DOE OSTI2017
We present spatial correlations of galaxies and IGM neutral hydrogen H i in the COSMOS/UltraVISTA 1.62 deg{sup 2} field. Our data consist of 13,415 photo-z galaxies at z ∼ 2–3 with K{sub s}<23.4 and the Lyα forest absorption lines in the background quasar spectra selected from SDSS data with no signature of damped Lyα system contamination. We estimate a galaxy overdensity δ {sub gal} in an impact parameter of 2.5 (proper) Mpc, and calculate the Lyα forest fluctuations δ{sub 〈F〉} whose negative values correspond to the strong Lyα forest absorption lines. We identify weak evidence of an anti-correlation between δ {sub gal} and δ{sub 〈F〉} with a Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of −0.39 suggesting that the galaxy overdensities and the Lyα forest absorption lines positively correlate in space at the ∼90% confidence level. This positive correlation indicates that high-z galaxies exist around an excess of H i gas in the Lyα forest. We find four cosmic volumes, dubbed A {sub obs}, B {sub obs}, C {sub obs}, and D {sub obs}, that have extremely large (small) values of δ {sub gal} ≃ 0.8 (−1) and δ{sub 〈F〉}≃0.1(−0.4), three of which, B {sub obs}–D {sub obs}, significantly depart from the δ {sub gal}–δ{sub 〈F〉} correlation, and weaken the correlation signal. We perform cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and compare with our observational results. Our simulations reproduce the δ {sub gal}–δ{sub 〈F〉} correlation, agreeing with the observational results. Moreover, our simulations have model counterparts of A {sub obs}–D {sub obs}, and suggest that the observations pinpoint, by chance, a galaxy overdensity like a proto-cluster, gas filaments lying on the quasar sightline, a large void, and orthogonal low-density filaments. Our simulations indicate that the significant departures of B {sub obs}–D {sub obs} are produced by the filamentary large-scale structures and the observation sightline effects.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