Darth Fader: Using wavelets to obtain accurate redshifts of spectra at very low signal-to-noise

We present the DARTH FADER algorithm, a new wavelet-based method for estimating redshifts of galaxy spectra in spectral surveys that is particularly adept in the very low SNR regime. We use a standard cross-correlation method to estimate the redshifts of galaxies, using a template set built using a PCA analysis on a set of simulated, noise-free spectra. Darth Fader employs wavelet filtering to both estimate the continuum & to extract prominent line features in each galaxy spectrum. A simple selection criterion based on the number of features present in the spectrum is then used to clean the catalogue: galaxies with fewer than six total features are removed as we are unlikely to obtain a reliable redshift estimate. Applying our wavelet-based cleaning algorithm to a simulated testing set, we successfully build a clean catalogue including extremely low signal-to-noise data (SNR=2.0), for which we are able to obtain a 5.1% catastrophic failure rate in the redshift estimates (compared with 34.5% prior to cleaning). We also show that for a catalogue with uniformly mixed SNRs between 1.0 & 20.0, with realistic pixel-dependent noise, it is possible to obtain redshifts with a catastrophic failure rate of 3.3% after cleaning (as compared to 22.7% before cleaning). Whilst we do not test this algorithm exhaustively on real data, we present a proof of concept of the applicability of this method to real data, showing that the wavelet filtering techniques perform well when applied to some typical spectra from the SDSS archive. The Darth Fader algorithm provides a robust method for extracting spectral features from very noisy spectra. The resulting clean catalogue gives an extremely low rate of catastrophic failures, even when the spectra have a very low SNR. For very large sky surveys, this technique may offer a significant boost in the number of faint galaxies with accurately determined redshifts.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Catastrophic Photo-z Errors and the Dark Energy Parameter Estimates with Cosmic Shear

We study the impact of catastrophic errors occurring in the photometric redshifts of galaxies on cosmological parameter estimates with cosmic shear tomography. We consider a fiducial survey with 9-filter set and perform photo-z measurement simulations. It is found that a fraction of 1% galaxies at z_{spec}~0.4 is misidentified to be at z_{phot}~3.5. We then employ both chi^2 fitting method and the extension of Fisher matrix formalism to evaluate the bias on the equation of state parameters of dark energy, w_0 and w_a, induced by those catastrophic outliers. By comparing the results from both methods, we verify that the estimation of w_0 and w_a from the fiducial 5-bin tomographic analyses can be significantly biased. To minimize the impact of this bias, two strategies can be followed: (A) the cosmic shear analysis is restricted to 0.5<z<2.5 where catastrophic redshift errors are expected to be insignificant; (B) a spectroscopic survey is conducted for galaxies with 3<z_{phot}<4. We find that the number of spectroscopic redshifts needed scales as N_{spec} \propto f_{cata}\times A where f_{cata}=1% is the fraction of catastrophic redshift errors (assuming a 9-filter photometric survey) and A is the survey area. For A=1000 {deg}^2, we find that N_{spec}>320 and 860 respectively in order to reduce the joint bias in (w_0,w_a) to be smaller than 2\sigma and 1\sigma. This spectroscopic survey (option B) will improve the Figure of Merit of option A by a factor \times 1.5 thus making such a survey strongly desirable.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures. Revised version, as accepted for publication in Ap

Designing Future Dark Energy Space Missions: II. Photometric Redshift of Space Weak Lensing Optimized Survey

