A New Measure of the Clustering of QSO Heavy-Element Absorption-Line Systems

Details A New Measure of the Clustering of QSO Heavy-Element Absorption-Line Systems A New Measure of the Clustering of QSO Heavy-Element Absorption-Line Systems

1998-08-21

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9808238v2

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

13 pages (LaTex, uses aaspp4.sty and psfig.sty), with 3 encapsulated PostScript figures. To appear in The Astrophysical Journa

Scientific paper

10.1086/307067

We examine the line-of-sight clustering of QSO heavy-element absorption-line systems, using a new measure of clustering, called the reduced second moment measure, that directly measures the mean over-density of absorbers. While closely related to other second-order measures such as the correlation function or the power spectrum, this measure has a number of distinct statistical properties which make possible a continuous exploration of clustering as a function of scale. From a sample of 352 C IV absorbers with median redshift 2.2, drawn from the spectra of 274 QSOs, we find that the absorbers are strongly clustered on scales from 1 to 20 Mpc. Furthermore, there appears to be a sharp break at 20 Mpc, with significant clustering on scales up to 100 Mpc in excess of that which would be expected from a smooth transition to homogeneity. There is no evidence of clustering on scales greater than 100 Mpc. These results suggest that strong C IV absorbers along a line of sight are indicators of clusters and possibly superclusters, a relationship that is supported by recent observations of ``Lyman break'' galaxies.

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