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Session 13 - Large Scale Structure & Cosmology.
Display session, Monday, January 13
We have conducted a survey of the Ly\alpha forest in the redshift domain 2.15 < z < 3.37 in front of nine QSOs within a 1^\circ field to probe spatial structure along planes perpendicular to the line-of-sight. The sample consists of 377 Ly\alpha lines with rest equivalent width W_0\geq 0.1 Å\ significant at the 5\sigma level, and separated from the background QSO by \Delta v \geq 5000 km s^-1. We find statistical evidence for correlations of the Ly\alpha absorption line wavelengths through the whole redshift range at angular separations of up to 60 arcmin, and, at z>2.8, of their equivalent widths. The correlations span velocity separations of 50<\Delta v < 400 km s^-1. We find similar behavior in a smaller dataset taken from the literature. Such correlations are consistent with the emerging picture that Ly\alpha lines arise in filaments or large, flattened structures.
Program listing for Monday