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F. B. Abdalla

Publications and source records attributed to F. B. Abdalla.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

BAO from angular clustering: optimization and mitigation of theoretical systematics

We study the methodology and potential theoretical systematics of measuring Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) using the angular correlation functions in tomographic bins. We calibrate and optimize the pipeline for the Dark Energy Survey Year 1 dataset using 1800 mocks. We compare the BAO fitting results obtained with three estimators: the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE), Profile Likelihood, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo. The fit results from the MLE are the least biased and their derived 1-$σ$ error bar are closest to the Gaussian distribution value after removing the extreme mocks with non-detected BAO signal. We show that incorrect assumptions in constructing the template, such as mismatches from the cosmology of the mocks or the underlying photo-$z$ errors, can lead to BAO angular shifts. We find that MLE is the method that best traces this systematic biases, allowing to recover the true angular distance values. In a real survey analysis, it may happen that the final data sample properties are slightly different from those of the mock catalog. We show that the effect on the mock covariance due to the sample differences can be corrected with the help of the Gaussian covariance matrix or more effectively using the eigenmode expansion of the mock covariance. In the eigenmode expansion, the eigenmodes are provided by some proxy covariance matrix. The eigenmode expansion is significantly less susceptible to statistical fluctuations relative to the direct measurements of the covariance matrix because of the number of free parameters is substantially reduced

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Quasar Accretion Disk Sizes From Continuum Reverberation Mapping From the Dark Energy Survey

We present accretion disk size measurements for 15 luminous quasars at $0.7 \leq z \leq 1.9$ derived from $griz$ light curves from the Dark Energy Survey. We measure the disk sizes with continuum reverberation mapping using two methods, both of which are derived from the expectation that accretion disks have a radial temperature gradient and the continuum emission at a given radius is well-described by a single blackbody. In the first method we measure the relative lags between the multiband light curves, which provides the relative time lag between shorter and longer wavelength variations. From this, we are only able to constrain upper limits on disk sizes, as many are consistent with no lag the 2$σ$ level. The second method fits the model parameters for the canonical thin disk directly rather than solving for the individual time lags between the light curves. Our measurements demonstrate good agreement with the sizes predicted by this model for accretion rates between 0.3-1 times the Eddington rate. Given our large uncertainties, our measurements are also consistent with disk size measurements from gravitational microlensing studies of strongly lensed quasars, as well as other photometric reverberation mapping results, that find disk sizes that are a factor of a few ($\sim$3) larger than predictions.

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Discovery and Dynamical Analysis of an Extreme Trans-Neptunian Object with a High Orbital Inclination

We report the discovery and dynamical analysis of 2015 BP$_{519}$, an extreme Trans-Neptunian Object detected detected by the Dark Energy Survey at a heliocentric distance of 55 AU and absolute magnitude Hr= 4.3. The current orbit, determined from a 1110-day observational arc, has semi-major axis $a\approx$ 450 AU, eccentricity $e\approx$ 0.92 and inclination $i\approx$ 54 degrees. With these orbital elements, 2015 BP$_{519}$ is the most extreme TNO discovered to date, as quantified by the reduced Kozai action, which is is a conserved quantity at fixed semi-major axis $a$ for axisymmetric perturbations. We discuss the orbital stability and evolution of this object in the context of the known Solar System, and find that 2015 BP$_{519}$ displays rich dynamical behavior, including rapid diffusion in semi-major axis and more constrained variations in eccentricity and inclination. We also consider the long term orbital stability and evolutionary behavior within the context of the Planet Nine Hypothesis, and find that BP$_{519}$ adds to the circumstantial evidence for the existence of this proposed new member of the Solar System, as it would represent the first member of the population of high-i, $\varpi$-shepherded TNOs.

