The source-lens clustering effect in the context of lensing tomography and its self-calibration

Cosmic shear can only be measured where there are galaxies. This source-lens clustering (SLC) effect has two sources, intrinsic source clustering and cosmic magnification (magnification/size bias). Lensing tomography can suppress the former. However, this reduction is limited by the existence of photo-z error and nonzero redshift bin width. Furthermore, SLC induced by cosmic magnification cannot be reduced by lensing tomography. Through N-body simulations, we quantify the impact of SLC on the lensing power spectrum in the context of lensing tomography. We consider both the standard estimator and the pixel-based estimator. We find that none of them can satisfactorily handle both sources of SLC. (1) For the standard estimator, SLC induced by both sources can bias the lensing power spectrum by O(1)-O(10)%. Intrinsic source clustering also increases statistical uncertainties in the measured lensing power spectrum. However, the standard estimator suppresses intrinsic source clustering in the cross-spectrum. (2) In contrast, the pixel-based estimator suppresses SLC through cosmic magnification. However, it fails to suppress SLC through intrinsic source clustering and the measured lensing power spectrum can be biased low by O(1)-O(10)%. In short, for typical photo-z errors (sigma_z/(1+z)=0.05) and photo-z bin sizes (Delta_z^P=0.2), SLC alters the lensing E-mode power spectrum by 1-10%, with ell~10^3$ and z_s~1 being of particular interest to weak lensing cosmology. Therefore the SLC is a severe systematic for cosmology in Stage-IV lensing surveys. We present useful scaling relations to self-calibrate the SLC effect.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by AP

Galaxy formation with cold gas accretion and evolving stellar initial mass function

The evolution of the galaxy stellar mass function is especially useful to test the current model of galaxy formation. Observational data have revealed a few inconsistencies with predictions from the $\Lambda {\rm CDM}$ model. For example, most massive galaxies have already been observed at very high redshifts, and they have experienced only mild evolution since then. In conflict with this, semi-analytical models of galaxy formation predict an insufficient number of massive galaxies at high redshift and a rapid evolution between redshift 1 and 0 . In addition, there is a strong correlation between star formation rate and stellar mass for star-forming galaxies, which can be roughly reproduced with the model, but with a normalization that is too low at high redshift. Furthermore, the stellar mass density obtained from the integral of the cosmic star formation history is higher than the measured one by a factor of 2. In this paper, we study these issues using a semi-analytical model that includes: 1) cold gas accretion in massive halos at high redshift; 2) tidal stripping of stellar mass from satellite galaxies; and 3) an evolving stellar initial mass function (bottom-light) with a higher gas recycle fraction. Our results show that the combined effects from 1) and 2) can predict sufficiently massive galaxies at high redshifts and reproduce their mild evolution at low redshift, While the combined effects of 1) and 3) can reproduce the correlation between star formation rate and stellar mass for star-forming galaxies across wide range of redshifts. A bottom-light/top-heavy stellar IMF could partly resolve the conflict between the stellar mass density and cosmic star formation history.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Quenching depends on morphologies: implications from the ultraviolet-optical radial color distributions in Green Valley Galaxies

In this Letter, we analyse the radial UV-optical color distributions in a sample of low redshift green valley (GV) galaxies, with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX)+Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) images, to investigate how the residual recent star formation distribute in these galaxies. We find that the dust-corrected $u-r$ colors of early-type galaxies (ETGs) are flat out to $R_{90}$, while the colors turn blue monotonously when $r>0.5R_{50}$ for late-type galaxies (LTGs). More than a half of the ETGs are blue-cored and have remarkable positive NUV$-r$ color gradients, suggesting that their star formation are centrally concentrated; the rest have flat color distributions out to $R_{90}$. The centrally concentrated star formation activity in a large portion of ETGs is confirmed by the SDSS spectroscopy, showing that $\sim$50 % ETGs have EW(H$\rm \alpha$)$>6.0$ \AA. For the LTGs, 95% of them show uniform radial color profiles, which can be interpreted as a red bulge plus an extended blue disk. The links between the two kinds of ETGs, e.g., those objects having remarkable "blue-cored" and those having flat color gradients, are less known and require future investigations. It is suggested that the LTGs follow a general picture that quenching first occur in the core regions, and then finally extend to the rest of the galaxy. Our results can be re-examined and have important implications for the IFU surveys, such as MaNGA and SAMI.Comment: ApJ Letter, accepted. Five figure

Gaussianizing the non-Gaussian lensing convergence field I: the performance of the Gaussianization

Motivated by recent works of Neyrinck et al. 2009 and Scherrer et al. 2010, we proposed a Gaussianization transform to Gaussianize the non-Gaussian lensing convergence field $\kappa$. It performs a local monotonic transformation $\kappa\rightarrow y$ pixel by pixel to make the unsmoothed one-point probability distribution function of the new variable $y$ Gaussian. We tested whether the whole $y$ field is Gaussian against N-body simulations. (1) We found that the proposed Gaussianization suppresses the non-Gaussianity by orders of magnitude, in measures of the skewness, the kurtosis, the 5th- and 6th-order cumulants of the $y$ field smoothed over various angular scales relative to that of the corresponding smoothed $\kappa$ field. The residual non-Gaussianities are often consistent with zero within the statistical errors. (2) The Gaussianization significantly suppresses the bispectrum. Furthermore, the residual scatters around zero, depending on the configuration in the Fourier space. (3) The Gaussianization works with even better performance for the 2D fields of the matter density projected over \sim 300 \mpch distance interval centered at $z\in(0,2)$, which can be reconstructed from the weak lensing tomography. (4) We identified imperfectness and complexities of the proposed Gaussianization. We noticed weak residual non-Gaussianity in the $y$ field. We verified the widely used logarithmic transformation as a good approximation to the Gaussianization transformation. However, we also found noticeable deviations.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, accepted by PR

