The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-Iii

Abstract

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) is designed to measure the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter over a larger volume than the combined efforts of all previous spectroscopic surveys of large-scale structure. BOSS uses 1.5 million luminous galaxies as faint as i = 19.9 over 10,000 deg 2 to measure BAO to redshifts z < 0.7. Observations of neutral hydrogen in the Lyα forest in more than 150,000 quasar spectra (g < 22) will constrain BAO over the redshift range 2.15 < z < 3.5. Early results from BOSS include the first detection of the large-scale three-dimensional clustering of the Lyα forest and a strong detection from the Data Release 9 data set of the BAO in the clustering of massive galaxies at an effective redshift z = 0.57. We project that BOSS will yield measurements of the angular diameter distance d A to an accuracy of 1.0% at redshifts z = 0.3 and z = 0.57 and measurements of H (z) to 1.8% and 1.7% at the same redshifts. Forecasts for Lyα forest constraints predict a measurement of an overall dilation factor that scales the highly degenerate D A (z) and H −1 (z) parameters to an accuracy of 1.9% at z ∼ 2.5 when the survey is complete. Here, we provide an overview of the selection of spectroscopic targets, planning of observations, and analysis of data and data quality of BOSS.

Beyond the cosmological standard model

“…At the classical level, we may therefore use this equation to eliminate Φ from the action and reproduce the f (R) action (5.24). 18 We also note that the trace of (5.26) can be cast as an equation for the scalar degree of freedom f R : 28) where V eff (f R ) is an effective potential. Taking another derivative, we obtain the effective mass of the scalar f R…”

“…There is overwhelming observational evidence that the universe is undergoing accelerated expansion from observations of type Ia supernovae [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], from Cosmic Microwave Background measurements [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], and from detailed studies of large-scale structure [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. All of the measurements are in good agreement, with all data consistent with a Λ-cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology [31,32], with a value of the cosmological constant of about Λ obs.…”

Observational probes of cosmic acceleration

“…BOSS is observing 1.5 million luminous galaxies (mostly LRGs) out to z = 0.7 over 10,000 square degrees Dawson et al, 2013), with a selection that triples the number density of LRGs at z < 0.4 relative to SDSS-II and extends to a new redshift range with a dense sample at 0.5 < z < 0.7. The increased sampling should facilitate accurate density-field reconstruction ( §4.3.3) to boost the BAO performance.…”

“…With the completion of WiggleZ , the only spectroscopic BAO survey currently operating is SDSS-III BOSS (Dawson et al, 2013). BOSS is approximately midway through its five years of spectroscopic observing and will conclude in mid-2014.…”

Constraining the relative velocity effect using the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

“…BOSS, as part of SDSS-III (Eisenstein et al 2011;Dawson et al 2012) measured spectroscopic redshifts of 1 198 006 galaxies making use of the SDSS multi-fibre spectrographs (Bolton et al 2012;Smee et al 2013). The galaxies are selected from multi-colour SDSS imaging (Fukugita et al 1996;Gunn et al 1998;Smith et al 2002;Gunn, Siegmund & et al 2006;Doi et al 2010) over 10 252 deg 2 divided in two patches on the sky and cover a redshift range of z = 0.2 − 0.75.…”