Small-scale Lyman alpha forest cosmology with PRIYA: Constraints from XQ100 and KODIAQ-SQUAD one-dimensional flux power spectra

Abstract

We present a new cosmological analysis of the small-scale Lyman alpha forest 1D flux power spectrum (P1D) using high-resolution quasar spectra from XQ100 and KODIAQ-SQUAD, interpreted through the PRIYA emulator. PRIYA is a suite of galaxy formation simulations spanning a range of cosmological and inhomogeneous HeII reionization parameters, enabling few-percent-level predictions of the P1D. These datasets, probing down to $k \sim 6\,h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ at $z = 2-5$, offer access to non-linear scales inaccessible to large-volume surveys like eBOSS. We find that the XQ100 P1D yields constraints on the primordial power spectrum parameters $(A_P, n_P)$ at pivot scale $k_0 = 0.78\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ that are consistent with PRIYA results from eBOSS DR14 and Planck CMB, albeit with broader uncertainties. Notably, this is achieved without external IGM temperature data, showing that XQ100 alone provides stronger constraints on thermal history than eBOSS DR14. In contrast, the KODIAQ-SQUAD P1D favors a significantly higher $A_P$ value, driven by the selection bias toward high-column density absorbers (HCDs). We also find that the P1D at $k > 0.045\,\mathrm{s/km}$ is more sensitive to Lyman limit system contamination and thermal history. When imposing a prior on $(A_P, n_P)$, the reduced $χ^2$ remains unchanged and the inferred mean IGM temperature is unaffected, suggesting that cosmological and thermal parameters are largely sensitive to different scales. The XQ100 P1D therefore provides complementary information on thermal nuisance parameters, which can be jointly fit with eBOSS or DESI P1D measurements to improve cosmological constraints.