Constraining primordial non-Gaussianity with the 3-point correlation function of the SDSS-IV eBOSS DR14 quasar sample

While quasars are sparse in number density, they reside at relatively high-redshift as compared to galaxies. Hence, they are likely to be less non-linearly evolved than the galaxy population, and thus have a distribution that more closely mirrors the primordial density field. Therefore, they offer an intriguing opportunity to search for primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG). To this end, the 3-point correlation function (3PCF) is an excellent statistical tool to detect departures from Gaussianity, vanishing for a Gaussian field. In this work, we will make the first-ever measurement of the large-scale quasar 3PCF from the SDSS-IV DR14 quasar sample (spanning the largest volume to-date) to place constraints on PNG through the usual f_NL-type parametrization. This work will use the order N^2-time 3PCF algorithm of Slepian & Eisenstein (2015), with N the number of objects.