arXiv subjects

Joachim Harnois-Déraps

Publications and source records attributed to Joachim Harnois-Déraps.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Impact of galaxy intrinsic alignments on non-Gaussian weak lensing statistics for modified gravity

Non-Gaussian weak lensing statistics improve the constraining power of cosmic shear data by harvesting information unavailable to two-point statistics, within and beyond the GR+$Λ$CDM scenario. Dark energy, total neutrino mass and deviations from GR have all been shown to be better measured with non-Gaussian lensing probes, in simplified conditions. Previous studies typically overlook the impact of secondary lensing signals, which can be large and therefore can significantly affect the conclusions. Here we investigate the impact on measurements of cosmological and modified gravity parameters in the presence of galaxy intrinsic alignments. We focus on the power spectra, lensing PDF, peaks and minima counts, void abundance and void profiles. These non-Gaussian statistics are measured from the MGLenS mock weak lensing maps, in which three cosmological parameters and one gravitational parameter are varied, either in the $f(R)$ or nDGP scenario, assuming Stage-IV lensing survey precision. These simulations are infused with the non-linear linear alignment model, allowing us to build emulators for each statistic with or without IA, and to study biases in full MCMC analyses. We show that in the absence of IA, lensing void profiles and abundance generally yield the highest Figure of Merit in the $S_8 - f_{R0}$ and $S_8 - H_0 r_{\rm c}$ planes, at times improving by an order of magnitude over two-point functions. When IA is unaccounted for, major parameter biases are observed in the cosmology sector, while the modified gravity sector is relatively unaffected. We find that these biases can generally be flagged from poor goodness-of-fit measurements, except for a few cases where IA can fully masquerade as a lower $Ω_{\rm m}$ and lower $S_8$ cosmology.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2026

Simulation Tests of PSF Modeling for Cosmic Shear with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory

Exceptional control of systematic effects is required in order to achieve unbiased cosmic shear two-point correlation function measurements with the next generation of galaxy imaging surveys, such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). One critical challenge is accurately modeling the point-spread function (PSF), as errors in PSF estimation can introduce spatially correlated biases in galaxy shape measurements. The LSST Science Pipelines, which will be used to process Rubin data, include an implementation of the PIFF (PSFs in the Full Field of View) package originally developed for, and demonstrated to perform well on, DES-Y3 and Y6 data. In this work we use semi-realistic image simulations, mimicking LSST observing conditions in $i$-band over 100 square degrees, to perform an end-to-end test of the Rubin PSF modeling pipeline. PSF model residuals are quantified using both second- and fourth-order moment parameters and performance is evaluated, for both LSST year 1 and year 10 depth, with a series of diagnostic tests. We find that the additive bias contribution from PSF modeling errors to the non-tomographic cosmic shear data vector is well below 30% of the cosmic shear uncertainty estimated from our analytic covariance matrix. Though our simulations exclude several known effects that may further challenge PSF modeling, these results demonstrate promising performance from PIFF on LSST-like data and provide an early benchmark for ongoing PSF validation efforts for LSST weak lensing analyses.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2026

KiDS-1000: Improved constraints on cosmology, intrinsic alignments and baryonic feedback from clipped cosmic shear

We present improved cosmological constraints from the fourth data release of the Kilo-Degree Survey ("KiDS-1000") using "clipped" shear correlation functions. Clipping filters the projected density field inferred from weak lensing data for the highest-density regions, allowing for two-point functions to extract additional cosmological information. We model, for the first time, the impact of systematics on clipped lensing statistics, including intrinsic alignments, baryonic feedback, photometric redshift uncertainties, and source-lens clustering. We train Gaussian process emulators on dark-matter-only and hydrodynamical $N$-body simulations to predict the cosmological and systematic dependence of both the clipped and conventional, "unclipped" shear correlation functions. We find that the combination of the clipped and unclipped probes improves the constraints on the free parameters of the $w$CDM model relative to the conventional approach, with a 16% tightening of the $S_8$ uncertainty and 24% for $w_0$. Our constraints, $Ω_{\rm m} = 0.263^{+0.035}_{-0.038}$, $S_8=0.724^{+0.027}_{-0.027}$, and $w_0 = -1.24^{+0.26}_{-0.28}$, are consistent with the $Λ$CDM model and with the cosmic shear analysis of Asgari et al. (2021) via a completely independent simulation- and emulator-based forward-modelling approach. We also find the complimentary information in the clipped statistic provides an upper limit on the baryon feedback strength, and improves the constraints on intrinsic alignments by 27%.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2026

