We report a detection of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the flux-correlation function of the Ly{alpha} forest of high-redshift quasars with a statistical significance of five standard deviations. The study uses 137,562 quasars in th
e redshift range $2.1le z le 3.5$ from the Data Release 11 (DR11) of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of SDSS-III. This sample contains three times the number of quasars used in previous studies. The measured position of the BAO peak determines the angular distance, $D_A(z=2.34)$ and expansion rate, $H(z=2.34)$, both on a scale set by the sound horizon at the drag epoch, $r_d$. We find $D_A/r_d=11.28pm0.65(1sigma)^{+2.8}_{-1.2}(2sigma)$ and $D_H/r_d=9.18pm0.28(1sigma)pm0.6(2sigma)$ where $D_H=c/H$. The optimal combination, $sim D_H^{0.7}D_A^{0.3}/r_d$ is determined with a precision of $sim2%$. For the value $r_d=147.4~{rm Mpc}$, consistent with the CMB power spectrum measured by Planck, we find $D_A(z=2.34)=1662pm96(1sigma)~{rm Mpc}$ and $H(z=2.34)=222pm7(1sigma)~{rm km,s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}}$. Tests with mock catalogs and variations of our analysis procedure have revealed no systematic uncertainties comparable to our statistical errors. Our results agree with the previously reported BAO measurement at the same redshift using the quasar-Ly{alpha} forest cross-correlation. The auto-correlation and cross-correlation approaches are complementary because of the quite different impact of redshift-space distortion on the two measurements. The combined constraints from the two correlation functions imply values of $D_A/r_d$ and $D_H/r_d$ that are, respectively, 7% low and 7% high compared to the predictions of a flat $Lambda$CDM cosmological model with the best-fit Planck parameters. With our estimated statistical errors, the significance of this discrepancy is $approx 2.5sigma$.
We report a detection of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the three-dimensional correlation function of the transmitted flux fraction in the Lya forest of high-redshift quasars. The study uses 48,640 quasars in the redshift range $2.1
le z le 3.5$ from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III). At a mean redshift $z=2.3$, we measure the monopole and quadrupole components of the correlation function for separations in the range $20hMpc<r<200hMpc$. A peak in the correlation function is seen at a separation equal to $(1.01pm0.03)$ times the distance expected for the BAO peak within a concordance $Lambda$CDM cosmology. This first detection of the BAO peak at high redshift, when the universe was strongly matter dominated, results in constraints on the angular diameter distance $da$ and the expansion rate $H$ at $z=2.3$ that, combined with priors on $H_0$ and the baryon density, require the existence of dark energy. Combined with constraints derived from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observations, this result implies $H(z=2.3)=(224pm8){rm km,s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}}$, indicating that the time derivative of the cosmological scale parameter $dot{a}=H(z=2.3)/(1+z)$ is significantly greater than that measured with BAO at $zsim0.5$. This demonstrates that the expansion was decelerating in the range $0.7<z<2.3$, as expected from the matter domination during this epoch. Combined with measurements of $H_0$, one sees the pattern of deceleration followed by acceleration characteristic of a dark-energy dominated universe.
