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[19.05] The Density--Width Relation of the Saturated Ly\alpha Absorption

H. Zhan (Department of Physics, University of Arizona)

We report a correlation between the mean matter density \bar{\rho} and the width w of the saturated Ly\alpha absorptions, which is well characterized by \bar{\rho}(w)=\rho₀+a\ w^b. This property is established using the pseudo-hydro technique (Croft et al. 1998). It provides a constraint for the inversion of the Ly\alpha forest, which encounters difficulty in the saturated region. We have done a a simple inversion of the simulated Ly\alpha forests with a Gaussian density profile. The results show that the one-dimensional mass power spectrum is well recovered on scales above 2 h^-1Mpc, or, roughly k \gtrsim 0.03 km^-1s, at z=3. The recovery underestimates the power on small scales, but improvement is possible with a more sophisticated algorithm.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: zhanhu@physics.arizona.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #3
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.