New Statistical Measures of the Lya Forest Spectra for Accurate Comparison to Theoretical Models

Authors

J Miralda-Escude
M Rauch
WLW Sargent
TA Barlow
DH Weinberg
L Hernquist
N Katz, University of Massachusetts - AmherstFollow
R Cen
JP Ostriker

Publication Date

1997

Abstract

We propose a new method of analysis for the \lya forest, namely to measure the 1-point and 2-point joint probability distribution of the transmitted flux. The results for a sample of seven observed quasars and from two simulations of structure formation are shown and compared. Statistically significant differences in the 2-point function between the results of the numerical simulations and the observations are easily found. The analysis we suggest is very simple to apply to observed data sets, and we discuss its superiority over the traditional Voigt-profile fitting algorithms for accurate comparison to the predictions of theoretical models.

Comments

This is the pre-published version harvested from ArXiv.

Recommended Citation

Miralda-Escude, J; Rauch, M; Sargent, WLW; Barlow, TA; Weinberg, DH; Hernquist, L; Katz, N; Cen, R; and Ostriker, JP, "New Statistical Measures of the Lya Forest Spectra for Accurate Comparison to Theoretical Models" (1997). Astronomy Department Faculty Publication Series. 993.
Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/astro_faculty_pubs/993