We present the distance measurement to z = 0.32 using the eleventh data release (DR) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Survey (BOSS). We use 313 780 galaxies of the low-redshift (LOWZ) sample over 7341 square degrees to compute Dv = (1264±25)(rd/rd,fid) - a sub 2 per cent measurement - using the baryon acoustic feature measured in the galaxy two-point correlation function and power spectrum. We compare our results to those obtained in DR10. We study observational systematics in the LOWZ sample and quantify potential effects due to photometric offsets between the northern and southern Galactic caps. We find the sample to be robust to all systematic effects found to impact on the targeting of higher redshift BOSS galaxies and that the observed north-south tensions can be explained by either limitations in photometric calibration or by sample variance, and have no impact on our final result. Our measurement, combined with the baryonic acoustic scale at z = 0.57, is used in Anderson et al. to constrain cosmological parameters. © 2014 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

© 2015 American Physical Society. We derive constraints on cosmological parameters and tests of dark energy models from the combination of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements with cosmic microwave background (CMB) data and a recent reanalysis of Type Ia supernova (SN) data. In particular, we take advantage of high-precision BAO measurements from galaxy clustering and the Lyman-α forest (LyaF) in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Treating the BAO scale as an uncalibrated standard ruler, BAO data alone yield a high confidence detection of dark energy; in combination with the CMB angular acoustic scale they further imply a nearly flat universe. Adding the CMB-calibrated physical scale of the sound horizon, the combination of BAO and SN data into an "inverse distance ladder" yields a measurement of H0=67.3±1.1 km s-1 Mpc-1, with 1.7% precision. This measurement assumes standard prerecombination physics but is insensitive to assumptions about dark energy or space curvature, so agreement with CMB-based estimates that assume a flat ΛCDM cosmology is an important corroboration of this minimal cosmological model. For constant dark energy (Λ), our BAO+SN+CMB combination yields matter density Ωm=0.301±0.008 and curvature Ωk=-0.003±0.003. When we allow more general forms of evolving dark energy, the BAO+SN+CMB parameter constraints are always consistent with flat ΛCDM values at ≈1σ. While the overall χ2 of model fits is satisfactory, the LyaF BAO measurements are in moderate (2-2.5σ) tension with model predictions. Models with early dark energy that tracks the dominant energy component at high redshift remain consistent with our expansion history constraints, and they yield a higher H0 and lower matter clustering amplitude, improving agreement with some low redshift observations. Expansion history alone yields an upper limit on the summed mass of neutrino species, mν<0.56 eV (95% confidence), improving to mν<0.25 eV if we include the lensing signal in the Planck CMB power spectrum. In a flat ΛCDM model that allows extra relativistic species, our data combination yields Neff=3.43±0.26; while the LyaF BAO data prefer higher Neff when excluding galaxy BAO, the galaxy BAO alone favor Neff≈3. When structure growth is extrapolated forward from the CMB to low redshift, standard dark energy models constrained by our data predict a level of matter clustering that is high compared to most, but not all, observational estimates.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 (DR11) sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid= 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV= (1264 ± 25 Mpc)(rd/rd,fid) at z = 0.32 and DV = (2056 ± 20 Mpc)(rd/rd,fid) at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = (1421 ± 20 Mpc)(rd/rd,fid) and H = (96.8 ± 3.4 kms-1Mpc-1)(rd,fid/rd). Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.

© 2017 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press. We present cosmological results from the final galaxy clustering data set of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our combined galaxy sample comprises 1.2 million massive galaxies over an effective area of 9329 deg2and volume of 18.7 Gpc3, divided into three partially overlapping redshift slices centred at effective redshifts 0.38, 0.51 and 0.61. We measure the angular diameter distance DMand Hubble parameterHfrom the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) method, in combinationwith a cosmic microwave background prior on the sound horizon scale, after applying reconstruction to reduce non-linear effects on the BAO feature. Using the anisotropic clustering of the pre-reconstruction density field, we measure the product DMH from the Alcock-Paczynski (AP) effect and the growth of structure, quantified by fσ8(z), from redshift-space distortions (RSD). We combine individual measurements presented in seven companion papers into a set of consensus values and likelihoods, obtaining constraints that are tighter and more robust than those from any one method; in particular, the AP measurement from sub-BAO scales sharpens constraints from post-reconstruction BAOs by breaking degeneracy between DMand H. Combined with Planck 2016 cosmic microwave background measurements, our distance scale measurements simultaneously imply curvature ωK = 0.0003 ± 0.0026 and a dark energy equation-of-state parameter ω =-1.01 ± 0.06, in strong affirmation of the spatially flat cold dark matter (CDM) model with a cosmological constant (ΛCDM). Our RSD measurements of fσ8, at 6 per cent precision, are similarly consistent with this model. When combined with supernova Ia data, we find H0= 67.3 ± 1.0 kms-1Mpc-1even for our most general dark energy model, in tension with some direct measurements. Adding extra relativistic species as a degree of freedom loosens the constraint only slightly, to H0= 67.8 ± 1.2 kms-1Mpc-1. Assuming flat ΛCDM, we find ωm = 0.310 ± 0.005 and H0= 67.6 ± 0.5 kms-1Mpc-1, and we find a 95 per cent upper limit of 0.16 eV c-2on the neutrino mass sum.

© 2015 The Authors. We present measurements of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale in redshift-space using the clustering of quasars. We consider a sample of 147 000 quasars from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) distributed over 2044 square degrees with redshifts 0.8 < z < 2.2 and measure their spherically averaged clustering in both configuration and Fourier space. Our observational data set and the 1400 simulated realizations of the data set allow us to detect a preference for BAO that is greater than 2.8σ. We determine the spherically averaged BAO distance to z = 1.52 to 3.8 per cent precision: DV (z = 1.52) = 3843 ± 147 (rd/rd,fid) Mpc. This is the first time the location of the BAO feature has been measured between redshifts 1 and 2. Our result is fully consistent with the prediction obtained by extrapolating the Planck flatΛCDMbest-fitting cosmology. All of our results are consistent with basic large-scale structure (LSS) theory, confirming quasars to be a reliable tracer of LSS, and provide a starting point for numerous cosmological tests to be performed with eBOSS quasar samples. We combine our result with previous, independent, BAO distance measurements to construct an updated BAO distance-ladder. Using these BAO data alone and marginalizing over the length of the standard ruler, we find ΩΛ > 0 at 6.6s significance when testing a ΛCDM model with free curvature.