Accurate weak-lensing analysis requires not only accurate measurement of galaxy shapes but also precise and unbiased measurement of galaxy redshifts. The photometric redshift technique appears as the only possibility to determine the redshift of the background galaxies used in the weak-lensing analysis. Using the photometric redshift quality, simple shape measurement requirements, and a proper sky model, we explore what could be an optimal weak-lensing dark energy mission based on FoM calculation. We found that photometric redshifts reach their best accuracy for the bulk of the faint galaxy population when filters have a resolution R~3.2. We show that an optimal mission would survey the sky through 8 filters using 2 cameras (visible and near infrared). Assuming a 5-year mission duration, a mirror size of 1.5m, a 0.5deg2 FOV with a visible pixel scale of 0.15", we found that a homogeneous survey reaching IAB=25.6 (10sigma) with a sky coverage of ~11000deg2 maximizes the Weak Lensing FoM. The effective number density of galaxies then used for WL is ~45gal/arcmin2, at least a factor of two better than ground based survey. This work demonstrates that a full account of the observational strategy is required to properly optimize the instrument parameters to maximize the FoM of the future weak-lensing space dark energy mission.Comment: 25 pages, 39 figures, accepted in A&

Evidence for Ubiquitous, High-EW Nebular Emission in z~7 Galaxies: Towards a Clean Measurement of the Specific Star Formation Rate using a Sample of Bright, Magnified Galaxies

Growing observational evidence now indicates that nebular line emission has a significant impact on the rest-frame optical fluxes of z~5-7 galaxies observed with Spitzer. This line emission makes z~5-7 galaxies appear more massive, with lower specific star formation rates. However, corrections for this line emission have been very difficult to perform reliably due to huge uncertainties on the overall strength of such emission at z>~5.5. Here, we present the most direct observational evidence yet for ubiquitous high-EW [OIII]+Hbeta line emission in Lyman-break galaxies at z~7, while also presenting a strategy for an improved measurement of the sSFR at z~7. We accomplish this through the selection of bright galaxies in the narrow redshift window z~6.6-7.0 where the IRAC 4.5 micron flux provides a clean measurement of the stellar continuum light. Observed 4.5 micron fluxes in this window contrast with the 3.6 micron fluxes which are contaminated by the prominent [OIII]+Hbeta lines. To ensure a high S/N for our IRAC flux measurements, we consider only the brightest (H_{160}<26 mag) magnified galaxies we have identified in CLASH and other programs targeting galaxy clusters. Remarkably, the mean rest-frame optical color for our bright seven-source sample is very blue, [3.6]-[4.5]=-0.9+/-0.3. Such blue colors cannot be explained by the stellar continuum light and require that the rest-frame EW of [OIII]+Hbeta be greater than 637 Angstroms for the average source. The bluest four sources from our seven-source sample require an even more extreme EW of 1582 Angstroms. Our derived lower limit for the mean [OIII]+Hbeta EW could underestimate the true EW by ~2x based on a simple modeling of the redshift distribution of our sources. We can also set a robust lower limit of >~4 Gyr^-1 on the specific star formation rates based on the mean SED for our seven-source sample. (abridged)Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 1 table, submitted to the Astrophysical Journa

Designing Future Dark Energy Space Mission: I. Building Realistic Galaxy Spectro-Photometric Catalogs and their first applications

Future dark energy space missions such as JDEM and EUCLID are being designed to survey the galaxy population to trace the geometry of the universe and the growth of structure, which both depend on the cosmological model. To reach the goal of high precision cosmology they need to evaluate the capabilities of different instrument designs based on realistic mock catalog. The aim of this paper is to construct realistic and flexible mock catalogs based on our knowledge of galaxy population from current deep surveys. We explore two categories of mock catalog : (i) based on luminosity functions fit of observations (GOODS, UDF,COSMOS,VVDS) using the Le Phare software (ii) based on the observed COSMOS galaxy distribution which benefits from all the properties of the data-rich COSMOS survey. For these two catalogs, we have produced simulated number counts in several bands, color diagrams and redshift distribution for validation against real observational data. We also derive some basic requirements to help designing future Dark Energy mission in terms of number of galaxies available for the weak-lensing analysis as a function of the PSF size and depth of the survey. We also compute the spectroscopic success rate for future spectroscopic redshift surveys (i) aiming at measuring BAO in the case of the wide field spectroscopic redshift survey, and (ii) for the photometric redshift calibration survey which is required to achieve weak lensing tomography with great accuracy. They will be publicly accessible at http://lamwws.oamp.fr/cosmowiki/RealisticSpectroPhotCat, or by request to the first author of this paper

