Constraint on the time variation of the fine-structure constant with the SDSS-III/BOSS DR12 quasar sample
Entity
UAM. Departamento de Física TeóricaPublisher
Oxford University PressDate
2015-08-17Citation
10.1093/mnras/stv1406
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 452.4 (2015): 4153-4168
ISSN
0035-8711 (print); 1365-2966 (online)DOI
10.1093/mnras/stv1406Funded by
FDA, JC, and FP acknowledge support from the Spanish MICINNs Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme under grant MultiDark CSD2009-00064, MINECO Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Programme under grant SEV-2012-0249, and MINECO grants AYA-2012-31101 and AYA2014-60641-C2-1-P. FDA also acknowledges financial support from ‘la Caixa’-Severo Ochoa doctoral fellowship, AM and DAGH acknowledge support provided by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under grant AYA-2011-27754Project
Gobierno de España. CSD2009-00064; Gobierno de España. AYA-2012-31101; Gobierno de España. AYA2014-60641-C2-1-P; Gobierno de España. AYA-2011-27754Editor's Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv1406Subjects
Cosmology: observations; Large-scale structure of universe; Line: profiles; Quasars: emission lines; Surveys; FísicaNote
This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2015 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reservedRights
© 2015 The AuthorsAbstract
From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 12, which covers the full Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) footprint, we investigate the possible variation of the fine-structure constant over cosmological time-scales. We analyse the largest quasar sample considered so far in the literature, which contains 13 175 spectra (10 363 from SDSS-III/BOSS DR12 + 2812 from SDSS-II DR7) with redshift z < 1.We apply the emission-line method on the [OIII] doublet (λλ 4960, 5008 Å) and obtain Δα/α = (0.9±1.8)×10-5 for the relative variation of the fine-structure constant. We also investigate the possible sources of systematics: misidentification of the lines, sky OH lines, H Β and broad line contamination, Gaussian and Voigt fitting profiles, optimal wavelength range for the Gaussian fits, chosen polynomial order for the continuum spectrum, signal-to-noise ratio and good quality of the fits. The uncertainty of the measurement is dominated by the sky subtraction. The results presented in this work, being systematics limited, have sufficient statistics to constrain robustly the variation of the fine-structure constant in redshift bins (Δz ≈ 0.06) over the last 7.9 Gyr. In addition, we study the [Ne III] doublet (λλ 3869, 3968 Å) present in 462 quasar spectra and discuss the systematic effects on using these emission lines to constrain the fine-structure constant variation. Better constraints on Δα/α (< 10-6) using the emission-line method would be possible with highresolution spectroscopy and large galaxy/qso surveys
Files in this item
Google Scholar:Albareti, Franco Dante
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Comparat, Johan
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Gutiérrez, Carlos M.
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Prada, Francisco
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Pâris, Isabelle
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Schlegel, David
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López-Corredoira, Martín
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Schneider, Donald P.
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Manchado, Arturo
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García-Hernández, D. A.
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Petitjean, Patrick
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Ge, Jian
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