Date Published:

February 1, 2015

Abstract:

We report a detection of the baryon acousticoscillation (BAO) feature inthe flux-correlation function of the Lyα forest of high-redshiftquasars with a statistical significance of five standard deviations. Thestudy uses 137 562 quasars in the redshift range 2.1 ≤ z ≤ 3.5from the data release 11 (DR11) of the Baryon Oscillation SpectroscopicSurvey (BOSS) of SDSS-III. This sample contains three times the numberof quasars used in previous studies. The measured position of the BAOpeak determines the angular distance, D_A(z = 2.34) andexpansion rate, H(z = 2.34), both on a scale set by the sound horizon atthe drag epoch, r_d. We find D_A/r_d =11.28 ± 0.65(1σ)^+2.8_-1.2 (2σ)and D_H/r_d = 9.18 ± 0.28(1σ) ±0.6(2σ) where D_H = c/H. The optimal combination,~D_H^0.7D_A^0.3/r_d is

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