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Survey geometry and the internal consistency of recent cosmic shear measurements

We explore the impact of an update to the typical approximation for the shape noise term in the analytic covariance matrix for cosmic shear experiments that assumes the absence of survey boundary and mask effects. We present an exact expression for the number of galaxy pairs in this term based on the the survey mask, which leads to more than a factor of three increase in the shape noise on the largest measured scales for the Kilo-Degree Survey (KIDS-450) real-space cosmic shear data. We compare the result of this analytic expression to several alternative methods for measuring the shape noise from the data and find excellent agreement. This update to the covariance resolves any internal model tension evidenced by the previously large cosmological best-fit $χ^2$ for the KiDS-450 cosmic shear data. The best-fit $χ^2$ is reduced from 161 to 121 for 118 degrees of freedom. We also apply a correction to how the multiplicative shear calibration uncertainty is included in the covariance. This change, along with a previously known update to the reported effective angular values of the data vector, jointly shift the inferred amplitude of the correlation function to higher values. We find that this improves agreement of the KiDS-450 cosmic shear results with Dark Energy Survey Year 1 and Planck results.

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The Splashback Feature around DES Galaxy Clusters: Galaxy Density and Weak Lensing Profiles

Splashback refers to the process of matter that is accreting onto a dark matter halo reaching its first orbital apocenter and turning around in its orbit. The cluster-centric radius at which this process occurs, r_sp, defines a halo boundary that is connected to the dynamics of the cluster. A rapid decline in the halo profile is expected near r_sp. We measure the galaxy number density and weak lensing mass profiles around redMaPPer galaxy clusters in the first year Dark Energy Survey (DES) data. For a cluster sample with mean M_200m mass ~2.5 x 10^14 M_sun, we find strong evidence of a splashback-like steepening of the galaxy density profile and measure r_sp=1.13 +/- 0.07 Mpc/h, consistent with earlier SDSS measurements of More et al. (2016) and Baxter et al. (2017). Moreover, our weak lensing measurement demonstrates for the first time the existence of a splashback-like steepening of the matter profile of galaxy clusters. We measure r_sp=1.34 +/- 0.21 Mpc/h from the weak lensing data, in good agreement with our galaxy density measurements. For different cluster and galaxy samples, we find that consistent with LCDM simulations, r_sp scales with R_200m and does not evolve with redshift over the redshift range of 0.3--0.6. We also find that potential systematic effects associated with the redMaPPer algorithm may impact the location of r_sp. We discuss progress needed to understand the systematic uncertainties and fully exploit forthcoming data from DES and future surveys, emphasizing the importance of more realistic mock catalogs and independent cluster samples.

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Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: galaxy mock catalogues for BAO

Mock catalogues are a crucial tool in the analysis of galaxy surveys data, both for the accurate computation of covariance matrices, and for the optimisation of analysis methodology and validation of data sets. In this paper, we present a set of 1800 galaxy mock catalogues designed to match the Dark Energy Survey Year-1 BAO sample (Crocce et al. 2017) in abundance, observational volume, redshift distribution and uncertainty, and redshift dependent clustering. The simulated samples were built upon HALOGEN (Avila et al. 2015) halo catalogues, based on a $2LPT$ density field with an exponential bias. For each of them, a lightcone is constructed by the superposition of snapshots in the redshift range $0.45<z<1.4$. Uncertainties introduced by so-called photometric redshifts estimators were modelled with a \textit{double-skewed-Gaussian} curve fitted to the data. We also introduce a hybrid HOD-HAM model with two free parameters that are adjusted to achieve a galaxy bias evolution $b(z_{\rm ph})$ that matches the data at the 1-$σ$ level in the range $0.6<z_{\rm ph}<1.0$. We further analyse the galaxy mock catalogues and compare their clustering to the data using the angular correlation function $ w(θ)$, the comoving transverse separation clustering $ξ_{μ<0.8}(s_{\perp})$ and the angular power spectrum $C_\ell$.