KiDS-Legacy: Constraining dark energy, neutrino mass, and curvature

We constrained minimally extended cosmological models with the cosmic shear analysis of the final data release from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS-Legacy) in combination with external probes. Due to the consistency of the KiDS-Legacy analysis with the cosmic microwave background (CMB), we could combine these datasets reliably for the first time. Additionally, we used CMB lensing, galaxy redshift-space distortions, and baryon acoustic oscillations. We assessed, in turn, the effects of spatial curvature, varying neutrino masses, and an evolving dark energy component on cosmological constraints from KiDS-Legacy alone and from KiDS-Legacy combined with external probes. We find KiDS-Legacy to be consistent with the fiducial flat $Λ$-cold dark matter ($Λ$CDM) analysis with $c^2 \sum m_ν\leq 1.5\,$eV, $w_0 = -1.0\pm 0.7$, and $w_a = -1.3^{+1.9}_{-2.0}$ while $Ω_K = 0.08^{+0.16}_{-0.17}$ (1$σ$ bounds) with an almost equal goodness of fit. The $w_0w_a$CDM model is not a significant improvement over $Λ$CDM when cosmic shear and CMB lensing are combined, yielding a Bayes factor $B = 0.07$. If all probes are combined, however, $B$ increases to 2.73, corresponding to a $2.6σ$ suspiciousness tension. The constraint on $S_8 = σ_8\sqrt{Ω_\mathrm{m}/0.3}$ is robust to opening up the parameter space for cosmic shear. Adding all external datasets to KiDS-Legacy, we find $S_8 = 0.816 \pm 0.006$ in $Λ$CDM and $S_8 = 0.837 \pm 0.008$ in $w_0 w_a$CDM for all probes combined.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2026

$4\times3$ Point Correlation Functions in Galaxy Surveys: Impact of Baryonic Feedback

We investigate the impact of baryonic feedback on two-point and three-point correlation functions (2PCFs and 3PCFs hereafter, respectively) involving galaxy density fields (g) and weak lensing shear fields (G), from simulated photometric catalogs of galaxies. Specifically, we baryonify high-resolution simulation using a baryonic correction model (BCM) and explore the consequences down to sub-arcminute (arcmin) scales, varying two model parameters with the largest impact on our probes: $M_{\rm c}$, which governs the amount of gas expelled beyond the halo boundary, and $θ_{\rm ej}$, which encodes the maximal ejection radius relative to halo boundary. We create lensing maps and galaxy catalogs assuming survey properties of the upcoming Year-10 data for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), and investigate the impact of baryonic feedback on the observed correlations, including the galaxy--galaxy--shear (ggG) and the galaxy--shear--shear (gGG) 3PCFs, which are measured, for the first time from simulations, with \textsc{TreeCorr}. Focusing on equilateral 3PCFs, we find that small scales are more heavily affected by baryonic effects than the corresponding 2PCFs, by up to 90 percent depending on the probe, redshift and BCM model. The galaxy--galaxy--galaxy (ggg) 3PCF is significantly affected at scales smaller than about 4 arcmin; a similar effect occurs at 10 arcmin for the ggG 3PCF, at 40 arcmin for the gGG 3PCF, and at about a degree for the shear--shear--shear (GGG) 3PCF. These four three-point statistics, which are collectively referred to as the $4\times3$PCFs, can be used at large scales to robustly constrain cosmological parameters. At smaller scales, their enhanced sensitivity to baryonic effects provides valuable leverage for constraining the BCM parameters and supplying informative priors. [Abridged]

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

Reconstructing spatially-varying multiplicative bias for Stage IV weak lensing galaxy surveys with a quadratic estimator

