Large-scale clustering of Lyman-alpha emission intensity from SDSS/BOSS

Understand

(Abridged) We detect the large-scale structure of Lya emission in the Universe at redshifts z=2-3.5 by measuring the cross-correlation of Lya surface brightness with quasars in SDSS/BOSS.

• We use a million spectra targeting Luminous Red Galaxies at z<0.8, after subtracting a best fit model galaxy spectrum from each one, as an estimate of the high-redshift Lya surface brightness.
• The quasar-Lya emission cross-correlation we detect has a shape consistent with a LambdaCDM model with Omega_M =0.30^+0.10-0.07.
• The predicted amplitude of this cross-correlation is proportional to the product of the mean Lya surface brightness, <mu_alpha>, the amplitude of mass fluctuations, and the quasar and Lya emission bias factors.