How to obtain the redshift distribution from probabilistic redshift estimates

Abstract

A trustworthy estimate of the redshift distribution $n(z)$ is crucial for using weak gravitational lensing and large-scale structure of galaxy catalogs to study cosmology. Spectroscopic redshifts for the dim and numerous galaxies of next-generation weak-lensing surveys are expected to be unavailable, making photometric redshift (photo-$z$) probability density functions (PDFs) the next-best alternative for comprehensively encapsulating the nontrivial systematics affecting photo-$z$ point estimation. The established stacked estimator of $n(z)$ avoids reducing photo-$z$ PDFs to point estimates but yields a systematically biased estimate of $n(z)$ that worsens with decreasing signal-to-noise, the very regime where photo-$z$ PDFs are most necessary. We introduce Cosmological Hierarchical Inference with Probabilistic Photometric Redshifts (CHIPPR), a statistically rigorous probabilistic graphical model of redshift-dependent photometry, which correctly propagates the redshift uncertainty information beyond the best-fit estimator of $n(z)$ produced by traditional procedures and is provably the only self-consistent way to recover $n(z)$ from photo-$z$ PDFs. We present the $\texttt{chippr}$ prototype code, noting that the mathematically justifiable approach incurs computational expense. The CHIPPR approach is applicable to any one-point statistic of any random variable, provided the prior probability density used to produce the posteriors is explicitly known; if the prior is implicit, as may be the case for popular photo-$z$ techniques, then the resulting posterior PDFs cannot be used for scientific inference. We therefore recommend that the photo-$z$ community focus on developing methodologies that enable the recovery of photo-$z$ likelihoods with support over all redshifts, either directly or via a known prior probability density.