Comprehensive Two-Point Analyses of Weak Gravitational Lensing Surveys

We present a framework for analyzing weak gravitational lensing survey data, including lensing and source-density observables, plus spectroscopic redshift calibration data. All two-point observables are predicted in terms of parameters of a perturbed Robertson-Walker metric, making the framework independent of the models for gravity, dark energy, or galaxy properties. For Gaussian fluctuations the 2-point model determines the survey likelihood function and allows Fisher-matrix forecasting. The framework includes nuisance terms for the major systematic errors: shear measurement errors, magnification bias and redshift calibration errors, intrinsic galaxy alignments, and inaccurate theoretical predictions. We propose flexible parameterizations of the many nuisance parameters related to galaxy bias and intrinsic alignment. For the first time we can integrate many different observables and systematic errors into a single analysis. As a first application of this framework, we demonstrate that: uncertainties in power-spectrum theory cause very minor degradation to cosmological information content; nearly all useful information (excepting baryon oscillations) is extracted with ~3 bins per decade of angular scale; and the rate at which galaxy bias varies with redshift substantially influences the strength of cosmological inference. The framework will permit careful study of the interplay between numerous observables, systematic errors, and spectroscopic calibration data for large weak-lensing surveys.Comment: submitted to Ap

A proposal on the galaxy intrinsic alignment self-calibration in weak lensing surveys

The galaxy intrinsic alignment causes the galaxy ellipticity-ellipticity power spectrum between two photometric redshifts to decrease faster with respect to the redshift separation $\Delta z^P$, for fixed mean redshift. This offers a valuable diagnosis on the intrinsic alignment. We show that the distinctive dependences of the GG, II and GI correlations on $\Delta z^P$ over the range |\Delta z^P|\la 0.2 can be understood robustly without strong assumptions on the intrinsic alignment. This allows us to measure the intrinsic alignment within each conventional photo-z bin of typical size \ga 0.2, through lensing tomography of photo-z bin size $\sim 0.01$. Both the statistical and systematical errors in the lensing cosmology can be reduced by this self-calibration technique.Comment: v2: minor revisions. 5 pages, 4 figures. MNRAS letters in pres

Self calibration of photometric redshift scatter in weak lensing surveys

Photo-z errors, especially catastrophic errors, are a major uncertainty for precision weak lensing cosmology. We find that the shear-(galaxy number) density and density-density cross correlation measurements between photo-z bins, available from the same lensing surveys, contain valuable information for self-calibration of the scattering probabilities between the true-z and photo-z bins. The self-calibration technique we propose does not rely on cosmological priors nor parameterization of the photo-z probability distribution function, and preserves all of the cosmological information available from shear-shear measurement. We estimate the calibration accuracy through the Fisher matrix formalism. We find that, for advanced lensing surveys such as the planned stage IV surveys, the rate of photo-z outliers can be determined with statistical uncertainties of 0.01-1% for $z<2$ galaxies. Among the several sources of calibration error that we identify and investigate, the {\it galaxy distribution bias} is likely the most dominant systematic error, whereby photo-z outliers have different redshift distributions and/or bias than non-outliers from the same bin. This bias affects all photo-z calibration techniques based on correlation measurements. Galaxy bias variations of $O(0.1)$ produce biases in photo-z outlier rates similar to the statistical errors of our method, so this galaxy distribution bias may bias the reconstructed scatters at several-$\sigma$ level, but is unlikely to completely invalidate the self-calibration technique.Comment: v2: 19 pages, 10 figures. Added one figure. Expanded discussions. Accepted to MNRA

2-Amino-4-methyl­pyridinium 3-carb­oxy-4-hy­droxy­benzene­sulfonate monohydrate

In the crystal structure of the title salt, C6H9N2 +·C7H5O6S−·H2O, the water mol­ecule acts as an acceptor of bifurcated N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds from the pyridinium H atom and one H atom of the 2-amino group, forming an R 2 1(6) ring. The 3-carb­oxy-4-hy­droxy­benzene­sulfonate anions self-assemble via O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, leading to supra­molecular chains along the a axis. These chains and R 2 1(6) motifs are linked via O—H⋯O, N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming a layer parallel to the ac plane. There is also an intra­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond in the 3-carb­oxy-4-hy­droxy­benzene­sulfonate anion, generating an S(6) ring motif

