Andreu Font-Ribera, Patrick McDonald, Jordi Miralda-Escudé
Massive spectroscopic surveys of high-redshift quasars yield large numbers of
correlated Lyman {\alpha} absorption spectra that can be used to measure
large-scale structure. Simulations of these surveys are required to accurately
interpret the measurements of correlations and correct for systematic errors.
An efficient method to generate mock realizations of Lyman {\alpha} forest
surveys is presented which generates a field over the lines of sight to the
survey sources only, instead of having to generate it over the entire
three-dimensional volume of the survey. The method can be calibrated to
reproduce the power spectrum and one-point distribution function of the
transmitted flux fraction, as well as the redshift evolution of these
quantities, and is easily used for modeling any survey systematic effects. We
present an example of how these mock surveys are applied to predict the
measurement errors in a survey with similar parameters as the BOSS quasar
survey in SDSS-III.
View original:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.5606
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