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Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Measurement of the Galaxy Angular Power Spectrum

We use data from the first-year (Y1) observations of the DES collaboration to measure the galaxy angular power spectrum (APS), and search for its BAO feature using a template-fitting method. We test our methodology in a sample of 1800 DES Y1-like mock catalogs. The APS is measured with the pseudo-$C_\ell$ method, using pixelized maps constructed from the mock catalogs and the DES mask. The covariance matrix of the $C_\ell$'s in these tests are also obtained from the mock catalogs. We use templates to model the measured spectra and estimate template parameters firstly from the $C_\ell$'s of the mocks using two different methods, a maximum likelihood estimator and a MCMC, finding consistent results with a good reduced $χ^2$. Robustness tests are performed to estimate the impact of different choices of settings used in our analysis. After these tests on mocks, we apply our method to a galaxy sample constructed from DES Y1 data specifically for LSS studies. This catalog comprises galaxies within an effective area of 1318 deg$^2$ and $0.6<z<1.0$. We fit the observed spectra with our optimized templates, considering models with and without BAO features. We find that the DES Y1 data favors a model with BAO at the $2.6\,σ$ C.L. with a best-fit shift parameter of $α=1.023\pm 0.047$. However, the goodness-of-fit is somewhat poor, with $χ^2/$(dof) = 1.49. We identify a possible cause of this issue and show that using a theoretical covariance matrix obtained from $C_\ell$'s that are better adjusted to data results in an improved value of $χ^2/$(dof) = 1.36 which is similar to the value obtained with the real-space analysis. Our results correspond to a distance measurement of $D_A(z_{\rm eff} = 0.81)/r_d = 10.65 \pm 0.49$, consistent with the main DES BAO findings. This is a companion paper to the main DES BAO article showing the details of the harmonic space analysis.

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Density split statistics: Cosmological constraints from counts and lensing in cells in DES Y1 and SDSS data

We derive cosmological constraints from the probability distribution function (PDF) of evolved large-scale matter density fluctuations. We do this by splitting lines of sight by density based on their count of tracer galaxies, and by measuring both gravitational shear around and counts-in-cells in overdense and underdense lines of sight, in Dark Energy Survey (DES) First Year and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. Our analysis uses a perturbation theory model (see companion paper Friedrich at al.) and is validated using N-body simulation realizations and log-normal mocks. It allows us to constrain cosmology, bias and stochasticity of galaxies w.r.t. matter density and, in addition, the skewness of the matter density field. From a Bayesian model comparison, we find that the data weakly prefer a connection of galaxies and matter that is stochastic beyond Poisson fluctuations on <=20 arcmin angular smoothing scale. The two stochasticity models we fit yield DES constraints on the matter density $Ω_m=0.26^{+0.04}_{-0.03}$ and $Ω_m=0.28^{+0.05}_{-0.04}$ that are consistent with each other. These values also agree with the DES analysis of galaxy and shear two-point functions (3x2pt) that only uses second moments of the PDF. Constraints on $σ_8$ are model dependent ($σ_8=0.97^{+0.07}_{-0.06}$ and $0.80^{+0.06}_{-0.07}$ for the two stochasticity models), but consistent with each other and with the 3x2pt results if stochasticity is at the low end of the posterior range. As an additional test of gravity, counts and lensing in cells allow to compare the skewness $S_3$ of the matter density PDF to its LCDM prediction. We find no evidence of excess skewness in any model or data set, with better than 25 per cent relative precision in the skewness estimate from DES alone.

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Baryon Content in a Sample of 91 Galaxy Clusters Selected by the South Pole Telescope at 0.2 < z < 1.25

