On the Clustering of Lyman Alpha Clouds

Abstract

We examine the correlational property of $\lya$ clouds in detail and compare it to that of mass and galaxies. We show that the correlation strength of $\lya$ clouds is somewhat weaker than that of the underlying matter, which in turn is weaker than that of galaxies (biased galaxy formation). On the scales probed, $10-300$km/s, for $\lya$ clouds, we find that higher density, higher optical depth, higher column density regions are more strongly clustered than lower density, lower optical depth, lower column density regions. Thus, a consistent picture seems to emerge: the correlation strength for a given set of objects is positively correlated with their characteristic global density and the differences among the correlations of galaxies, $\lya$ clouds and mass reflect the differences in density that each trace. Significant positive correlations with a strength of $0.1-1.0$ are found for $\lya$ clouds in the velocity range $50-300$km/s. Among the correlational measures examined, an optical depth correlation function (Equation 5) proposed here may serve as the best correlational measure. It reasonably faithfully represents the true correlation of the underlying matter, enabling a better indication of both matter correlation and the relationship between galaxies and $\lya$ clouds. Furthermore, it appears to be an alternative to the conventional line-line correlation function with the virtue that it does not require ambiguous post-observation fitting procedures such as those commonly employed in the conventional line-finding methods. Neither does it depend sensitively on the observational resolution (e.g., FWHM), insofaras the clouds are resolved Conveniently, it can be easily measured with the current observational sensitivity without being contaminated significantly by the presence of noise.