@article{51af7c8629964c66a76409d7cfd42316,
title = "Baryon acoustic oscillations in the Ly α forest of BOSS quasars*",
abstract = "We report a detection of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the three-dimensional correlation function of the transmitted flux fraction in the Lya forest of high-redshift quasars. The study uses 48 640 quasars in the redshift range 2.1 = z = 3.5 from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III). At a mean redshift z = 2.3, we measure the monopole and quadrupole components of the correlation function for separations in the range 20 h-1 Mpc < r < 200 h-1 Mpc. A peak in the correlation function is seen at a separation equal to (1.01 ± 0.03) times the distance expected for the BAO peak within a concordance .CDM cosmology. This first detection of the BAO peak at high redshift, when the universe was strongly matter dominated, results in constraints on the angular diameter distance DA and the expansion rate H at z = 2.3 that, combined with priors on H0 and the baryon density, require the existence of dark energy. Combined with constraints derived from cosmic microwave background observations, this result implies H(z = 2.3) = (224 ± 8) km s-1 Mpc-1, indicating that the time derivative of the cosmological scale parameter .a = H(z = 2.3)/(1 + z) is significantly greater than that measured with BAO at z ∼ 0.5. This demonstrates that the expansion was decelerating in the range 0.7 < z < 2.3, as expected from the matter domination during this epoch. Combined with measurements of H0, one sees the pattern of deceleration followed by acceleration characteristic of a dark-energy dominated universe.",
keywords = "Cosmological parameters, Cosmology: observations, Dark energy, Large-scale structure of Universe",
author = "Busca, {N. G.} and T. Delubac and J. Rich and S. Bailey and A. Font-Ribera and D. Kirkby and {Le Goff}, {J. M.} and Pieri, {M. M.} and A. Slosar and {\'E} Aubourg and Bautista, {J. E.} and D. Bizyaev and M. Blomqvist and Bolton, {A. S.} and J. Bovy and H. Brewington and A. Borde and J. Brinkmann and B. Carithers and Croft, {R. A.C.} and Dawson, {K. S.} and G. Ebelke and Eisenstein, {D. J.} and Hamilton, {J. C.} and S. Ho and Hogg, {D. W.} and K. Honscheid and Lee, {K. G.} and B. Lundgren and E. Malanushenko and V. Malanushenko and D. Margala and C. Maraston and K. Mehta and J. Miralda-Escud{\'e} and Myers, {A. D.} and Nichol, {R. C.} and P. Noterdaeme and Olmstead, {M. D.} and D. Oravetz and N. Palanque-Delabrouille and K. Pan and I. P{\^a}ris and Percival, {W. J.} and P. Petitjean and Roe, {N. A.} and E. Rollinde and Ross, {N. P.} and G. Rossi and Schlegel, {D. J.} and Schneider, {D. P.} and A. Shelden and Sheldon, {E. S.} and A. Simmons and S. Snedden and Tinker, {J. L.} and M. Viel and Weaver, {B. A.} and Weinberg, {D. H.} and M. White and C. Y{\`e}che and York, {D. G.}",
note = "Funding Information: We thank Carlos Allende Prieto, Ashley Ross and Uros Seljak for stimulating discussions and Adam Riess for providing the data points of Riess et al. (2007) in Fig. 21. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http://www.sdss3.org/ . The French Participation Group of SDSS-III was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche under contract ANR-08-BLAN-0222. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement No. PIIF-GA-2011-301665. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University.",
year = "2013",
doi = "10.1051/0004-6361/201220724",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "552",
journal = "Astronomy and Astrophysics",
issn = "0004-6361",
publisher = "EDP Sciences",
}