THE 2-POINT CORRELATION-FUNCTION OF RANDOMLY DISTRIBUTED LYMAN-ALPHA CLOUDS

It is often assumed that Lyalpha forest clouds are randomly distribute d, intergalactic objects that are highly ionized by the EUV background produced by quasars. If these assumptions are true, fluctuations in t he ionizing background should produce a nonzero two-point correlation function in the Lyalpha forest. This effect, which is really just a ge neralization of the proximity effect, is more significant at high reds hift (z almost-equal-to 3-4) because the attenuation length for EUV ph otons is smaller there and the fluctuations are correspondingly larger . We have studied this effect using both the semianalytic techniques o f Zuo's recent papers and Monte Carlo simulations. The correlation fun ction is expected to have a small yet potentially measurable amplitude that is consistent with current limits. Furthermore, the signature of this effect is distinctive because the nonzero correlation function e xtends over the photon attenuation length, which is larger than the ex pected scale of large-scale structure. Observations or upper limits on this effect could provide information about the source of the ionizin g background at high redshifts and the nature of the Lyalpha forest cl ouds.