Open AccessThe Lyman α forest in a truncated hierarchical structure formation
Author(s) -
Nusser Adi,
Lahav Ofer
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2000.03441.x
Subject(s) - physics , astrophysics , astronomy
The Lyman α forest provides important constraints on the smoothness of the Universe on large scales. We calculate the flux distribution along the line of sight to quasars in a universe made of randomly distributed clumps, each of them with a Rayleigh–L'evy fractal structure with dimension D <2. We consider the probability distribution function of the normalized flux in the line of sight to quasars. We illustrate that the truncated clustering hierarchy model with D <2 shows far too many voids along the line of sight to quasars compared with the observed flux distribution and the distribution in a cold dark matter model. This supports the common view that on large scales the Universe is homogeneous, rather than fractal‐like.