We present a quadratic estimator that detects and reconstructs spatially-varying multiplicative ($m-$) bias in weak lensing shear measurements, by exploiting the $EB$ mode coupling that it generates. The method combines $E$ and $B$ modes with inverse-variance weights, to yield an unbiased reconstruction of $m(\boldsymbolθ)$ to first order. We study the ability of future Stage IV surveys to obtain an unbiased reconstruction of the $m$-bias in differing scenarios, considering differing bias morphologies, and characteristic scales, as well as differing metrics to quantify the signal-to-noise ratio of the reconstructed map. Considering an $m$ pattern repeating on $\sim 1^\circ\times1^\circ$ sky patches, as might be the case for an $m$ field caused by focal-plane systematics. With a Euclid-like redshift distribution, we find that $\sim5\%$ rms variations in $m$-bias may be detected at the 20$σ$ level, after stacking between $\sim400$ and $\sim1000$ patches (rising to between $\sim2800$ and $\sim7600$ for $1\%$ rms variations, data volumes that are becoming available with upcoming surveys), depending on the morphology of the $m$ pattern. We show that these results are robust against the cosmological model assumed in the reconstruction, as well as the presence of intrinsic alignments or baryonic effects, and that the method shows no spurious response to additive ($c-$) bias. These results demonstrate that percent-level, spatially-varying $m-$bias can be detected at high significance, enabling diagnosis and mitigation in the Stage IV weak lensing era.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

KiDS-Legacy: Cosmological constraints from cosmic shear with the complete Kilo-Degree Survey

We present cosmic shear constraints from the completed Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS), where the cosmological parameter $S_8\equivσ_8\sqrt{Ω_{\rm m}/0.3} = 0.815^{+0.016}_{-0.021}$, is found to be in agreement ($0.73σ$) with results from the Planck Legacy cosmic microwave background experiment. The final KiDS footprint spans $1347$ square degrees of deep nine-band imaging across the optical and near-infrared, along with an extra $23$ square degrees of KiDS-like calibration observations of deep spectroscopic surveys. Improvements in our redshift distribution estimation methodology, combined with our enhanced calibration data and multi-band image simulations, allow us to extend our lensed sample out to a photometric redshift of $z_{\rm B}\leq2.0$. Compared to previous KiDS analyses, the increased survey area and redshift depth results in a $\sim32\%$ improvement in constraining power in terms of $Σ_8\equivσ_8\left(Ω_{\rm m}/0.3\right)^α= 0.821^{+0.014}_{-0.016}$, where $α= 0.58$ has been optimised to match the revised degeneracy direction of $σ_8$ and $Ω_{\rm m}$. We adopt a new physically motivated intrinsic alignment model that depends jointly on the galaxy sample's halo mass and spectral type distributions, and that is informed by previous direct alignment measurements. We also marginalise over our uncertainty on the impact of baryon feedback on the non-linear matter power spectrum. Comparing to previous KiDS analyses, we conclude that the increase seen in $S_8$ primarily results from our improved redshift distribution estimation and calibration, as well as new survey area and improved image reduction. Our companion paper Stölzner et al. (submitted) presents a full suite of internal and external consistency tests, finding the KiDS-Legacy data set to be the most internally robust sample produced by KiDS to date.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

KiDS-Legacy: Consistency of cosmic shear measurements and joint cosmological constraints with external probes

We present a cosmic shear consistency analysis of the final data release from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS-Legacy). By adopting three tiers of consistency metrics, we compare cosmological constraints between subsets of the KiDS-Legacy dataset split by redshift, angular scale, galaxy colour and spatial region. We also review a range of two-point cosmic shear statistics. With the data passing all our consistency metric tests, we demonstrate that KiDS-Legacy is the most internally consistent KiDS catalogue to date. In a joint cosmological analysis of KiDS-Legacy and DES Y3 cosmic shear, combined with data from the Pantheon+ Type Ia supernovae compilation and baryon acoustic oscillations from DESI Y1, we find constraints consistent with Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background with $S_8\equiv σ_8\sqrt{Ω_{\rm m}/0.3} = 0.814^{+0.011}_{-0.012}$ and $σ_8 = 0.802^{+0.022}_{-0.018}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2025

The fifth data release of the Kilo Degree Survey: Multi-epoch optical/NIR imaging covering wide and legacy-calibration fields

