Lensing in the Blue IV: The First Weak Gravitational Lensing Maps from the Stratosphere

Sayan Saha; Maya Amit; Jacqueline E. McCleary; Georgios N. Vassilakis; Emaad Paracha; Giulia Cerini; Spencer W. Everett; Leila Ohashi; Eric M. Huff; Gavin Leroy; Leo W. H. Fung; Richard Massey; Steven J. Benton; William C. Jones; Thuy Vy T. Luu; Ajay S. Gill; Mohamed M. Shaaban; Philippe Voyer; Adam Field; Adam Aoua; Anthony M. Brown; Paul Clark; Matthew Craigie; Christopher J. Damaren; Tim Eifler; David Harvey; Eric Habjan; John W. Hartley; Bradley Holder; Mathilde Jauzac; David Lagattuta; Jason S. -Y. Leung; Lun Li; Johanna M. Nagy; C. Barth Netterfield; Susan F. Redmond; Jason D. Rhodes; Andrew Robertson; L. Javier Romualdez; Jürgen Schmoll; Ellen Sirks; Sut Ieng Tam; Karuna Tarafdar; André Z. Vitorelli; Alfredo Zenteno

arXiv · 2610.07244

Lensing in the Blue IV: The First Weak Gravitational Lensing Maps from the Stratosphere

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Abstract

The Super-Pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) completed its science flight in April 2023, obtaining imaging data for 30 galaxy clusters. In this work, we present the first weak-lensing convergence maps from these observations, using six clusters selected from the 30 targets. We construct background-galaxy catalogs using SuperBIT's three-band photometry and a color-color-based method to separate foreground and background galaxies, and use the calibrated galaxy shapes presented in Lensing in the Blue III to reconstruct the weak-lensing convergence field using Kaiser-Squires inversion. We compare the convergence signal-to-noise maps for the six clusters with independent tracers, including X-ray emission and red-sequence cluster-member number-density maps. These results demonstrate the first successful weak-lensing mass mapping with imaging from a sub-orbital astronomical observatory.

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Sayan Saha, Maya Amit, Jacqueline E. McCleary, Georgios N. Vassilakis, Emaad Paracha, Giulia Cerini, Spencer W. Everett, Leila Ohashi, Eric M. Huff, Gavin Leroy, Leo W. H. Fung, Richard Massey, Steven J. Benton, William C. Jones, Thuy Vy T. Luu, Ajay S. Gill, Mohamed M. Shaaban, Philippe Voyer, Adam Field, Adam Aoua, Anthony M. Brown, Paul Clark, Matthew Craigie, Christopher J. Damaren, Tim Eifler, David Harvey, Eric Habjan, John W. Hartley, Bradley Holder, Mathilde Jauzac, David Lagattuta, Jason S. -Y. Leung, Lun Li, Johanna M. Nagy, C. Barth Netterfield, Susan F. Redmond, Jason D. Rhodes, Andrew Robertson, L. Javier Romualdez, Jürgen Schmoll, Ellen Sirks, Sut Ieng Tam, Karuna Tarafdar, André Z. Vitorelli, Alfredo Zenteno. 2026-10-05. Lensing in the Blue IV: The First Weak Gravitational Lensing Maps from the Stratosphere. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.07244

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