arXiv subjects

Elisabeth Krause

Publications and source records attributed to Elisabeth Krause.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Cosmology from large scale galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing with Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data

We present cosmological constraints from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) using a combined analysis of angular clustering of red galaxies and their cross-correlation with weak gravitational lensing of background galaxies. We use a 139 square degree contiguous patch of DES data from the Science Verification (SV) period of observations. Using large scale measurements, we constrain the matter density of the Universe as Omega_m = 0.31 +/- 0.09 and the clustering amplitude of the matter power spectrum as sigma_8 = 0.74 +/- 0.13 after marginalizing over seven nuisance parameters and three additional cosmological parameters. This translates into S_8 = sigma_8(Omega_m/0.3)^{0.16} = 0.74 +/- 0.12 for our fiducial lens redshift bin at 0.35 <z< 0.5, while S_8 = 0.78 +/- 0.09 using two bins over the range 0.2 <z< 0.5. We study the robustness of the results under changes in the data vectors, modelling and systematics treatment, including photometric redshift and shear calibration uncertainties, and find consistency in the derived cosmological parameters. We show that our results are consistent with previous cosmological analyses from DES and other data sets and conclude with a joint analysis of DES angular clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing with Planck CMB data, Baryon Accoustic Oscillations and Supernova type Ia measurements.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2016

CosmoLike - Cosmological Likelihood Analyses for Photometric Galaxy Surveys

We explore strategies to extract cosmological constraints from a joint analysis of cosmic shear, galaxy-galaxy lensing, galaxy clustering, cluster number counts and cluster weak lensing. We utilize the CosmoLike software to simulate results from an LSST like data set, specifically, we 1) compare individual and joint analyses of the different probes, 2) vary the selection criteria for lens and source galaxies, 3) investigate the impact of blending, 4) investigate the impact of the assumed cosmological model in multi-probe covariances, 6) quantify information content as a function of scales, and 7) explore the impact of intrinsic galaxy alignment in a multi-probe context. Our analyses account for all cross correlations within and across probes and include the higher-order (non-Gaussian) terms in the multi-probe covariance matrix. We simultaneously model cosmological parameters and a variety of systematics, e.g. uncertainties arising from shear and photo-z calibration, cluster mass-observable relation, galaxy intrinsic alignment, and galaxy bias (up to 54 parameters altogether). We highlight two results: First, increasing the number density of source galaxies by ~30%, which corresponds to solving blending for LSST, only gains little information. Second, including small scales in clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing, by utilizing HODs, can substantially boost cosmological constraining power. The CosmoLike modules used to compute the results in this paper will be made publicly available at https://github.com/elikrause/CosmoLike_Forecasts.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

The impact of intrinsic alignment on current and future cosmic shear surveys

Intrinsic alignment (IA) of source galaxies is one of the major astrophysical systematics for ongoing and future weak lensing surveys. This paper presents the first forecasts of the impact of IA on cosmic shear measurements for current and future surveys (DES, Euclid, LSST, WFIRST) using simulated likelihood analyses and realistic covariances that include higher-order moments of the density field in the computation. We consider a range of possible IA scenarios and test mitigation schemes, which parameterize IA by the fraction of red galaxies, normalization, luminosity and redshift dependence of the IA signal (for a subset we consider joint IA and photo-z uncertainties). Compared to previous studies we find smaller biases in time-dependent dark energy models if IA is ignored in the analysis; the amplitude and significance of these biases vary as a function of survey properties (depth, statistical uncertainties), luminosity function, and IA scenario: Due to its small statistical errors and relatively shallow observing strategy Euclid is significantly impacted by IA. LSST and WFIRST benefit from their increased survey depth, while the larger statistical errors for DES decrease IA's relative impact on cosmological parameters. The proposed IA mitigation scheme removes parameter biases due to IA for DES, LSST, and WFIRST even if the shape of the IA power spectrum is only poorly known; successful IA mitigation for Euclid requires more prior information. We explore several alternative IA mitigation strategies for Euclid; in the absence of alignment of blue galaxies we recommend the exclusion of red (IA contaminated) galaxies in cosmic shear analyses. We find that even a reduction of 20% in the number density of galaxies only leads to a 4-10% loss in cosmological constraining power.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2015

