC02
• CO
  College of Engineering, Michigan State University
• SA
  Science and Technology Facilities Council

  Awards: ST/L005573/1, ST/K00090X/1, ST/L00481X/1
• BN
  Brookhaven National Laboratory

  Awards: DE-AC02-98CH10886, AC02-98CH10886
• LB
  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory