Dark Energy Survey Year 3 results: marginalization over redshift distribution uncertainties using ranking of discrete realizations

Cosmological information from weak lensing surveys is maximized by sorting source galaxies into tomographic redshift subsamples. Any uncertainties on these redshift distributions must be correctly propagated into the cosmological results. We present hyperrank, a new method for marginalizing over redshift distribution uncertainties, using discrete samples from the space of all possible redshift distributions, improving over simple parametrized models. In hyperrank, the set of proposed redshift distributions is ranked according to a small (between one and four) number of summary values, which are then sampled, along with other nuisance parameters and cosmological parameters in the Monte Carlo chain used for inference. This approach can be regarded as a general method for marginalizing over discrete realizations of data vector variation with nuisance parameters, which can consequently be sampled separately from the main parameters of interest, allowing for increased computational efficiency. We focus on the case of weak lensing cosmic shear analyses and demonstrate our method using simulations made for the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We show that the method can correctly and efficiently marginalize over a wide range of models for the redshift distribution uncertainty. Finally, we compare hyperrank to the common mean-shifting method of marginalizing over redshift uncertainty, validating that this simpler model is sufficient for use in the DES Year 3 cosmology results presented in companion papers

Dark Energy Survey year 3 results: covariance modelling and its impact on parameter estimation and quality of fit

We describe and test the fiducial covariance matrix model for the combined two-point function analysis of the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 (DES-Y3) data set. Using a variety of new ansatzes for covariance modelling and testing, we validate the assumptions and approximations of this model. These include the assumption of Gaussian likelihood, the trispectrum contribution to the covariance, the impact of evaluating the model at a wrong set of parameters, the impact of masking and survey geometry, deviations from Poissonian shot noise, galaxy weighting schemes, and other sub-dominant effects. We find that our covariance model is robust and that its approximations have little impact on goodness of fit and parameter estimation. The largest impact on best-fitting figure-of-merit arises from the so-called fsky approximation for dealing with finite survey area, which on average increases the χ2 between maximum posterior model and measurement by 3.7 per cent (Δχ2 ≈ 18.9). Standard methods to go beyond this approximation fail for DES-Y3, but we derive an approximate scheme to deal with these features. For parameter estimation, our ignorance of the exact parameters at which to evaluate our covariance model causes the dominant effect. We find that it increases the scatter of maximum posterior values for Ωm and σ8 by about 3 per cent and for the dark energy equation-of-state parameter by about 5 per cent⁠

The DES view of the Eridanus supervoid and the CMB cold spot

The Cold Spot is a puzzling large-scale feature in the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature maps and its origin has been subject to active debate. As an important foreground structure at low redshift, the Eridanus supervoid was recently detected, but it was subsequently determined that, assuming the standard ΛCDM model, only about 10–20 per cent of the observed temperature depression can be accounted for via its Integrated Sachs–Wolfe imprint. However, R ≳ 100 h−1Mpc supervoids elsewhere in the sky have shown ISW imprints AISW ≈ 5.2 ± 1.6 times stronger than expected from ΛCDM (AISW = 1), which warrants further inspection. Using the Year-3 redMaGiC catalogue of luminous red galaxies from the Dark Energy Survey, here we confirm the detection of the Eridanus supervoid as a significant underdensity in the Cold Spot’s direction at z < 0.2. We also show, with S/N ≳ 5 significance, that the Eridanus supervoid appears as the most prominent large-scale underdensity in the dark matter mass maps that we reconstructed from DES Year-3 gravitational lensing data. While we report no significant anomalies, an interesting aspect is that the amplitude of the lensing signal from the Eridanus supervoid at the Cold Spot centre is about 30 per cent lower than expected from similar peaks found in N-body simulations based on the standard ΛCDM model with parameters Ωm = 0.279 and σ8 = 0.82. Overall, our results confirm the causal relation between these individually rare structures in the cosmic web and in the CMB, motivating more detailed future surveys in the Cold Spot region

The mass and galaxy distribution around SZ-selected clusters

We present measurements of the radial profiles of the mass and galaxy number density around Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ)-selected clusters using both weak lensing and galaxy counts. The clusters are selected from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope Data Release 5 and the galaxies from the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data set. With signal-to-noise ratio of 62 (45) for galaxy (weak lensing) profiles over scales of about 0.2–20 h−1 Mpc, these are the highest precision measurements for SZ-selected clusters to date. Because SZ selection closely approximates mass selection, these measurements enable several tests of theoretical models of the mass and light distribution around clusters. Our main findings are: (1) The splashback feature is detected at a consistent location in both the mass and galaxy profiles and its location is consistent with predictions of cold dark matter N-body simulations. (2) The full mass profile is also consistent with the simulations. (3) The shapes of the galaxy and lensing profiles are remarkably similar for our sample over the entire range of scales, from well inside the cluster halo to the quasilinear regime. We measure the dependence of the profile shapes on the galaxy sample, redshift, and cluster mass. We extend the Diemer & Kravtsov model for the cluster profiles to the linear regime using perturbation theory and show that it provides a good match to the measured profiles. We also compare the measured profiles to predictions of the standard halo model and simulations that include hydrodynamics. Applications of these results to cluster mass estimation, cosmology, and astrophysics are discussed

Dark Energy Survey Year 3 Results: Cosmology from Cosmic Shear and Robustness to Modeling Uncertainty

This work and its companion paper, Amon et al. [Phys. Rev. D 105, 023514 (2022)], present cosmic shear measurements and cosmological constraints from over 100 million source galaxies in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 3 data. We constrain the lensing amplitude parameter S 8 ≡ σ 8 √ Ω m / 0.3 at the 3% level in Λ CDM : S 8 = 0.75 9 + 0.025 − 0.023 (68% CL). Our constraint is at the 2% level when using angular scale cuts that are optimized for the Λ CDM analysis: S 8 = 0.77 2 + 0.018 − 0.017 (68% CL). With cosmic shear alone, we find no statistically significant constraint on the dark energy equation-of-state parameter at our present statistical power. We carry out our analysis blind, and compare our measurement with constraints from two other contemporary weak lensing experiments: the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) and Hyper-Suprime Camera Subaru Strategic Program (HSC). We additionally quantify the agreement between our data and external constraints from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Our DES Y3 result under the assumption of Λ CDM is found to be in statistical agreement with Planck 2018, although favors a lower S 8 than the CMB-inferred value by 2.3 σ (a p -value of 0.02). This paper explores the robustness of these cosmic shear results to modeling of intrinsic alignments, the matter power spectrum and baryonic physics. We additionally explore the statistical preference of our data for intrinsic alignment models of different complexity. The fiducial cosmic shear model is tested using synthetic data, and we report no biases greater than 0.3 σ in the plane of S 8 × Ω m caused by uncertainties in the theoretical models