Cosmology with the SPHEREX All-Sky Spectral Survey

SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) ( http://spherex.caltech.edu ) is a proposed all-sky spectroscopic survey satellite designed to address all three science goals in NASA's Astrophysics Division: probe the origin and destiny of our Universe; explore whether planets around other stars could harbor life; and explore the origin and evolution of galaxies. SPHEREx will scan a series of Linear Variable Filters systematically across the entire sky. The SPHEREx data set will contain R=40 spectra fir 0.75$<λ<$4.1$μ$m and R=150 spectra for 4.1$<λ<$4.8$μ$m for every 6.2 arc second pixel over the entire-sky. In this paper, we detail the extra-galactic and cosmological studies SPHEREx will enable and present detailed systematic effect evaluations. We also outline the Ice and Galaxy Evolution Investigations.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Testing Inflation with Large Scale Structure: Connecting Hopes with Reality

The statistics of primordial curvature fluctuations are our window into the period of inflation, where these fluctuations were generated. To date, the cosmic microwave background has been the dominant source of information about these perturbations. Large scale structure is however from where drastic improvements should originate. In this paper, we explain the theoretical motivations for pursuing such measurements and the challenges that lie ahead. In particular, we discuss and identify theoretical targets regarding the measurement of primordial non-Gaussianity. We argue that when quantified in terms of the local (equilateral) template amplitude $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc}$ ($f_{\rm NL}^{\rm eq}$), natural target levels of sensitivity are $Δf_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc, eq.} \simeq 1$. We highlight that such levels are within reach of future surveys by measuring 2-, 3- and 4-point statistics of the galaxy spatial distribution. This paper summarizes a workshop held at CITA (University of Toronto) on October 23-24, 2014.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Accounting for baryonic effects in cosmic shear tomography: Determining a minimal set of nuisance parameters using PCA

Systematic uncertainties that have been subdominant in past large-scale structure (LSS) surveys are likely to exceed statistical uncertainties of current and future LSS data sets, potentially limiting the extraction of cosmological information. Here we present a general framework (PCA marginalization) to consistently incorporate systematic effects into a likelihood analysis. This technique naturally accounts for degeneracies between nuisance parameters and can substantially reduce the dimension of the parameter space that needs to be sampled. As a practical application, we apply PCA marginalization to account for baryonic physics as an uncertainty in cosmic shear tomography. Specifically, we use CosmoLike to run simulated likelihood analyses on three independent sets of numerical simulations, each covering a wide range of baryonic scenarios differing in cooling, star formation, and feedback mechanisms. We simulate a Stage III (Dark Energy Survey) and Stage IV (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope/Euclid) survey and find a substantial bias in cosmological constraints if baryonic physics is not accounted for. We then show that PCA marginalization (employing at most 3 to 4 nuisance parameters) removes this bias. Our study demonstrates that it is possible to obtain robust, precise constraints on the dark energy equation of state even in the presence of large levels of systematic uncertainty in astrophysical processes. We conclude that the PCA marginalization technique is a powerful, general tool for addressing many of the challenges facing the precision cosmology program.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

First measurement of gravitational lensing by cosmic voids in SDSS

We report the first measurement of the diminutive lensing signal arising from matter underdensities associated with cosmic voids. While undetectable individually, by stacking the weak gravitational shear estimates around 901 voids detected in SDSS DR7 by Sutter et al. (2012a), we find substantial evidence for a depression of the lensing signal compared to the cosmic mean. This depression is most pronounced at the void radius, in agreement with analytical models of void matter profiles. Even with the largest void sample and imaging survey available today, we cannot put useful constraints on the radial dark-matter void profile. We invite independent investigations of our findings by releasing data and analysis code to the public at https://github.com/pmelchior/void-lensing

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

Combining Probes of Large-Scale Structure with CosmoLike

Developing accurate analysis techniques to combine various probes of cosmology is essential to tighten constraints on cosmological parameters and to check for inconsistencies in our model of the Universe. In this paper we develop a joint analysis framework for six different second-order statistics calculated from three tracers of the dark matter density field, namely galaxy position, shear, and magnification. We extend a data compression scheme developed in the context of shear-shear statistics (the so-called COSEBIs) to the other five second-order statistics, thereby significantly reducing the number of data points in the joint data vector. We use CosmoLike, a newly developed software framework for joint likelihood analyses, to forecast parameter constraints for the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The simulated MCMCs cover a five dimensional cosmological parameter space comparing the information content of the individual probes to several combined probes (CP) data vectors. Given the significant correlations of these second-order statistics we model all cross terms in the covariance matrix; furthermore we go beyond the Gaussian covariance approximation and use the halo model to include higher order correlations of the density field. We find that adding magnification information (including cross probes with shear and clustering) noticeably increases the information content and that the correct modeling of the covariance (i.e., accounting for non-Gaussianity and cross terms) is essential for accurate likelihood contours from the CP data vector. We also identify several nulltests based on the degeneracy of magnification and shear statistics which can be used to quantify the contamination of data sets by astrophysical systematics and/or calibration issues.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Accounting for Baryons in Cosmological Constraints from Cosmic Shear