We estimate total mass ($M_{500}$), intracluster medium (ICM) mass ($M_{\mathrm{ICM}}$) and stellar mass ($M_{\star}$) in a Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE) selected sample of 91 galaxy clusters with masses $M_{500}\gtrsim2.5\times10^{14}M_{\odot}$ and redshift $0.2 < z < 1.25$ from the 2500 deg$^2$ South Pole Telescope SPT-SZ survey. The total masses $M_{500}$ are estimated from the SZE observable, the ICM masses $M_{\mathrm{ICM}}$ are obtained from the analysis of $Chandra$ X-ray observations, and the stellar masses $M_{\star}$ are derived by fitting spectral energy distribution templates to Dark Energy Survey (DES) $griz$ optical photometry and $WISE$ or $Spitzer$ near-infrared photometry. We study trends in the stellar mass, the ICM mass, the total baryonic mass and the cold baryonic fraction with cluster mass and redshift. We find significant departures from self-similarity in the mass scaling for all quantities, while the redshift trends are all statistically consistent with zero, indicating that the baryon content of clusters at fixed mass has changed remarkably little over the past $\approx9$ Gyr. We compare our results to the mean baryon fraction (and the stellar mass fraction) in the field, finding that these values lie above (below) those in cluster virial regions in all but the most massive clusters at low redshift. Using a simple model of the matter assembly of clusters from infalling groups with lower masses and from infalling material from the low density environment or field surrounding the parent halos, we show that the measured mass trends without strong redshift trends in the stellar mass scaling relation could be explained by a mass and redshift dependent fractional contribution from field material. Similar analyses of the ICM and baryon mass scaling relations provide evidence for the so-called "missing baryons" outside cluster virial regions.

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Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Redshift distributions of the weak lensing source galaxies

We describe the derivation and validation of redshift distribution estimates and their uncertainties for the galaxies used as weak lensing sources in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 cosmological analyses. The Bayesian Photometric Redshift (BPZ) code is used to assign galaxies to four redshift bins between z=0.2 and 1.3, and to produce initial estimates of the lensing-weighted redshift distributions $n^i_{PZ}(z)$ for bin i. Accurate determination of cosmological parameters depends critically on knowledge of $n^i$ but is insensitive to bin assignments or redshift errors for individual galaxies. The cosmological analyses allow for shifts $n^i(z)=n^i_{PZ}(z-Δz^i)$ to correct the mean redshift of $n^i(z)$ for biases in $n^i_{\rm PZ}$. The $Δz^i$ are constrained by comparison of independently estimated 30-band photometric redshifts of galaxies in the COSMOS field to BPZ estimates made from the DES griz fluxes, for a sample matched in fluxes, pre-seeing size, and lensing weight to the DES weak-lensing sources. In companion papers, the $Δz^i$ are further constrained by the angular clustering of the source galaxies around red galaxies with secure photometric redshifts at 0.15<z<0.9. This paper details the BPZ and COSMOS procedures, and demonstrates that the cosmological inference is insensitive to details of the $n^i(z)$ beyond the choice of $Δz^i$. The clustering and COSMOS validation methods produce consistent estimates of $Δz^i$, with combined uncertainties of $σ_{Δz^i}=$0.015, 0.013, 0.011, and 0.022 in the four bins. We marginalize over these in all analyses to follow, which does not diminish the constraining power significantly. Repeating the photo-z procedure using the Directional Neighborhood Fitting (DNF) algorithm instead of BPZ, or using the $n^i(z)$ directly estimated from COSMOS, yields no discernible difference in cosmological inferences.

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Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Photometric Data Set for Cosmology

We describe the creation, content, and validation of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) internal year-one cosmology data set, Y1A1 GOLD, in support of upcoming cosmological analyses. The Y1A1 GOLD data set is assembled from multiple epochs of DES imaging and consists of calibrated photometric zeropoints, object catalogs, and ancillary data products - e.g., maps of survey depth and observing conditions, star-galaxy classification, and photometric redshift estimates - that are necessary for accurate cosmological analyses. The Y1A1 GOLD wide-area object catalog consists of ~137 million objects detected in coadded images covering ~1800 deg$^2$ in the DES grizY filters. The 10σ limiting magnitude for galaxies is g = 23.4, r = 23.2, i = 22.5, z = 21.8, and Y = 20.1. Photometric calibration of Y1A1 GOLD was performed by combining nightly zeropoint solutions with stellar-locus regression, and the absolute calibration accuracy is better than 2% over the survey area. DES Y1A1 GOLD is the largest photometric data set at the achieved depth to date, enabling precise measurements of cosmic acceleration at z $\lesssim$ 1.

