Institute for Advanced Study Informal Astrophysics Seminar

ABSTRACT: The first results obtained from the Baryon acoustic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey in SDSS-III on large-scale structure using the Lyman alpha forest will be discussed. Thanks to the unprecedentedly large numbers of quasar spectra being obtained by BOSS, absorption spectra are emerging as a powerful tool for the study of the large-scale distribution and cross-correlations of hydrogen, galaxies, QSOs, and metal absorbers in the universe. This promises to provide new clues for fundamental cosmology, the nature of quasars, the relation of galaxies to their environment, and the first metals that were released to the intergalactic medium.