Log-Poisson Hierarchical Clustering of Cosmic Neutral Hydrogen and Lyα Transmitted Flux of QSO Absorption Spectrum

We study, in this paper, the non-Gaussian features of the mass density field of neutral hydrogen fluid and the Lyα transmitted flux of QSO absorption spectrum from the point-of-view of self-similar log-Poisson hierarchy. It has been shown recently that, in the scale range from the onset of nonlinear evolution to dissipation, the velocity and mass density fields of cosmic baryon fluid are extremely well described by the She-Leveque’s scaling formula, which is due to the log-Poisson hierarchical cascade. Since the mass density ratio between ionized hydrogen to total hydrogen is not uniform in space, the mass density field of neutral hydrogen component is not given by a similar mapping of total baryon fluid. Nevertheless, we show, with hydrodynamic simulation samples of the concordance ΛCDM universe, that the mass density field of neutral hydrogen, is also well described by the log-Poisson hierarchy. We then investigate the field of Lyα transmitted flux of QSO absorption spectrum. Due to redshift distortion, Lyα transmitted flux fluctuations are no longer to show all features of the log-Poisson hierarchy. However, some nonGaussian features predicted by the log-Poisson hierarchy are not affected by the redshift distortion. We test these predictions with the high resolution and high S/N data of quasars Lyα absorption spectra. All results given by real data, including β-hierarchy, high order moments and scale-scale correlation, are found to be well consistent with the log-Poisson hierarchy. We compare the log-Poisson hierarchy with the popular log-normal model of the Lyα transmitted flux. The later is found to yield too strong non-Gaussianity at high orders, while the logPoisson hierarchy is in agreement with observed data. Subject headings: cosmology: theory large-scale structure of universe Center for Astrophysics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721