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Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Cosmological Constraints from Cosmic Shear

We use 26 million galaxies from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 shape catalogs over 1321 deg$^2$ of the sky to produce the most significant measurement of cosmic shear in a galaxy survey to date. We constrain cosmological parameters in both the flat $Λ$CDM and $w$CDM models, while also varying the neutrino mass density. These results are shown to be robust using two independent shape catalogs, two independent \photoz\ calibration methods, and two independent analysis pipelines in a blind analysis. We find a 3.5\% fractional uncertainty on $σ_8(Ω_m/0.3)^{0.5} = 0.782^{+0.027}_{-0.027}$ at 68\% CL, which is a factor of 2.5 improvement over the fractional constraining power of our DES Science Verification results. In $w$CDM, we find a 4.8\% fractional uncertainty on $σ_8(Ω_m/0.3)^{0.5} = 0.777^{+0.036}_{-0.038}$ and a dark energy equation-of-state $w=-0.95^{+0.33}_{-0.39}$. We find results that are consistent with previous cosmic shear constraints in $σ_8$ -- $Ω_m$, and see no evidence for disagreement of our weak lensing data with data from the CMB. Finally, we find no evidence preferring a $w$CDM model allowing $w\ne -1$. We expect further significant improvements with subsequent years of DES data, which will more than triple the sky coverage of our shape catalogs and double the effective integrated exposure time per galaxy.

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Modelling the Tucana III stream - a close passage with the LMC

We present results of the first dynamical stream fits to the recently discovered Tucana III stream. These fits assume a fixed Milky Way potential and give proper motion predictions, which can be tested with the upcoming Gaia Data Release 2. These fits reveal that Tucana III is on an eccentric orbit around the Milky Way and, more interestingly, that Tucana III passed within 15 kpc of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) approximately 75 Myr ago. Given this close passage, we fit the Tucana III stream in the combined presence of the Milky Way and the LMC. We find that the predicted proper motions depend on the assumed mass of the LMC and that the LMC can induce a substantial proper motion perpendicular to the stream track. A detection of this misalignment will directly probe the extent of the LMC's influence on our Galaxy, and has implications for nearly all methods which attempt to constraint the Milky Way potential. Such a measurement will be possible with the upcoming Gaia DR2, allowing for a measurement of the LMC's mass.

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Degradation analysis in the estimation of photometric redshifts from non-representative training sets

We perform an analysis of photometric redshifts estimated by using a non-representative training sets in magnitude space. We use the ANNz2 and GPz algorithms to estimate the photometric redshift both in simulations as well as in real data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR12). We show that for the representative case, the results obtained by using both algorithms have the same quality, either using magnitudes or colours as input. In order to reduce the errors when estimating the redshifts with a non-representative training set, we perform the training in colour space. We estimate the quality of our results by using a mock catalogue which is split samples cuts in the $r$-band between $19.4< r< 20.8$. We obtain slightly better results with GPz on single point z-phot estimates in the complete training set case, however the photometric redshifts estimated with ANNz2 algorithm allows us to obtain mildly better results in deeper $r$-band cuts when estimating the full redshift distribution of the sample in the incomplete training set case. By using a cumulative distribution function and a Monte-Carlo process, we manage to define a photometric estimator which fits well the spectroscopic distribution of galaxies in the mock testing set, but with a larger scatter. To complete this work, we perform an analysis of the impact on the detection of clusters via density of galaxies in a field by using the photometric redshifts obtained with a non-representative training set.

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Weak lensing magnification in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification Data

In this paper the effect of weak lensing magnification on galaxy number counts is studied by cross-correlating the positions of two galaxy samples, separated by redshift, using data from the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification dataset. The analysis is carried out for two photometrically-selected galaxy samples, with mean photometric redshifts in the $0.2 < z < 0.4$ and $0.7 < z < 1.0$ ranges, in the riz bands. A signal is detected with a $3.5σ$ significance level in each of the bands tested, and is compatible with the magnification predicted by the $Λ$CDM model. After an extensive analysis, it cannot be attributed to any known systematic effect. The detection of the magnification signal is robust to estimated uncertainties in the outlier rate of the pho- tometric redshifts, but this will be an important issue for use of photometric redshifts in magnification mesurements from larger samples. In addition to the detection of the magnification signal, a method to select the sample with the maximum signal-to-noise is proposed and validated with data.