One of the most pernicious theoretical systematics facing upcoming gravitational lensing surveys is the uncertainty introduced by the effects of baryons on the power spectrum of the convergence field. One method that has been proposed to account for these effects is to allow several additional parameters (that characterize dark matter halos) to vary and to fit lensing data to these halo parameters concurrently with the standard set of cosmological parameters. We test this method. In particular, we use this technique to model convergence power spectrum predictions from a set of cosmological simulations. We estimate biases in dark energy equation of state parameters that would be incurred if one were to fit the spectra predicted by the simulations either with no model for baryons, or with the proposed method. We show that neglecting baryonic effect leads to biases in dark energy parameters that are several times the statistical errors for a survey like the Dark Energy Survey. The proposed method to correct for baryonic effects renders the residual biases in dark energy equation of state parameters smaller than the statistical errors. These results suggest that this mitigation method may be applied to analyze convergence spectra from a survey like the Dark Energy Survey. For significantly larger surveys, such as will be carried out by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the biases introduced by baryonic effects are much more significant. We show that this mitigation technique significantly reduces the biases for such larger surveys, but that a more effective mitigation strategy will need to be developed in order ensure that the residual biases in these surveys fall below the statistical errors.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

The Weight of Emptiness: The Gravitational Lensing Signal of Stacked Voids

The upcoming new generation of spectroscopic galaxy redshift surveys will provide large samples of cosmic voids, the distinct, large underdense structures in the universe. Combining these with future galaxy imaging surveys, we study the prospects of probing the underlying matter distribution in and around cosmic voids via the weak gravitational lensing effects of stacked voids, utilizing both shear and magnification information. The statistical precision is greatly improved by stacking together a large number of voids along different lines of sight, even when taking into account the impact of inherent miscentering and projection effects. We show that Dark Energy Task Force Stage IV surveys, such as the Euclid satellite and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, should be able to detect the void lensing signal with sufficient precision from stacking abundant medium-sized voids, thus providing direct constraints on the matter density profile of voids independent of assumptions on galaxy bias.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Halo Occupation Distribution Modeling of Green Valley Galaxies

We present a clustering analysis of near ultraviolet (NUV) - optical color selected luminosity bin samples of green valley galaxies. These galaxy samples are constructed by matching the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 with the latest Galaxy Evolution Explorer source catalog which provides NUV photometry. We present cross-correlation function measurements and determine the halo occupation distribution of these transitional galaxies using a new multiple tracer analysis technique. We extend the halo-occupation formalism to model the cross-correlation function between a galaxy sample of interest and multiple tracer populations simultaneously. This method can be applied to commonly used luminosity threshold samples as well as to color and luminosity bin selected galaxy samples, and improves the accuracy of clustering analyses for sparse galaxy populations. We confirm the previously observed trend that red galaxies reside in more massive halos and are more likely to be satellite galaxies than average galaxies of similar luminosity. While the change in central galaxy host mass as a function of color is only weakly constrained, the satellite fraction and characteristic halo masses of green satellite galaxies are found to be intermediate between those of blue and red satellite galaxies.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

A new third-order cosmic shear statistics: Separating E/B-mode correlations on a finite interval

Decomposing the shear signal into E and B-modes properly, i.e. without leakage of B-modes into the E-mode signal and vice versa, has been a long-standing problem in weak gravitational lensing. At the two-point level this problem was resolved by developing the so-called ring statistics, and later the COSEBIs; however, extending these concepts to the three-point level is far from trivial. Currently used methods to decompose three-point shear correlation functions (3PCFs) into E- and B-modes require knowledge of the 3PCF down to arbitrary small scales. This implies that the 3PCF needs to be modeled on scales smaller than the minimum separation of 2 galaxies and subsequently will be biased towards the model, or, in the absence of a model, the statistics is affected by E/B-mode leakage (or mixing). In this paper we derive a new third-order E/B-mode statistic that performs the decomposition using the 3PCF only on a finite interval, and thereby is free of any E/B-mode leakage while at the same time relying solely on information from the data. In addition, we relate this third-order ring statistics to the convergence field, thereby enabling a fast and convenient calculation of this statistic from numerical simulations. We note that our new statistics should be applicable to corresponding E/B-mode separation problems in the CMB polarization field.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2011