CLASH: A Census of Magnified Star-Forming Galaxies at z ~ 6-8

We utilize 16 band Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of 18 lensing clusters obtained as part of the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) Multi-Cycle Treasury program to search for $z\sim6-8$ galaxies. We report the discovery of 204, 45, and 13 Lyman-break galaxy candidates at $z\sim6$, $z\sim7$, and $z\sim8$, respectively, identified from purely photometric redshift selections. This large sample, representing nearly an order of magnitude increase in the number of magnified star-forming galaxies at $z\sim 6-8$ presented to date, is unique in that we have observations in four WFC3/UVIS UV, seven ACS/WFC optical, and all five WFC3/IR broadband filters, which enable very accurate photometric redshift selections. We construct detailed lensing models for 17 of the 18 clusters to estimate object magnifications and to identify two new multiply lensed $z \gtrsim 6$ candidates. The median magnifications over the 17 clusters are 4, 4, and 5 for the $z\sim6$, $z\sim7$, and $z\sim8$ samples, respectively, over an average area of 4.5 arcmin$^2$ per cluster. We compare our observed number counts with expectations based on convolving "blank" field UV luminosity functions through our cluster lens models and find rough agreement down to $\sim27$ mag, where we begin to suffer significant incompleteness. In all three redshift bins, we find a higher number density at brighter observed magnitudes than the field predictions, empirically demonstrating for the first time the enhanced efficiency of lensing clusters over field surveys. Our number counts also are in general agreement with the lensed expectations from the cluster models, especially at $z\sim6$, where we have the best statistics.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, 25 pages, 13 figures, 7 table

CLASH: Extending galaxy strong lensing to small physical scales with distant sources highly-magnified by galaxy cluster members

We present a strong lensing system in which a double source is imaged 5 times by 2 early-type galaxies. We take advantage in this target of the multi-band photometry obtained as part of the CLASH program, complemented by the spectroscopic data of the VLT/VIMOS and FORS2 follow-up campaign. We use a photometric redshift of 3.7 for the source and confirm spectroscopically the membership of the 2 lenses to the galaxy cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 at redshift 0.44. We exploit the excellent angular resolution of the HST/ACS images to model the 2 lenses in terms of singular isothermal sphere profiles and derive robust effective velocity dispersions of (97 +/- 3) and (240 +/- 6) km/s. The total mass distribution of the cluster is also well characterized by using only the local information contained in this lensing system, that is located at a projected distance of more than 300 kpc from the cluster luminosity center. According to our best-fitting lensing and composite stellar population models, the source is magnified by a total factor of 50 and has a luminous mass of about (1.0 +/- 0.5) x 10^{9} M_{Sun}. By combining the total and luminous mass estimates of the 2 lenses, we measure luminous over total mass fractions projected within the effective radii of 0.51 +/- 0.21 and 0.80 +/- 0.32. With these lenses we can extend the analysis of the mass properties of lens early-type galaxies by factors that are about 2 and 3 times smaller than previously done with regard to, respectively, velocity dispersion and luminous mass. The comparison of the total and luminous quantities of our lenses with those of astrophysical objects with different physical scales reveals the potential of studies of this kind for investigating the internal structure of galaxies. These studies, made possible thanks to the CLASH survey, will allow us to go beyond the current limits posed by the available lens samples in the field.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