Catastrophic photometric redshift errors: weak lensing survey requirements

We study the sensitivity of weak lensing surveys to the effects of catastrophic redshift errors - cases where the true redshift is misestimated by a significant amount. To compute the biases in cosmological parameters, we adopt an efficient linearized analysis where the redshift errors are directly related to shifts in the weak lensing convergence power spectra. We estimate the number Nspec of unbiased spectroscopic redshifts needed to determine the catastrophic error rate well enough that biases in cosmological parameters are below statistical errors of weak lensing tomography. While the straightforward estimate of Nspec is ~10^6 we find that using only the photometric redshifts with z<=2.5 leads to a drastic reduction in Nspec to ~30,000 while negligibly increasing statistical errors in dark energy parameters. Therefore, the size of spectroscopic survey needed to control catastrophic errors is similar to that previously deemed necessary to constrain the core of the z_s-z_p distribution. We also study the efficacy of the recent proposal to measure redshift errors by cross-correlation between the photo-z and spectroscopic samples. We find that this method requires ~10% a priori knowledge of the bias and stochasticity of the outlier population, and is also easily confounded by lensing magnification bias. The cross-correlation method is therefore unlikely to supplant the need for a complete spectroscopic redshift survey of the source population.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Diagnosing space telescope misalignment and jitter using stellar images

Accurate knowledge of the telescope's point spread function (PSF) is essential for the weak gravitational lensing measurements that hold great promise for cosmological constraints. For space telescopes, the PSF may vary with time due to thermal drifts in the telescope structure, and/or due to jitter in the spacecraft pointing (ground-based telescopes have additional sources of variation). We describe and simulate a procedure for using the images of the stars in each exposure to determine the misalignment and jitter parameters, and reconstruct the PSF at any point in that exposure's field of view. The simulation uses the design of the SNAP (http://snap.lbl.gov) telescope. Stellar-image data in a typical exposure determines secondary-mirror positions as precisely as $20 {\rm nm}$. The PSF ellipticities and size, which are the quantities of interest for weak lensing are determined to $4.0 \times 10^{-4}$ and $2.2 \times 10^{-4}$ accuracies respectively in each exposure, sufficient to meet weak-lensing requirements. We show that, for the case of a space telescope, the PSF estimation errors scale inversely with the square root of the total number of photons collected from all the usable stars in the exposure.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figs, submitted to PAS

The Impact of Non-Gaussian Errors on Weak Lensing Surveys

The weak lensing power spectrum carries cosmological information via its dependence on the growth of structure and on geometric factors. Since much of the cosmological information comes from scales affected by nonlinear clustering, measurements of the lensing power spectrum can be degraded by non-Gaussian covariances. Recently there have been conflicting studies about the level of this degradation. We use the halo model to estimate it and include new contributions related to the finite size of lensing surveys, following Rimes and Hamilton's study of 3D simulations. We find that non-Gaussian correlations between different multipoles can degrade the cumulative signal-to-noise for the power spectrum amplitude by up to a factor of 2 (or 5 for a worst-case model that exceeds current N-body simulation predictions). However, using an eight-parameter Fisher analysis we find that the marginalized errors on individual parameters are degraded by less than 10% (or 20% for the worst-case model). The smaller degradation in parameter accuracy is primarily because: individual parameters in a high-dimensional parameter space are degraded much less than the volume of the full Fisher ellipsoid; lensing involves projections along the line of sight, which reduce the non-Gaussian effect; some of the cosmological information comes from geometric factors which are not degraded at all. We contrast our findings with those of Lee & Pen (2008) who suggested a much larger degradation in information content. Finally, our results give a useful guide for exploring survey design by giving the cosmological information returns for varying survey area, depth and the level of some systematic errors.Comment: To appear in MNRAS, 22 pages, 12 figures. Minor modifications made according to the referee comment

2-Methyl-3-(4-nitro­phen­yl)acrylic acid

The title compound, C10H9NO4, forms R 2 2(8) dimers due to inter­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonding in the crystal structure. Two dimers are further linked to each other through two inter­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming an R 3 3(7) ring motif. The nitro groups form an intra­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bond mimicking a five-membered ring. As a result of these hydrogen bonds, polymeric sheets are formed. The aromatic ring makes a dihedral angle of 42.84 (8)° with the carboxyl­ate group and an angle of 8.01 (14)° with the nitro group. There is a π-inter­action (N—O⋯π) between the nitro group and the aromatic ring, with a distance of 3.7572 (14) Å between the N atom and the centroid of the aromatic ring

2-Amino-5,7-bis­(4-fluoro­phen­yl)-1′,3′-dimethyl-7,8-dihydro­spiro­[pyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine-6(5H),5′-pyrimidine]-2′,4,4′,6′(3H,1′H,3′H,5′H)-tetra­one ethanol solvate

In the mol­ecule of the title compound, C24H20F2N6O4·C2H5OH, the pyrimidine ring is oriented at dihedral angles of 42.64 (3) and 62.94 (3)° with respect to the benzene rings, while the dihedral angle between the benzene rings is 74.45 (3)°. The pyridine ring adopts an envelope conformation. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular N—H⋯O and O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds link the mol­ecules into a two-dimensional network, forming R 2 2(8) ring motifs. π–π contacts between the pyrimidine and benzene rings [centroid–centroid distances = 3.516 (1) and 3.927 (1) Å] may further stabilize the structure