Merger induced scatter and bias in the cluster mass - Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect scaling relation

We examine sources of scatter in scaling relations between galaxy cluster mass and thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect using cluster samples extracted from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. Overall, the scatter of the mass-SZ scaling relation is well correlated with the scatter in the mass-halo concentration relation with more concentrated halos having stronger integrated SZ signals at fixed mass. Additional sources of intrinsic scatter are projection effects from correlated structures, which cause the distribution of scatter to deviate from log-normality and skew it towards higher inferred masses, and the dynamical state of clusters. We study the evolution of merging clusters based on simulations of 39 clusters and their cosmological environment with high time resolution. This sample enables us to study for the first time the detailed evolution of merging clusters around the scaling relation for a cosmologically representative distribution of merger parameters. Major mergers cause an asymmetric scatter such that the inferred mass of merging systems is biased low. We find mergers to be the dominant source of bias towards low inferred masses: over 50% of outliers on this side of the scaling relation underwent a major merger within the last Gigayear. As the fraction of dynamically disturbed clusters increases with redshift, our analysis indicates that mergers cause a redshift-dependent bias in scaling relations. Furthermore, we find the SZ morphology of massive clusters to be well correlated with the clusters' dynamical state, suggesting that morphology may be used to constrain merger fractions and identify merger-induced outliers of the scaling relation.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

COSEBIs: Extracting the full E-/B-mode information from cosmic shear correlation functions

Cosmic shear is considered one of the most powerful methods for studying the properties of Dark Energy in the Universe. As a standard method, the two-point correlation functions $xi_\pm(theta)$ of the cosmic shear field are used as statistical measures for the shear field. In order to separate the observed shear into E- and B-modes, the latter being most likely produced by remaining systematics in the data set and/or intrinsic alignment effects, several statistics have been defined before. Here we aim at a complete E-/B-mode decomposition of the cosmic shear information contained in the $xi_\pm$ on a finite angular interval. We construct two sets of such E-/B-mode measures, namely Complete Orthogonal Sets of E-/B-mode Integrals (COSEBIs), characterized by weight functions between the $xi_\pm$ and the COSEBIs which are polynomials in $theta$ or polynomials in $ln(theta)$, respectively. Considering the likelihood in cosmological parameter space, constructed from the COSEBIs, we study their information contents. We show that the information grows with the number of COSEBI modes taken into account, and that an asymptotic limit is reached which defines the maximum available information in the E-mode component of the $xi_\pm$. We show that this limit is reached the earlier (i.e., for a smaller number of modes considered) the narrower the angular range is over which $xi_\pm$ are measured, and it is reached much earlier for logarithmic weight functions. For example, for $xi_\pm$ on the interval $1'\le θ\le 400'$, the asymptotic limit for the parameter pair $(Omega_m, sigma_8)$ is reached for $\sim 25$ modes in the linear case, but already for 5 modes in the logarithmic case. The COSEBIs form a natural discrete set of quantities, which we suggest as method of choice in future cosmic shear likelihood analyses.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Tidal alignments as a contaminant of the galaxy bispectrum

If the orientations of galaxies are correlated with large-scale structure, then anisotropic selection effects such as preferential selection of face-on disc galaxies can contaminate large scale structure observables. Here we consider the effect on the galaxy bispectrum, which has attracted interest as a way to break the degeneracy between galaxy bias and the amplitude of matter fluctuations sigma_8. We consider two models of intrinsic galaxy alignments: one where the probability distribution for the galaxy's orientation contains a term linear in the local tidal field, appropriate for elliptical galaxies; and one with a term quadratic in the local tidal field, which may be applicable to disc galaxies. We compute the correction to the redshift-space bispectrum in the quasilinear regime, and then focus on its effects on parameter constraints from the transverse bispectrum, i.e. using triangles in the plane of the sky. We show that in the linear alignment model, intrinsic alignments result in an error in the galaxy bias parameters, but do not affect the inferred value of sigma_8. In contrast, the quadratic alignment model results in a systematic error in both the bias parameters and sigma_8. However, the quadratic alignment effect has a unique configuration dependence that should enable it to be removed in upcoming surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Weak lensing power spectra for precision cosmology: Multiple-deflection, reduced shear and lensing bias corrections