We present the final data release of the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS-DR5), a public European Southern Observatory (ESO) wide-field imaging survey optimised for weak gravitational lensing studies. We combined matched-depth multi-wavelength observations from the VLT Survey Telescope and the VISTA Kilo-degree INfrared Galaxy (VIKING) survey to create a nine-band optical-to-near-infrared survey spanning $1347$ deg$^2$. The median $r$-band $5σ$ limiting magnitude is 24.8 with median seeing $0.7^{\prime\prime}$. The main survey footprint includes $4$ deg$^2$ of overlap with existing deep spectroscopic surveys. We complemented these data in DR5 with a targeted campaign to secure an additional $23$ deg$^2$ of KiDS- and VIKING-like imaging over a range of additional deep spectroscopic survey fields. From these fields, we extracted a catalogue of $126\,085$ sources with both spectroscopic and photometric redshift information, which enables the robust calibration of photometric redshifts across the full survey footprint. In comparison to previous releases, DR5 represents a $34\%$ areal extension and includes an $i$-band re-observation of the full footprint, thereby increasing the effective $i$-band depth by $0.4$ magnitudes and enabling multi-epoch science. Our processed nine-band imaging, single- and multi-band catalogues with masks, and homogenised photometry and photometric redshifts can be accessed through the ESO Archive Science Portal.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

Constraining modified gravity with weak lensing peaks

It is well established that maximizing the information extracted from upcoming and ongoing stage-IV weak-lensing surveys requires higher-order summary statistics that complement the standard two-point statistics. In this work, we focus on weak-lensing peak statistics to test two popular modified gravity models, $f(R)$ and nDGP, using the FORGE and BRIDGE weak-lensing simulations, respectively. From these simulations we measure the peak statistics as a function of both cosmological and modified gravity parameters simultaneously. Our findings indicate that the peak abundance is sensitive to the strength of modified gravity, while the peak two-point correlation function is sensitive to the nature of the screening mechanism in a modified gravity model. We combine these simulated statistics with a Gaussian Process Regression emulator and a Gaussian likelihood to generate stage-IV forecast posterior distributions for the modified gravity models. We demonstrate that, assuming small scales can be correctly modelled, peak statistics can be used to distinguish GR from $f(R)$ and nDGP models at the two-sigma level with a stage-IV survey area of $300 \, \rm{deg}^2$ and $1000 \, \rm{deg}^2$, respectively. Finally, we show that peak statistics can constrain $\log_{10}\left(|f_{R0}|\right) = -6$ to 2\% precision, and $\log_{10}(H_0 r_c) = 0.5$ to 25\% precision.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Unleashing cosmic shear information with the tomographic weak lensing PDF

In this work, we demonstrate the constraining power of the tomographic weak lensing convergence PDF for StageIV-like source galaxy redshift bins and shape noise. We focus on scales of $10$ to $20$ arcmin in the mildly nonlinear regime, where the convergence PDF and its changes with cosmological parameters can be predicted theoretically. We model the impact of reconstructing the convergence from the shear field using the well-known Kaiser-Squires formalism. We cross-validate the predicted and the measured convergence PDF derived from convergence maps reconstructed using simulated shear catalogues. Employing a Fisher forecast, we determine the constraining power for $(Ω_{m},S_{8},w_{0})$. We find that adding a 5-bin tomography improves the $κ-$PDF constraints by a factor of $\{3.8,1.3,1.6\}$ for $(Ω_{m}, S_{8},w_{0})$ respectively. Additionally, we perform a joint analysis with the shear two-point correlation functions, finding an enhancement of around a factor of $1.5$ on all parameters with respect to the two-point statistics alone. These improved constraints come from disentangling $Ω_{\rm m}$ from $w_0$ by extracting non-Gaussian information, in particular, including the PDF skewness at different redshift bins. We also study the effect of varying the number of parameters to forecast, in particular we add $h$, finding that the convergence PDF maintains its constraining power while the precision from two-point correlations degrades by a factor of $\{1.7,1.4,1.8\}$ for $\{Ω_{\rm m},S_8,w_0\}$, respectively.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Cosmology from weak lensing peaks and minima with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam survey first-year data

We present cosmological constraints derived from peak counts, minimum counts, and the angular power spectrum of the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first-year (HSC Y1) weak lensing shear catalog. Weak lensing peak and minimum counts contain non-Gaussian information and hence are complementary to the conventional two-point statistics in constraining cosmology. In this work, we forward-model the three summary statistics and their dependence on cosmology, using a suite of $N$-body simulations tailored to the HSC Y1 data. We investigate systematic and astrophysical effects including intrinsic alignments, baryon feedback, multiplicative bias, and photometric redshift uncertainties. We mitigate the impact of these systematics by applying cuts on angular scales, smoothing scales, statistic bins, and tomographic redshift bins. By combining peaks, minima, and the power spectrum, assuming a flat-$Λ$CDM model, we obtain $S_{8} \equiv σ_8\sqrt{Ω_m/0.3}= 0.810^{+0.022}_{-0.026}$, a 35\% tighter constraint than that obtained from the angular power spectrum alone. Our results are in agreement with other studies using HSC weak lensing shear data, as well as with Planck 2018 cosmology and recent CMB lensing constraints from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Forecasting the power of Higher Order Weak Lensing Statistics with automatically differentiable simulations

