One-dimensional power spectrum from first DESI Lyman-α forest
Abstract
The Lyman-alpha forest is a unique probe of large-scale matter density fluctuations at high redshift z > 2. We measure the one-dimensional Lyman-alpha forest power spectrum using the first data provided by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), with a fast Fourier transform estimator. The data sample contains quasar spectra included in the DESI Early Data Release and the first two months of the main survey. This first set of data already provides an improvement in terms of spectroscopic resolution with respect to the previous measurements. We investigated methodological and instrumental contaminants associated with DESI and used synthetic data to validate and correct our measurement. Coupling our measurement with theoretical predictions from hydrodynamical simulations will yield strong constraints on the primordial matter power spectrum, neutrino masses, and dark matter properties. A quadratic maximum likelihood estimator was applied to the same data set on a companion paper and agrees with our measurement.
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