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Title: Mask effects on cosmological studies with weak-lensing peak statistics

Abstract

With numerical simulations, we analyze in detail how the bad data removal, i.e., the mask effect, can influence the peak statistics of the weak-lensing convergence field reconstructed from the shear measurement of background galaxies. It is found that high peak fractions are systematically enhanced because of the presence of masks; the larger the masked area is, the higher the enhancement is. In the case where the total masked area is about 13% of the survey area, the fraction of peaks with signal-to-noise ratio ν ≥ 3 is ∼11% of the total number of peaks, compared with ∼7% of the mask-free case in our considered cosmological model. This can have significant effects on cosmological studies with weak-lensing convergence peak statistics, inducing a large bias in the parameter constraints if the effects are not taken into account properly. Even for a survey area of 9 deg{sup 2}, the bias in (Ω {sub m}, σ{sub 8}) is already intolerably large and close to 3σ. It is noted that most of the affected peaks are close to the masked regions. Therefore, excluding peaks in those regions in the peak statistics can reduce the bias effect but at the expense of losing usable survey areas.more » Further investigations find that the enhancement of the number of high peaks around the masked regions can be largely attributed to the smaller number of galaxies usable in the weak-lensing convergence reconstruction, leading to higher noise than that of the areas away from the masks. We thus develop a model in which we exclude only those very large masks with radius larger than 3' but keep all the other masked regions in peak counting statistics. For the remaining part, we treat the areas close to and away from the masked regions separately with different noise levels. It is shown that this two-noise-level model can account for the mask effect on peak statistics very well, and the bias in cosmological parameters is significantly reduced if this model is applied in the parameter fitting.« less

Authors:
; ;  [1];  [2]
  1. Department of Astronomy, Peking University, Beijing 100871 (China)
  2. National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100012 (China)
Publication Date:
OSTI Identifier:
22351515
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Astrophysical Journal
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 784; Journal Issue: 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Journal ID: ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; CONVERGENCE; COSMOLOGICAL MODELS; GALAXY CLUSTERS; GRAVITATIONAL LENSES; NOISE; NONLUMINOUS MATTER; SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO; UNIVERSE

Citation Formats

Liu, Xiangkun, Pan, Chuzhong, Fan, Zuhui, and Wang, Qiao. Mask effects on cosmological studies with weak-lensing peak statistics. United States: N. p., 2014. Web. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/784/1/31.
Liu, Xiangkun, Pan, Chuzhong, Fan, Zuhui, & Wang, Qiao. Mask effects on cosmological studies with weak-lensing peak statistics. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/784/1/31
Liu, Xiangkun, Pan, Chuzhong, Fan, Zuhui, and Wang, Qiao. 2014. "Mask effects on cosmological studies with weak-lensing peak statistics". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/784/1/31.
@article{osti_22351515,
title = {Mask effects on cosmological studies with weak-lensing peak statistics},
author = {Liu, Xiangkun and Pan, Chuzhong and Fan, Zuhui and Wang, Qiao},
abstractNote = {With numerical simulations, we analyze in detail how the bad data removal, i.e., the mask effect, can influence the peak statistics of the weak-lensing convergence field reconstructed from the shear measurement of background galaxies. It is found that high peak fractions are systematically enhanced because of the presence of masks; the larger the masked area is, the higher the enhancement is. In the case where the total masked area is about 13% of the survey area, the fraction of peaks with signal-to-noise ratio ν ≥ 3 is ∼11% of the total number of peaks, compared with ∼7% of the mask-free case in our considered cosmological model. This can have significant effects on cosmological studies with weak-lensing convergence peak statistics, inducing a large bias in the parameter constraints if the effects are not taken into account properly. Even for a survey area of 9 deg{sup 2}, the bias in (Ω {sub m}, σ{sub 8}) is already intolerably large and close to 3σ. It is noted that most of the affected peaks are close to the masked regions. Therefore, excluding peaks in those regions in the peak statistics can reduce the bias effect but at the expense of losing usable survey areas. Further investigations find that the enhancement of the number of high peaks around the masked regions can be largely attributed to the smaller number of galaxies usable in the weak-lensing convergence reconstruction, leading to higher noise than that of the areas away from the masks. We thus develop a model in which we exclude only those very large masks with radius larger than 3' but keep all the other masked regions in peak counting statistics. For the remaining part, we treat the areas close to and away from the masked regions separately with different noise levels. It is shown that this two-noise-level model can account for the mask effect on peak statistics very well, and the bias in cosmological parameters is significantly reduced if this model is applied in the parameter fitting.},
doi = {10.1088/0004-637X/784/1/31},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/22351515}, journal = {Astrophysical Journal},
issn = {0004-637X},
number = 1,
volume = 784,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Mar 20 00:00:00 EDT 2014},
month = {Thu Mar 20 00:00:00 EDT 2014}
}