A comparison of quasar emission reconstruction techniques for z ≥ 5.0 Lyman α and Lyman β transmission
Abstract
Reconstruction techniques for intrinsic quasar continua are crucial for the precision study of Lyman α (Ly α) and Lyman β (Ly β) transmission at z > 5.5, where the λ < 1215 Å emission of quasars is nearly completely absorbed. While the number and quality of spectroscopic observations have become theoretically sufficient to quantify Ly α transmission at 5.0 < z < 6.0 to better than $1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, the biases and uncertainties arising from predicting the unabsorbed continuum are not known to the same level. In this paper, we systematically evaluate eight reconstruction techniques on a unified testing sample of 2.7 < z < 3.5 quasars drawn from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. The methods include power-law extrapolation, stacking of neighbours, and six variants of principal component analysis (PCA) using direct projection, fitting of components, or neural networks to perform weight mapping. We find that power-law reconstructions and the PCA with fewest components and smallest training sample display the largest biases in the Ly α forest (${-}9.58{{\ \rm per\ cent}}/{+}8.22{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, respectively). Power-law extrapolations have larger scatters than previously assumed of ${+}13.1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}/{-}13.2{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ over Ly α and ${+}19.9{{\ \rm per\ cent}}/{-}20.1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ over Ly β. We present two new PCAs that achieve the best current accuracies of $9{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ for Ly α and $17{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ for Ly β. We apply the eight techniques after accounting for wavelength-dependent biases and scatter to a sample of 19 quasars at z > 5.7 with IR X-Shooter spectroscopy, obtaining well-characterized measurements for the mean flux transmission at 4.7 < z < 6.3. Our results demonstrate the importance of testing and, when relevant, training, continuum reconstruction techniques in a systematic way.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- May 2021
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/stab572
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2006.10744
- Bibcode:
- 2021MNRAS.503.2077B
- Keywords:
-
- methods: statistical;
- quasars: emission lines;
- dark ages;
- reionization;
- first stars;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted for publication in MNRAS