COMAP Early Science. VIII. A Joint Stacking Analysis with eBOSS Quasars

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad2dfc
• Publication Date: 2024-04-01T12:13:38Z
• Authors: Delaney A. Dunne; Kieran A. Cleary; Patrick C. Breysse; Dongwoo T. Chung; Håvard T. Ihle; J. Richard Bond; Hans Kristian Eri...; Joshua Ott Gundersen; Laura C. Keating; Junhan Kim; Jonas Gahr Sturtz...; Norman Murray; Hamsa Padmanabhan; Liju Philip; Nils-Ole Stutzer; Doğa Tolgay; Ingunn Katherine ...; Sarah E. Church; Todd Gaier; Andrew I. Harris; Richard Hobbs; James W. Lamb; Charles R. Lawrence; Anthony C. S. Rea...; David P. Woody
• Keywords: QB460-466; Cosmological evolution; Molecular gas; Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); High-redshift galaxies; FOS: Physical sciences; Radio astronomy; Astrophysics; Quasars; Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; CO line emission

Abstract We present a new upper limit on the cosmic molecular gas density at z = 2.4–3.4 obtained using first year of observations from CO Mapping Array Project (COMAP). COMAP data cubes are stacked 3D positions 243 quasars selected Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) catalog, yielding 95% for flux CO(1–0) line emission 0.129 Jy km s −1 . Depending balance between quasar host and its environment, this value can be interpreted as an average luminosity <?CDATA ${L}_{\mathrm{CO}}^{{\prime} }$?> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>L</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>CO</mml:mi> <mml:mo accent="true">′</mml:mo> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> eBOSS ≤1.26 × 10 11 K pc 2 , or ${\rho }_{{{\rm{H}}}_{2}}$?> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>ρ</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">H</mml:mi> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> in regions Universe containing ≤1.52 8 M ⊙ cMpc −3 The falls among luminosities individually targeted redshift range, is comparable to limits other intensity mapping (LIM) surveys their joint analyses. Further, we forecast values obtainable with COMAP/eBOSS stack after full 5 yr Pathfinder survey. predict that detection probable method, depending properties sample. Based achieved sensitivity, believe technique stacking LIM traditional galaxy catalogs extremely promising, both investigating large efficiently high bolstering sensitivity experiments, even fraction total expected survey data.