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Clustering of intermediate redshift quasars using the final SDSS III-BOSS sample
Journal article   Open access

Clustering of intermediate redshift quasars using the final SDSS III-BOSS sample

Sarah Eftekharzadeh, Adam D. Myers, Martin White, David H. Weinberg, Donald P. Schneider, Yue Shen, Andreu Font-Ribera, Nicholas P. Ross, Isabelle Paris, Alina Streblyanska, …
Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, v 453(3), pp 2779-2798
01 Nov 2015
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1763
url
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1763View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Maybe Open Access (Publisher Bronze),  Open

Abstract

Astronomy & Astrophysics Physical Sciences Science & Technology
We measure the two-point clustering of spectroscopically confirmed quasars from the final sample of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) on comoving scales of 4 less than or similar to s less than or similar to 22 h(-1) Mpc. The sample covers 6950 deg(2) [19 (h(-1)Gpc)(3)] and, over the redshift range 2.2 <= z <= 2.8, contains 55 826 homogeneously selected quasars, which is twice as many as in any similar work. We deduce b(Q) = 3.54 +/- 0.10; the most precise measurement of quasar bias to date at these redshifts. This corresponds to a host halo mass of similar to 2 x 10(12) h(-1)M(circle dot) with an implied quasar duty cycle of similar to 1 per cent. The real-space projected correlation function is well fitted by a power law of index 2 and correlation length r(0) = (8.12 +/- 0.22) h(-1)Mpc over scales of 4 less than or similar to r(p) less than or similar to 25 h(-1) Mpc. To better study the evolution of quasar clustering at moderate redshift, we extend the redshift range of our study to z similar to 3.4 and measure the bias and correlation length of three subsamples over 2.2 <= z <= 3.4. We find no significant evolution of r(0) or bias over this range, implying that the host halo mass of quasars decreases somewhat with increasing redshift. We find quasar clustering remains similar over a decade in luminosity, contradicting a scenario in which quasar luminosity is monotonically related to halo mass at z approximate to 2.5. Our results are broadly consistent with previous BOSS measurements, but they yield more precise constraints based upon a larger and more uniform data set.

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