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DeRose, J.

Publications and source records attributed to DeRose, J..

61 records · Page 4

Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: redshift calibration of the weak lensing source galaxies

ABSTRACT Determining the distribution of redshifts of galaxies observed by wide-field photometric experiments like the Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an essential component to mapping the matter density field with gravitational lensing. In this work we describe the methods used to assign individual weak lensing source galaxies from the DES Year 3 Weak Lensing Source Catalogue to four tomographic bins and to estimate the redshift distributions in these bins. As the first application of these methods to data, we validate that the assumptions made apply to the DES Y3 weak lensing source galaxies and develop a full treatment of systematic uncertainties. Our method consists of combining information from three independent likelihood functions: self-organizing map p(z) (sompz), a method for constraining redshifts from galaxy photometry; clustering redshifts (WZ), constraints on redshifts from cross-correlations of galaxy density functions; and shear ratios (SRs), which provide constraints on redshifts from the ratios of the galaxy-shear correlation functions at small scales. Finally, we describe how these independent probes are combined to yield an ensemble of redshift distributions encapsulating our full uncertainty. We calibrate redshifts with combined effective uncertainties of σ〈z〉 ∼ 0.01 on the mean redshift in each tomographic bin.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Spectroscopic quantification of projection effects in the SDSS redMaPPer galaxy cluster catalogue

ABSTRACT Projection effects, whereby galaxies along the line of sight to a galaxy cluster are mistakenly associated with the cluster halo, present a significant challenge for optical cluster cosmology. We use statistically representative spectral coverage of luminous galaxies to investigate how projection effects impact the low-redshift limit of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) redMaPPer galaxy cluster catalogue. Spectroscopic redshifts enable us to differentiate true cluster members from false positives and determine the fraction of candidate cluster members viewed in projection. Our main results can be summarized as follows: first, we show that a simple double-Gaussian model can be used to describe the distribution of line-of-sight velocities in the redMaPPer sample; secondly, the incidence of projection effects is substantial, accounting for ∼16 per cent of the weighted richness for the lowest richness objects; thirdly, projection effects are a strong function of richness, with the contribution in the highest richness bin being several times smaller than for low-richness objects; fourthly, our measurement has a similar amplitude to state-of-the-art models, but finds a steeper dependence of projection effects on richness than these models; and fifthly, the slope of the observed velocity dispersion–richness relation, corrected for projection effects, implies an approximately linear relationship between the true, three-dimensional halo mass and three-dimensional richness. Our results provide a robust, empirical description of the impact of projection effects on the SDSS redMaPPer cluster sample and exemplify the synergies between optical imaging and spectroscopic data for studies of galaxy cluster astrophysics and cosmology.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cosmological Constraints from Cluster Abundances, Weak Lensing, and Galaxy Correlations

We present the first joint analysis of cluster abundances and auto or cross-correlations of three cosmic tracer fields: galaxy density, weak gravitational lensing shear, and cluster density split by optical richness. From a joint analysis (4×2pt+N) of cluster abundances, three cluster cross-correlations, and the auto correlations of the galaxy density measured from the first year data of the Dark Energy Survey, we obtain Ωm=0.305-0.038+0.055 and σ8=0.783-0.054+0.064. This result is consistent with constraints from the DES-Y1 galaxy clustering and weak lensing two-point correlation functions for the flat νΛCDM model. Consequently, we combine cluster abundances and all two-point correlations from across all three cosmic tracer fields (6×2pt+N) and find improved constraints on cosmological parameters as well as on the cluster observable-mass scaling relation. This analysis is an important advance in both optical cluster cosmology and multiprobe analyses of upcoming wide imaging surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dark energy survey internal consistency tests of the joint cosmological probes analysis with posterior predictive distributions

Beyond ΛCDM, physics or systematic errors may cause subsets of a cosmological data set to appear inconsistent when analysed assuming ΛCDM. Here, we present an application of internal consistency tests to measurements from the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 (DES Y1) joint probes analysis. Our analysis relies on computing the posterior predictive distribution (PPD) for these data under the assumption of ΛCDM. We find that the DES Y1 data have an acceptable goodness of fit to ΛCDM, with a probability of finding a worse fit by random chance of p = 0.046. Using numerical PPD tests, supplemented by graphical checks, we show that most of the data vector appears completely consistent with expectations, although we observe a small tension between large- and small-scale measurements. A small part (roughly 1.5 per cent) of the data vector shows an unusually large departure from expectations; excluding this part of the data has negligible impact on cosmological constraints, but does significantly improve the p-value to 0.10. The methodology developed here will be applied to test the consistency of DES Year 3 joint probes data sets.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Shadows in the Dark: Low-surface-brightness Galaxies Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey

We present a catalog of 23,790 extended low-surface-brightness galaxies (LSBGs) identified in $\sim 5000\,{\deg }^{2}$ from the first three years of imaging data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Based on a single-component Sérsic model fit, we define extended LSBGs as galaxies with g-band effective radii ${R}_{\mathrm{eff}}(g)\gt 2\buildrel{\prime\prime}\over{.} 5$ and mean surface brightness ${\bar{\mu }}_{\mathrm{eff}}(g)\gt 24.2\,\mathrm{mag}\,{\mathrm{arcsec}}^{-2}$. We find that the distribution of LSBGs is strongly bimodal in (g-r) versus (g-i) color space. We divide our sample into red (g- i ≥ 0.60) and blue (g- i < 0.60) galaxies and study the properties of the two populations. Redder LSBGs are more clustered than their blue counterparts and are correlated with the distribution of nearby (z < 0.10) bright galaxies. Red LSBGs constitute ~33% of our LSBG sample, and $\sim 30 \% $ of these are located within 1° of low-redshift galaxy groups and clusters (compared to ~8% of the blue LSBGs). For nine of the most prominent galaxy groups and clusters, we calculate the physical properties of associated LSBGs assuming a redshift derived from the host system. In these systems, we identify 41 objects that can be classified as ultradiffuse galaxies, defined as LSBGs with projected physical effective radii ${R}_{\mathrm{eff}}\gt 1.5\,\mathrm{kpc}$ and central surface brightness ${\mu }_{0}(g)\gt 24.0\,\mathrm{mag}\,{\mathrm{arcsec}}^{-2}$. The wide-area sample of LSBGs in DES can be used to test the role of environment on models of LSBG formation and evolution.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Perturbation theory for modeling galaxy bias: validation with simulations of the Dark Energy Survey

We describe perturbation theory (PT) models of galaxy bias for applications to photometric galaxy surveys. We model the galaxy-galaxy and galaxy-matter correlation functions in configuration space and validate against measurements from mock catalogs designed for the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We find that an effective PT model with five galaxy bias parameters provides a good description of the 3D correlation functions above scales of 4 Mpc/$h$ and $z < 1$. Our tests show that at the projected precision of the DES-Year 3 analysis, two of the non-linear bias parameters can be fixed to their co-evolution values, and a third (the $k^2$ term for higher derivative bias) set to zero. The agreement is typically at the 2 percent level over scales of interest, which is the statistical uncertainty of our simulation measurements. To achieve this level of agreement, our {\it fiducial} model requires using the full non-linear matter power spectrum (rather than the 1-loop PT one). We also measure the relationship between the non-linear and linear bias parameters and compare them to their expected co-evolution values. We use these tests to motivate the galaxy bias model and scale cuts for the cosmological analysis of the Dark Energy Survey; our conclusions are generally applicable to all photometric surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Host Galaxies of Type Ia Supernovae Discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory

We present spectroscopic observations of the host galaxies of 82 low-redshift type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) discovered by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF). We determine star-formation rates, gas-phase stellar metallicities, and stellar masses and ages of these objects. As expected, strong correlations between the SN Ia light-curve width (stretch) and the host age mass metallicity are found: fainter, faster-declining events tend to be hosted by older massive metal-rich galaxies. There is some evidence that redder SNe Ia explode in higher metallicity galaxies, but we found no relation between the SN colour and host galaxy extinction based on the Balmer decrement, suggesting that the colour variation of these SNe does not primarily arise from this source. SNe Ia in higher-mass metallicity galaxies also appear brighter after stretch colour corrections than their counterparts in lower mass hosts, and the stronger correlation is with gas-phase metallicity suggesting this may be the more important variable. We also compared the host stellar mass distribution to that in galaxy targeted SN surveys and the high-redshift untargeted Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). SNLS has many more low mass galaxies, while the targeted searches have fewer. This can be explained by an evolution in the galaxy stellar mass function, coupled with a SN delay-time distribution proportional to t1. Finally, we found no significant difference in the mass--metallicity relation of our SN Ia hosts compared to field galaxies, suggesting any metallicity effect on the SN Ia rate is small.

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