We present the Differentiable Lensing Lightcone (DLL), a fully differentiable physical model designed for being used as a forward model in Bayesian inference algorithms requiring access to derivatives of lensing observables with respect to cosmological parameters. We extend the public FlowPM N-body code, a particle-mesh N-body solver, simulating lensing lightcones and implementing the Born approximation in the Tensorflow framework. Furthermore, DLL is aimed at achieving high accuracy with low computational costs. As such, it integrates a novel Hybrid Physical-Neural parameterisation able to compensate for the small-scale approximations resulting from particle-mesh schemes for cosmological N-body simulations. We validate our simulations in an LSST setting against high-resolution $κ$TNG simulations by comparing both the lensing angular power spectrum and multiscale peak counts. We demonstrate an ability to recover lensing $C_\ell$ up to a 10% accuracy at $\ell=1000$ for sources at redshift 1, with as few as $\sim 0.6$ particles per Mpc/h. As a first use case, we use this tool to investigate the relative constraining power of the angular power spectrum and peak counts statistic in an LSST setting. Such comparisons are typically very costly as they require a large number of simulations, and do not scale well with the increasing number of cosmological parameters. As opposed to forecasts based on finite differences, these statistics can be analytically differentiated with respect to cosmology, or any systematics included in the simulations at the same computational cost of the forward simulation. We find that the peak counts outperform the power spectrum on the cold dark matter parameter $Ω_c$, on the amplitude of density fluctuations $σ_8$, and on the amplitude of the intrinsic alignment signal $A_{IA}$.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2023

Starlet higher order statistics for galaxy clustering and weak lensing

We present a first application to photometric galaxy clustering and weak lensing of wavelet based multi-scale higher order summary statistics: starlet peak counts and starlet $\ell_1$-norm. Peak counts are the local maxima in the map and the $\ell_1$-norm is computed via the sum of the absolute values of the starlet (wavelet) decomposition coefficients of a map, providing a fast multi-scale calculation of the pixel distribution, encoding the information of all pixels in the map. We employ the cosmo-SLICS simulations sources and lenses catalogues and we compute wavelet based higher order statistics in the context of combined probes and their potential when applied to the weak lensing convergence maps and galaxy maps. We get forecasts on the matter density parameter $Ω_{\rm m}$, the reduced Hubble constant $h$, the matter fluctuation amplitude $σ_8$, and the dark energy equation of state parameter $w_0$. We find that, in our setting for this first application, considering the two probes as independent, starlet peaks and the $\ell_1$-norm represent interesting summary statistics that can improve the constraints with respect to the power spectrum also in the case of photometric galaxy clustering and when the two probes are combined.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

Enhancing cosmic shear with the multi-scale lensing PDF

We quantify the cosmological constraining power of the `lensing PDF' - the one-point probability density of weak lensing convergence maps - by modelling this statistic numerically with an emulator trained on $w$CDM cosmic shear simulations. After validating our methods on Gaussian and lognormal fields, we show that `multi-scale' PDFs - measured from maps with multiple levels of smoothing - offer considerable gains over two-point statistics, owing to their ability to extract non-Gaussian information: for a mock Stage-III survey, lensing PDFs yield 33\% tighter constraints on the clustering parameter $S_8=σ_8\sqrt{Ω_{\rm m}/0.3}$ than the two-point shear correlation functions. For Stage-IV surveys, we achieve $>$90\% tighter constraints on $S_8$, but also on the Hubble and dark energy equation of state parameters. Interestingly, we find improvements when combining these two probes only in our Stage-III setup; in the Stage-IV scenario the lensing PDFs contain all information from the standard two-point statistics and more. This suggests that while these two probes are currently complementary, the lower noise levels of upcoming surveys will unleash the constraining power of the PDF.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2023