Learning a Disentangled Embedding for Monocular 3D Shape Retrieval and Pose Estimation

We propose a novel approach to jointly perform 3D shape retrieval and pose estimation from monocular images.In order to make the method robust to real-world image variations, e.g. complex textures and backgrounds, we learn an embedding space from 3D data that only includes the relevant information, namely the shape and pose. Our approach explicitly disentangles a shape vector and a pose vector, which alleviates both pose bias for 3D shape retrieval and categorical bias for pose estimation. We then train a CNN to map the images to this embedding space, and then retrieve the closest 3D shape from the database and estimate the 6D pose of the object. Our method achieves 10.3 median error for pose estimation and 0.592 top-1-accuracy for category agnostic 3D object retrieval on the Pascal3D+ dataset, outperforming the previous state-of-the-art methods on both tasks

From outside-in to inside-out: galaxy assembly mode depends on stellar mass

In this Letter, we investigate how galaxy mass assembly mode depends on stellar mass $M_{\ast}$, using a large sample of $\sim$10, 000 low redshift galaxies. Our galaxy sample is selected to have SDSS R_{90}>5\arcsec.0, which allows the measures of both the integrated and the central NUV$-r$ color indices. We find that: in the $M_{\ast}-($ NUV$-r$) green valley, the M_{\ast}<10^{10}~M_{\sun} galaxies mostly have positive or flat color gradients, while most of the M_{\ast}>10^{10.5}~M_{\sun} galaxies have negative color gradients. When their central $D_{n}4000$ index values exceed 1.6, the M_{\ast}<10^{10.0}~M_{\sun} galaxies have moved to the UV red sequence, whereas a large fraction of the M_{\ast}>10^{10.5}~M_{\sun} galaxies still lie on the UV blue cloud or the green valley region. We conclude that the main galaxy assembly mode is transiting from "the outside-in" mode to "the inside-out" mode at M_{\ast} 10^{10.5}~M_{\sun}. We argue that the physical origin of this is the compromise between the internal and the external process that driving the star formation quenching in galaxies. These results can be checked with the upcoming large data produced by the on-going IFS survey projects, such as CALIFA, MaNGA and SAMI in the near future.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL,6 pages, 5 figure

Satellite Alignment: I. Distribution of Substructures and Their Dependence On Assembly History From N-Body Simulations

Observations have shown that the spatial distribution of satellite galaxies is not random, but aligned with the major axes of central galaxies. This alignment is dependent on galaxy properties, such that red satellites are more strongly aligned than blue satellites. Theoretical work done to interpret this phenomena has found that it is due to the non-spherical nature of dark matter halos. However, most studies over-predict the alignment signal under the assumption that the central galaxy shape follows the shape of the host halo. It is also not clear whether the color dependence of alignment is due to an assembly bias or an evolution effect. In this paper we study these problems using a cosmological N-body simulation. Subhalos are used to trace the positions of satellite galaxies. It is found that the shape of dark matter halos are mis-aligned at different radii. If the central galaxy shares the same shape as the inner host halo, then the alignment effect is weaker and agrees with observational data. However, it predicts almost no dependence of alignment on the color of satellite galaxies, though the late accreted subhalos show stronger alignment with the outer layer of the host halo than their early accreted counterparts. We find that this is due to the limitation of pure N-body simulations that satellites galaxies without associated subhalos ('orphan galaxies') are not resolved. These orphan (mostly red) satellites often reside in the inner region of host halos and should follow the shape of the host halo in the inner region.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, Published on Ap

The Distribution of Satellites Around Central Galaxies in a Cosmological Hydrodynamical Simulation

Observations have shown that the spatial distribution of satellite galaxies is not random, but rather is aligned with the major axes of central galaxies (CGs). The strength of the alignment is dependent on the properties of both the satellites and centrals. Theoretical studies using dissipationless N-body simulations are limited by their inability to directly predict the shape of CGs. Using hydrodynamical simulations including gas cooling, star formation, and feedback, we carry out a study of galaxy alignment and its dependence on the galaxy properties predicted directly from the simulations.We found that the observed alignment signal is well produced, as is the color dependence: red satellites and red centrals both show stronger alignments than their blue counterparts. The reason for the stronger alignment of red satellites is that most of them stay in the inner region of the dark matter halo where the shape of the CG better traces the dark matter distribution. The dependence of alignment on the color of CGs arises from the halo mass dependence, since the alignment between the shape of the central stellar component and the inner halo increases with halo mass. We also find that the alignment of satellites is most strongly dependent on their metallicity, suggesting that the metallicity of satellites, rather than color, is a better tracer of galaxy alignment on small scales. This could be tested in future observational studies.Comment: ApJ Letter, accepted. Four figures, no table. The resolution of Fig 1 was downgraded due to the limitation of file size. Updated to match the version in pres