The Lyman Alpha Forest One Dimensional Power Spectrum from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2015-12We measure the one dimensional power spectrum of the transmitted ux in the Ly forest using 16,331 quasar spectra from the twelfth Data Release (DR12) of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). An analysis of this caliber requires a thorough understanding of the data, and the majority of this thesis is aimed at accurately determining the contribution of quasar continuum, sky, and throughput of the quasar spectra. We develop realistic mock spectra to test our code and our power spectrum measurement. A trustworthy measurement of the one dimensional power spectrum also requires removing the contamination from metal absorption in the forest. We account for this and subtract it from the total power measured. We compare our final results to previous results and check for consistency in our measurement