KiDS-1000 Cosmology: Constraints from density split statistics

Context. Weak lensing and clustering statistics beyond two-point functions can capture non-Gaussian information about the matter density field, thereby improving the constraints on cosmological parameters relative to the mainstream methods based on correlation functions and power spectra. Aims. This paper presents a cosmological analysis of the fourth data release of the Kilo Degree Survey based on the density split statistics, which measures the mean shear profiles around regions classified according to foreground densities. The latter is constructed from a bright galaxy sample, which we further split into red and blue samples, allowing us to probe their respective connection to the underlying dark matter density. Methods. We use the state-of-the-art model of the density splitting statistics and validate its robustness against mock data infused with known systematic effects such as intrinsic galaxy alignment and baryonic feedback. Results. After marginalising over the photometric redshift uncertainty and the residual shear calibration bias, we measure for the full KiDS-bright sample a structure growth parameter of $S_8 = σ_8 \sqrt{Ω_\mathrm{m}/0.3} = 0.74^{+0.03}_{-0.02}$ that is competitive to and consistent with two-point cosmic shear results, a matter density of $Ω_\mathrm{m} = 0.28 \pm 0.02$, and a constant galaxy bias of $b = 1.32^{+0.12}_{-0.10}$.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

MGLenS: Modified gravity weak lensing simulations for emulation-based cosmological inference

We present MGLenS, a large series of modified gravity lensing simulations tailored for cosmic shear data analyses and forecasts in which cosmological and modified gravity parameters are varied simultaneously. Based on the FORGE and BRIDGE $N$-body simulation suites presented in companion papers, we construct 500,000 deg$^2$ of mock Stage-IV lensing data, sampling a pair of 4-dimensional volumes designed for the training of emulators. We validate the accuracy of MGLenS with inference analyses based on the lensing power spectrum exploiting our implementation of $f(R)$ and nDGP theoretical predictions within the cosmoSIS cosmological inference package. A Fisher analysis reveals that the vast majority of the constraining power from such a survey comes from the highest redshift galaxies alone. We further find from a full likelihood sampling that cosmic shear can achieve 95% CL constraints on the modified gravity parameters of log$_{10}\left[ f_{R_0}\right] < -5.24$ and log$_{10}\left[ H_0 r_c\right] > -0.05$, after marginalising over intrinsic alignments of galaxies and including scales up to $\ell=5000$. Such a survey setup could in fact detect with more than $3σ$ confidence $f(R)$ values larger than $3 \times 10^{-6}$ and $H_0 r_c$ smaller than 1.0. Scale cuts at $\ell=3000$ reduce the degeneracy breaking between $S_8$ and the modified gravity parameters, while photometric redshift uncertainty seem to play a subdominant role in our error budget. We finally explore the consequences of analysing data with the wrong gravity model, and report the catastrophic biases for a number of possible scenarios. The Stage-IV MGLenS simulations, the FORGE and BRIDGE emulators and the cosmoSIS interface modules will be made publicly available upon journal acceptance.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

A revised density split statistic model for general filters

Studying the statistical properties of the large-scale structure in the Universe with weak gravitational lensing is a prime goal of several current and forthcoming galaxy surveys. The power that weak lensing has to constrain cosmological parameters can be enhanced by considering statistics beyond second-order shear correlation functions or power spectra. One such higher-order probe that has proven successful in observational data is the density split statistics (DSS), in which one analyses the mean shear profiles around points that are classified according to their foreground galaxy density. In this paper, we generalise the most accurate DSS model to allow for a broad class of angular filter functions used for the classification of the different local density regions. This approach is motivated by earlier findings showing that an optimised filter can provide tighter constraints on model parameters compared to the standard top-hat case. We build on large deviation theory approaches and approximations thereof to model the matter density PDF, and on perturbative calculations of higher-order moments of the density field. The novel addition relies on the generalisation of these previously employed calculations to allow for general filter functions and is validated on several sets of numerical simulations. The revised model fits well the simulation measurements, with a residual systematic offset that is small compared to the statistical accuracy of current weak lensing surveys. The accuracy of the model is slightly lower for a compensated filter than for a non-negative filter function, and that it increases with the filter size. Using a Fisher matrix approach, we find constraints comparable to the commonly used two-point cosmic shear measures. Hence, our DSS model can be used in competitive analyses of current cosmic shear data, while it may need refinements for forthcoming lensing surveys.

astro-ph.CO↗