Bibcode
Eftekharzadeh, S.; Myers, Adam D.; Paris, Isabelle; Streblyanska, A.; Font-Ribera, Andreu; Ross, Nicholas P.; Shen, Yue; Schneider, Donald P.; Weinberg, David H.; White, Martin
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 453, Issue 3, p.2779-2798
Advertised on:
11
2015
Citations
127
Refereed citations
121
Description
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 ≲ s ≲ 22 h-1
Mpc. The sample covers 6950 deg2 [ ˜ 19 (h-
1Gpc)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 bQ = 3.54 ±
0.10; the most precise measurement of quasar bias to date at these
redshifts. This corresponds to a host halo mass of ˜2 ×
1012 h-1 M⊙ with an implied quasar
duty cycle of ˜1 per cent. The real-space projected correlation
function is well fitted by a power law of index 2 and correlation length
r0 = (8.12 ± 0.22) h- 1 Mpc over scales of
4 ≲ rp ≲ 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 ˜ 3.4 and measure the bias and
correlation length of three subsamples over 2.2 ≤ z ≤ 3.4. We find
no significant evolution of r0 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 ≈ 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.