Publication Date:
2016-02-12
Description:
We present a science forecast for the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) survey. Focusing on discrete tracers, we forecast the expected accuracy of the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO), the redshift-space distortion (RSD) measurements, the f NL parameter quantifying the primordial non-Gaussianity, the dark energy and modified gravity parameters. We also use the line-of-sight clustering in the Lyman α forest to constrain the total neutrino mass. We find that eBOSS luminous red galaxies, emission line galaxies and clustering quasars can achieve a precision of 1, 2.2 and 1.6 per cent, respectively, for spherically averaged BAO distance measurements. Using the same samples, the constraint on f 8 is expected to be 2.5, 3.3 and 2.8 per cent, respectively. For primordial non-Gaussianity, eBOSS alone can reach an accuracy of ( f NL ) ~ 10–15. eBOSS can at most improve the dark energy figure of merit by a factor of 3 for the Chevallier–Polarski–Linder parametrization, and can well constrain three eigenmodes for the general equation-of-state parameter. eBOSS can also significantly improve constraints on modified gravity parameters by providing the RSD information, which is highly complementary to constraints obtained from weak lensing measurements. A principal component analysis shows that eBOSS can measure the eigenmodes of the effective Newton's constant to 2 per cent precision; this is a factor of 10 improvement over that achievable without eBOSS. Finally, we derive the eBOSS constraint (combined with Planck , Dark Energy Survey and BOSS) on the total neutrino mass, ( m ) = 0.03 eV (68 per cent CL), which in principle makes it possible to distinguish between the two scenarios of neutrino mass hierarchies.
Print ISSN:
0035-8711
Electronic ISSN:
1365-2966
Topics:
Physics
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