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Stellar Streams Discovered in the Dark Energy Survey

We perform a search for stellar streams around the Milky Way using the first three years of multi-band optical imaging data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We use DES data covering $\sim 5000$ sq. deg. to a depth of $g > 23.5$ with a relative photometric calibration uncertainty of $< 1 \%$. This data set yields unprecedented sensitivity to the stellar density field in the southern celestial hemisphere, enabling the detection of faint stellar streams to a heliocentric distance of $\sim 50$ kpc. We search for stellar streams using a matched-filter in color-magnitude space derived from a synthetic isochrone of an old, metal-poor stellar population. Our detection technique recovers four previously known thin stellar streams: Phoenix, ATLAS, Tucana III, and a possible extension of Molonglo. In addition, we report the discovery of eleven new stellar streams. In general, the new streams detected by DES are fainter, more distant, and lower surface brightness than streams detected by similar techniques in previous photometric surveys. As a by-product of our stellar stream search, we find evidence for extra-tidal stellar structure associated with four globular clusters: NGC 288, NGC 1261, NGC 1851, and NGC 1904. The ever-growing sample of stellar streams will provide insight into the formation of the Galactic stellar halo, the Milky Way gravitational potential, as well as the large- and small-scale distribution of dark matter around the Milky Way.

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UV-Luminous, Star-Forming Hosts of z~2 Reddened Quasars in the Dark Energy Survey

We present the first rest-frame UV population study of 17 heavily reddened, high-luminosity (E(B-V)$_{\rm{QSO}}\gtrsim$ 0.5; L$_{\rm{bol}}>$ 10$^{46}$ergs$^{-1}$) broad-line quasars at $1.5 < z < 2.7$. We combine the first year of deep, optical, ground-based observations from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) with the near infrared VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) and UKIDSS Large Area Survey (ULAS) data, from which the reddened quasars were initially identified. We demonstrate that the significant dust reddening towards the quasar in our sample allows host galaxy emission to be detected at the rest-frame UV wavelengths probed by the DES photometry. By exploiting this reddening effect, we disentangle the quasar emission from that of the host galaxy via spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting. We find evidence for a relatively unobscured, star-forming host galaxy in at least ten quasars, with a further three quasars exhibiting emission consistent with either star formation or scattered light. From the rest-frame UV emission, we derive instantaneous, dust-corrected star formation rates (SFRs) in the range 25 < SFR$_{\rm{UV}}$ < 365 M$_{\odot}$yr$^{-1}$, with an average SFR$_{\rm{UV}}$ = 130 $\pm$ 95 M$_{\odot}$yr$^{-1}$. We find a broad correlation between SFR$_{\rm{UV}}$ and the bolometric quasar luminosity. Overall, our results show evidence for coeval star formation and black hole accretion occurring in luminous, reddened quasars at the peak epoch of galaxy formation.

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Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Curved-Sky Weak Lensing Mass Map

We construct the largest curved-sky galaxy weak lensing mass map to date from the DES first-year (DES Y1) data. The map, about 10 times larger than previous work, is constructed over a contiguous $\approx1,500 $deg$^2$, covering a comoving volume of $\approx10 $Gpc$^3$. The effects of masking, sampling, and noise are tested using simulations. We generate weak lensing maps from two DES Y1 shear catalogs, Metacalibration and Im3shape, with sources at redshift $0.2<z<1.3,$ and in each of four bins in this range. In the highest signal-to-noise map, the ratio between the mean signal-to-noise in the E-mode and the B-mode map is $\sim$1.5 ($\sim$2) when smoothed with a Gaussian filter of $σ_{G}=30$ (80) arcminutes. The second and third moments of the convergence $κ$ in the maps are in agreement with simulations. We also find no significant correlation of $κ$ with maps of potential systematic contaminants. Finally, we demonstrate two applications of the mass maps: (1) cross-correlation with different foreground tracers of mass and (2) exploration of the largest peaks and voids in the maps.

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