CLASH: Photometric redshifts with 16 HST bands in galaxy cluster fields

The Cluster Lensing And Supernovae survey with Hubble (CLASH) is an Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Multi-Cycle Treasury program observing 25 massive galaxy clusters. CLASH observations are carried out in 16 bands from UV to NIR to derive accurate and reliable estimates of photometric redshifts. We present the CLASH photometric redshifts and study the photometric redshift accuracy of the arcs in more detail for the case of MACS1206.2-0847. We use the publicly available Le Phare and BPZ photometric redshift codes on 17 CLASH galaxy clusters. Using Le Phare code for objects with StoN>=10, we reach a precision of 3%(1+z) for the strong lensing arcs, which is reduced to 2.4%(1+z) after removing outliers. For galaxies in the cluster field the corresponding values are 4%(1+z) and 3%(1+z). Using mock galaxy catalogues, we show that 3%(1+z) precision is what one would expect from the CLASH photometry when taking into account extinction from dust, emission lines and the finite range of SEDs included in the photo-z template library. We study photo-z results for different aperture photometry and find that the SExtractor isophotal photometry works best. Le Phare and BPZ give similar photo-z results for the strong lensing arcs as well as galaxies of the cluster field. Results are improved when optimizing the photometric aperture shape showing an optimal aperture size around 1" radius giving results which are equivalent to isophotal photometry. Tailored photometry of the arcs improve the photo-z results.Comment: Accepted in A&A on nov 201

The SDSS-IV extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: selecting emission line galaxies using the Fisher discriminant

We present a new selection technique of producing spectroscopic target catalogues for massive spectroscopic surveys for cosmology. This work was conducted in the context of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS), which will use ~200 000 emission line galaxies (ELGs) at 0.6<zspec<1.0 to obtain a precise baryon acoustic oscillation measurement. Our proposed selection technique is based on optical and near-infrared broad-band filter photometry. We used a training sample to define a quantity, the Fisher discriminant (linear combination of colours), which correlates best with the desired properties of the target: redshift and [OII] flux. The proposed selections are simply done by applying a cut on magnitudes and this Fisher discriminant. We used public data and dedicated SDSS spectroscopy to quantify the redshift distribution and [OII] flux of our ELG target selections. We demonstrate that two of our selections fulfil the initial eBOSS/ELG redshift requirements: for a target density of 180 deg^2, ~70% of the selected objects have 0.6<zspec<1.0 and only ~1% of those galaxies in the range 0.6<zspec<1.0 are expected to have a catastrophic zspec estimate. Additionally, the stacked spectra and stacked deep images for those two selections show characteristic features of star-forming galaxies. The proposed approach using the Fisher discriminant could, however, be used to efficiently select other galaxy populations, based on multi-band photometry, providing that spectroscopic information is available. This technique could thus be useful for other future massive spectroscopic surveys such as PFS, DESI, and 4MOST.Comment: Version published in A&

CLASH: z ~ 6 young galaxy candidate quintuply lensed by the frontier field cluster RXC J2248.7-4431

We present a quintuply lensed z ~ 6 candidate discovered in the field of the galaxy cluster RXC J2248.7-4431 (z ~ 0.348) targeted within the Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) and selected in the deep HST Frontier Fields survey. Thanks to the CLASH 16-band HST imaging, we identify the quintuply lensed z ~ 6 candidate as an optical dropout in the inner region of the cluster, the brightest image having magAB=24.81+-0.02 in the f105w filter. We perform a detailed photometric analysis to verify its high-z and lensed nature. We get as photometric redshift z_phot ~ 5.9, and given the extended nature and NIR colours of the lensed images, we rule out low-z early type and galactic star contaminants. We perform a strong lensing analysis of the cluster, using 13 families of multiple lensed images identified in the HST images. Our final best model predicts the high-z quintuply lensed system with a position accuracy of 0.8''. The magnifications of the five images are between 2.2 and 8.3, which leads to a delensed UV luminosity of L_1600 ~ 0.5L*_1600 at z=6. We also estimate the UV slope from the observed NIR colours, finding a steep beta=-2.89+-0.38. We use singular and composite stellar population SEDs to fit the photometry of the hiz candidate, and we conclude that it is a young (age <300 Myr) galaxy with mass of M ~ 10^8Msol, subsolar metallicity (Z<0.2Zsol) and low dust content (AV ~ 0.2-0.4).Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables, submitted to MNRAS on 11 Aug 2013, accepted on 23 Nov 201