It is usually assumed that the ellipticity power spectrum measured in weak lensing observations can be expressed as an integral over the underlying matter power spectrum. This is true at second order in the gravitational potential. We extend the standard calculation, constructing all corrections to fourth order in the gravitational potential. There are four types of corrections: corrections to the lensing shear due to multiple-deflections; corrections due to the fact that shape distortions probe the reduced shear $γ/(1-κ)$ rather than the shear itself; corrections associated with the non-linear conversion of reduced shear to mean ellipticity; and corrections due to the fact that observational galaxy selection and shear measurement is based on galaxy brightnesses and sizes which have been (de)magnified by lensing. We show how the previously considered corrections to the shear power spectrum correspond to terms in our analysis, and highlight new terms that were not previously identified. All correction terms are given explicitly as integrals over the matter power spectrum, bispectrum, and trispectrum, and are numerically evaluated for the case of sources at z=1. We find agreement with previous works for the ${\mathcal O}(Φ^3)$ terms. We find that for ambitious future surveys, the ${\mathcal O}(Φ^4)$ terms affect the power spectrum at the ~ 1-5 $σ$ level; they will thus need to be accounted for, but are unlikely to represent a serious difficulty for weak lensing as a cosmological probe.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2009

Measuring cosmic shear with the ring statistics

Commonly used methods to decompose E- and B-modes in cosmic shear, namely the aperture mass dispersion and the E/B-mode shear correlation function, suffer from incomplete knowledge of the two-point correlation function (2PCF) on very small and/or very large scales. The ring statistics, the most recently developed cosmic shear measure, improves on this issue and is able to decompose E- and B-modes using a 2PCF measured on a finite interval. First, we improve on the ring statistics' filter function with respect to the signal-to-noise ratio. Second, we examine the ability of the ring statistics to constrain cosmology and compare the results to cosmological constraints obtained with the aperture mass dispersion. Third, we use the ring statistics to measure a cosmic shear signal from CFHTLS (Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey) data. We consider a scale-dependent filter function for the ring statistics which improves its signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we show that there exist filter functions which decompose E- and B-modes using a finite range of 2PCFs (EB-statistics) and have higher S/N ratio than the ring statistics. However, we find that data points of the latter are significantly less correlated than data points of the aperture mass dispersion and the EB-statistics. As a consequence the ring statistics is an ideal tool to identify remaining systematics accurately as a function of angular scale. We use the 2PCF of the latest CFHTLS analysis and therefrom calculate the ring statistics and its error bars.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2007

A Theoretical Interpretation of the Black Hole Fundamental Plane

We examine the origin and evolution of correlations between properties of supermassive black holes (BHs) and their host galaxies using simulations of major galaxy mergers, including the effects of gas dissipation, cooling, star formation, and BH accretion and feedback. We demonstrate that the simulations predict the existence of a BH 'fundamental plane' (BHFP), of the form M_BH sigma^(3.0+-0.3)*R_e^(0.43+-0.19) or M_BH M_bulge^(0.54+-0.17)*sigma^(2.2+-0.5), similar to relations found observationally. The simulations indicate that the BHFP can be understood roughly as a tilted intrinsic correlation between BH mass and spheroid binding energy, or the condition for feedback coupling to power a pressure-driven outflow. While changes in halo circular velocity, merger orbital parameters, progenitor disk redshifts and gas fractions, ISM gas pressurization, and other parameters can drive changes in e.g. sigma at fixed M_bulge, and therefore changes in the M_BH-sigma or M_BH-M_bulge relations, the BHFP is robust. Given the empirical trend of decreasing R_e for a given M_bulge at high redshift, the BHFP predicts that BHs will be more massive at fixed M_bulge, in good agreement with recent observations. This evolution in the structural properties of merger remnants, to smaller R_e and larger sigma (and therefore larger M_BH, conserving the BHFP) at a given M_bulge, is driven by the fact that bulge progenitors have characteristically larger gas fractions at high redshifts. Adopting the observed evolution of disk gas fractions with redshift, our simulations predict the observed trends in both R_e(M_bulge) and M_BH(M_bulge).

astro-ph↗