Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy

Broad absorption line quasars (BALs) exhibit blueshifted absorption relative to a number of their prominent broad emission features. These absorption features can contribute to quasar redshift errors and add absorption to the Lyman-a (Lya) forest that is unrelated to large-scale structure. We presen...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Martini, Paul, Cuceu, Andrei|||0000-0002-2169-0595, Ennesser, Lauren|||0000-0002-9501-8769, Brodzeller, Allyson|||0000-0002-8934-0954, Aguilar, Jessica Nicole, Ahlen, Steven, Brooks, David, Claybaugh, Todd, Pérez Ràfols, Ignasi|||0000-0001-6979-0125
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/439352
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/439352
https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/01/137
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Baryon acoustic oscillations
Dark energy experiments
Lyman alpha forest
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física::Astronomia i astrofísica
id ES_692cc2c5f7b034aafb5cb3a96b21e5dc
oai_identifier_str oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/439352
network_acronym_str ES
network_name_str España
repository_id_str
spelling Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategyMartini, PaulCuceu, Andrei|||0000-0002-2169-0595Ennesser, Lauren|||0000-0002-9501-8769Brodzeller, Allyson|||0000-0002-8934-0954Aguilar, Jessica NicoleAhlen, StevenBrooks, DavidClaybaugh, ToddPérez Ràfols, Ignasi|||0000-0001-6979-0125Baryon acoustic oscillationsDark energy experimentsLyman alpha forestÀrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física::Astronomia i astrofísicaBroad absorption line quasars (BALs) exhibit blueshifted absorption relative to a number of their prominent broad emission features. These absorption features can contribute to quasar redshift errors and add absorption to the Lyman-a (Lya) forest that is unrelated to large-scale structure. We present a detailed analysis of the impact of BALs on the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) results with the Lya forest from the first year of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). The baseline strategy for the first year analysis is to mask all pixels associated with all BAL absorption features that fall within the wavelength region used to measure the forest. We explore a range of alternate masking strategies and demonstrate that these changes have minimal impact on the BAO measurements with both DESI data and synthetic data. This includes when we mask the BAL features associated with emission lines outside of the forest region to minimize their contribution to redshift errors. We identify differences in the properties of BALs in the synthetic datasets relative to the observational data, as well as use the synthetic observations to characterize the completeness of the BAL identification algorithm, and demonstrate that incompleteness and differences in the BALs between real and synthetic data also do not impact the BAO results for the Lya forest.Peer ReviewedIOP Publishing20252025-01-3020252025-07-24journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501VoRhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85info:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/2117/439352https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/01/137reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPCinstname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)Inglésengopen accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2Attribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/4393522026-05-27T15:37:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
title Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
spellingShingle Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
Martini, Paul
Baryon acoustic oscillations
Dark energy experiments
Lyman alpha forest
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física::Astronomia i astrofísica
title_short Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
title_full Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
title_fullStr Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
title_full_unstemmed Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
title_sort Validation of the DESI 2024 Lyman alpha forest BAL masking strategy
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Martini, Paul
Cuceu, Andrei|||0000-0002-2169-0595
Ennesser, Lauren|||0000-0002-9501-8769
Brodzeller, Allyson|||0000-0002-8934-0954
Aguilar, Jessica Nicole
Ahlen, Steven
Brooks, David
Claybaugh, Todd
Pérez Ràfols, Ignasi|||0000-0001-6979-0125
author Martini, Paul
author_facet Martini, Paul
Cuceu, Andrei|||0000-0002-2169-0595
Ennesser, Lauren|||0000-0002-9501-8769
Brodzeller, Allyson|||0000-0002-8934-0954
Aguilar, Jessica Nicole
Ahlen, Steven
Brooks, David
Claybaugh, Todd
Pérez Ràfols, Ignasi|||0000-0001-6979-0125
author_role author
author2 Cuceu, Andrei|||0000-0002-2169-0595
Ennesser, Lauren|||0000-0002-9501-8769
Brodzeller, Allyson|||0000-0002-8934-0954
Aguilar, Jessica Nicole
Ahlen, Steven
Brooks, David
Claybaugh, Todd
Pérez Ràfols, Ignasi|||0000-0001-6979-0125
author2_role author
author
author
author
author
author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Baryon acoustic oscillations
Dark energy experiments
Lyman alpha forest
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física::Astronomia i astrofísica
topic Baryon acoustic oscillations
Dark energy experiments
Lyman alpha forest
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física::Astronomia i astrofísica
description Broad absorption line quasars (BALs) exhibit blueshifted absorption relative to a number of their prominent broad emission features. These absorption features can contribute to quasar redshift errors and add absorption to the Lyman-a (Lya) forest that is unrelated to large-scale structure. We present a detailed analysis of the impact of BALs on the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) results with the Lya forest from the first year of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). The baseline strategy for the first year analysis is to mask all pixels associated with all BAL absorption features that fall within the wavelength region used to measure the forest. We explore a range of alternate masking strategies and demonstrate that these changes have minimal impact on the BAO measurements with both DESI data and synthetic data. This includes when we mask the BAL features associated with emission lines outside of the forest region to minimize their contribution to redshift errors. We identify differences in the properties of BALs in the synthetic datasets relative to the observational data, as well as use the synthetic observations to characterize the completeness of the BAL identification algorithm, and demonstrate that incompleteness and differences in the BALs between real and synthetic data also do not impact the BAO results for the Lya forest.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025-01-30
2025
2025-07-24
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv journal article
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
VoR
http://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85
dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/2117/439352
https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/01/137
url https://hdl.handle.net/2117/439352
https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2025/01/137
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
eng
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
language eng
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
Attribution 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.rights.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
Attribution 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv IOP Publishing
publisher.none.fl_str_mv IOP Publishing
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
instname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
instname_str Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
reponame_str UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
collection UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
_version_ 1869410012186542080
score 15,81155