Massive neutrinos and degeneracies in Lyman-alpha forest simulations

Understand

Using a suite of hydrodynamical simulations with cold dark matter, baryons, and neutrinos, we present a detailed study of the effect of massive neutrinos on the 1-D and 3-D flux power spectra of the Lyman-$\alpha$ (Ly$\alpha$) forest.

• The presence of massive neutrinos in cosmology induces a scale- and time-dependent suppression of structure formation that is strongest on small scales.
• Measuring this suppression is a key method for inferring neutrino masses from cosmological data, and is one of the main goals of ongoing and future surveys like eBOSS, DES, LSST, Euclid or DESI.
• The clustering in the Ly$\alpha$ forest traces the quasi-linear power at late times and on small scales.