skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Photometric redshift analysis in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data

Journal Article · · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less

In this study, we present results from a study of the photometric redshift performance of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), using the early data from a Science Verification period of observations in late 2012 and early 2013 that provided science-quality images for almost 200 sq. deg. at the nominal depth of the survey. We assess the photometric redshift (photo-z) performance using about 15 000 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts available from other surveys. These galaxies are used, in different configurations, as a calibration sample, and photo-z's are obtained and studied using most of the existing photo-z codes. A weighting method in a multidimensional colour–magnitude space is applied to the spectroscopic sample in order to evaluate the photo-z performance with sets that mimic the full DES photometric sample, which is on average significantly deeper than the calibration sample due to the limited depth of spectroscopic surveys. In addition, empirical photo-z methods using, for instance, artificial neural networks or random forests, yield the best performance in the tests, achieving core photo-z resolutions σ68 ~ 0.08. Moreover, the results from most of the codes, including template-fitting methods, comfortably meet the DES requirements on photo-z performance, therefore, providing an excellent precedent for future DES data sets.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
DES Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1374719
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB-14-260-AE; arXiv:1406.4407; 1300797; TRN: US1702472
Journal Information:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 445, Issue 2; ISSN 0035-8711
Publisher:
Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 140 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (89)

A comparison of six photometric redshift methods applied to 1.5 million luminous red galaxies: Photometric redshifts for 1.5 million LRGs journal September 2011
Maps of Dust Infrared Emission for Use in Estimation of Reddening and Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Foregrounds journal June 1998
The hierarchical formation of the brightest cluster galaxies journal February 2007
PHAT: PHoto- z Accuracy Testing journal November 2010
Photometric redshifts for the CFHTLS T0004 deep and wide fields journal April 2009
The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey final data release: a spectroscopic sample of 35 016 galaxies and AGN out to z ~ 6.7 selected with 17.5 ≤ i AB  ≤ 24.75 journal October 2013
A Decision-Theoretic Generalization of On-Line Learning and an Application to Boosting journal August 1997
Photometric Redshifts and Systematic Variations in the Spectral Energy Distributions of Luminous red Galaxies from sdss dr7 journal April 2013
A Galaxy Photometric Redshift Catalog for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 6 journal February 2008
Dark matter halo properties from galaxy–galaxy lensing★ journal May 2013
The Arizona CDFS Environment Survey (ACES): A Magellan/IMACS Spectroscopic Survey of the Chandra Deep Field-South: Arizona CDFS Environment Survey (ACES) journal August 2012
The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: spectra and redshifts journal December 2001
Near-infrared template spectra of normal galaxies: k -corrections, galaxy models and stellar populations journal September 2001
zCOSMOS: A Large VLT/VIMOS Redshift Survey Covering 0 < z < 3 in the COSMOS Field journal September 2007
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Technical Summary journal September 2000
Spectral evolution of stellar populations using isochrone synthesis journal March 1993
The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: survey design and first data release journal January 2010
CFHTLenS: improving the quality of photometric redshifts with precision photometry★: CFHTLenS: photometric redshifts journal February 2012
Bayesian Photometric Redshift Estimation journal June 2000
A blind test of photometric redshifts on ground-based data journal January 2008
A New Strategy for Deep Wide‐Field High‐Resolution Optical Imaging
  • Kaiser, N.; Tonry, J. L.; Luppino, G. A.
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 112, Issue 772 https://doi.org/10.1086/316578
journal June 2000
Measuring the redshift evolution of clustering: the Hubble Deep Field South journal January 2002
Estimating the redshift distribution of photometric galaxy samples - II. Applications and tests of a new method journal July 2009
Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003 journal October 2003
A Blind Test of Photometric Redshift Prediction journal April 1998
Photometric Redshift Error Estimators journal December 2008
The Zurich Extragalactic Bayesian Redshift Analyzer and its first application: COSMOS journal October 2006
EAZY: A Fast, Public Photometric Redshift Code journal October 2008
The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of Sdss-Iii journal December 2012
SExtractor: Software for source extraction journal June 1996
The VIMOS VLT deep survey: First epoch VVDS-deep survey: 11 564 spectra with 17.5  journal August 2005
CFHTLenS: the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey: CFHTLenS journal October 2012
Accurate photometric redshifts for the CFHT legacy survey calibrated using the VIMOS VLT deep survey journal September 2006
Photo-z quality cuts and their effect on the measured galaxy clustering journal December 2013
Template Ultraviolet to Near-Infrared Spectra of Star-forming Galaxies and Their Application to K-Corrections journal August 1996
Spectroscopic Target Selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample journal November 2001
Status of the Dark Energy Survey Camera (DECam) project conference September 2012
THE zCOSMOS 10k-BRIGHT SPECTROSCOPIC SAMPLE journal September 2009
TPZ: photometric redshift PDFs and ancillary information by using prediction trees and random forests journal May 2013
Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample journal September 2002
Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. I. Detection, Multiband Photometry, Photometric Redshifts, and Morphology journal July 2006
Photometric redshifts with the Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network: Application to the HDF-S and SDSS journal August 2004
kernlab - An S4 Package for Kernel Methods in R journal January 2004
ANN z : Estimating Photometric Redshifts Using Artificial Neural Networks journal April 2004
Commissioning and performances of the VLT-VIMOS conference March 2003
The Vimos VLT deep survey: Global properties of 20 000 galaxies in the journal June 2008
Sample variance in photometric redshift calibration: cosmological biases and survey requirements: Sample variance in photo-z calibration journal April 2012
Colors and magnitudes predicted for high redshift galaxies journal July 1980
The Canada‐France Deep Fields Survey. III. Photometric Redshift Distribution to I AB = 24 journal January 2006
Exhausting the information: novel Bayesian combination of photometric redshift PDFs journal June 2014
The Dark Energy Survey Camera (DECam) journal January 2012
The Ninth data Release of the Sloan Digital sky Survey: First Spectroscopic data from the Sdss-Iii Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey journal November 2012
Photometric redshifts for the Dark Energy Survey and VISTA and implications for large-scale structure journal May 2008
A Critical Assessment of Photometric Redshift Methods: a Candels Investigation journal September 2013
The Blanco Cosmology Survey: data Acquisition, Processing, Calibration, Quality Diagnostics, and data Release journal September 2012
ArborZ: PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFTS USING BOOSTED DECISION TREES journal May 2010
Estimating the redshift distribution of photometric galaxy samples journal October 2008
LSST: a complementary probe of dark energy journal July 2003
Circuit Depth Reduction for Gate-Model Quantum Computers journal July 2020
The VIMOS-VLT deep survey: Evolution of the galaxy luminosity function up to journal August 2005
The ninth data release of the sloan digital sky survey: first spectroscopic data from the sdss-iiI baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey text January 2012
The Zurich Extragalactic Bayesian Redshift Analyzer and its first application: COSMOS text January 2006
Sample variance in photometric redshift calibration: cosmological biases and survey requirements text January 2012
Photometric Redshift Error Estimators text January 2007
A blind test of photometric redshifts on ground-based data text January 2008
Estimating the Redshift Distribution of Photometric Galaxy Samples II. Applications and Tests of a New Method text January 2008
Photometric redshifts for the CFHTLS T0004 Deep and Wide fields text January 2008
ArborZ: Photometric Redshifts Using Boosted Decision Trees text January 2009
The WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey: Survey Design and First Data Release text January 2009
PHAT: PHoto-z Accuracy Testing text January 2010
The Blanco Cosmology Survey: Data Acquisition, Processing, Calibration, Quality Diagnostics and Data Release text January 2012
The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III text January 2012
TPZ : Photometric redshift PDFs and ancillary information by using prediction trees and random forests text January 2013
Photo-z Quality Cuts and their Effect on the Measured Galaxy Clustering text January 2013
Exhausting the Information: Novel Bayesian Combination of Photometric Redshift PDFs text January 2014
Near-infrared template spectra of normal galaxies: k-corrections, galaxy models and stellar populations text January 2001
Spectroscopic Target Selection for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Luminous Red Galaxy Sample text January 2001
Measuring the Redshift Evolution of Clustering: the Hubble Deep Field South text January 2001
Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Main Galaxy Sample text January 2002
LSST: a Complementary Probe of Dark Energy text January 2002
Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003 text January 2003
The Canada-France Deep Fields III: Photometric Redshift Distribution to I(AB) ~ 24 text January 2003
ANNz: estimating photometric redshifts using artificial neural networks text January 2003
Photometric redshifts with the Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network: application to the HDF-S and SDSS text January 2003
Galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: I. Detection, Multiband Photometry, Photometric Redshifts, and Morphology text January 2006
The Zurich Extragalactic Bayesian Redshift Analyzer (ZEBRA) and its first application: COSMOS text January 2006
A blind test of photometric redshift prediction text January 1998
Bayesian photometric redshift estimation text January 1998
A New Strategy for Deep Wide-Field High Resolution Optical Imaging text January 1999

Cited By (64)

The PAU Survey: spectral features and galaxy clustering using simulated narrow-band photometry journal September 2018
Photometric redshifts for the Kilo-Degree Survey: Machine-learning analysis with artificial neural networks journal August 2018
Redshift inference from the combination of galaxy colours and clustering in a hierarchical Bayesian model journal November 2018
Three-point galaxy-galaxy lensing as a probe of dark matter halo shapes journal January 2015
Measuring linear and non-linear galaxy bias using counts-in-cells in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data journal October 2018
Statistical analysis of probability density functions for photometric redshifts through the KiDS-ESO-DR3 galaxies journal October 2018
Cosmology from cosmic shear with Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data journal July 2016
redMaGiC: selecting luminous red galaxies from the DES Science Verification data journal May 2016
The many flavours of photometric redshifts journal June 2018
Weak lensing magnification in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data journal February 2018
Tests of Catastrophic Outlier Prediction in Empirical Photometric Redshift Estimation with Redshift Probability Distributions journal January 2020
Dark Energy Survey year 1 results: Galaxy-galaxy lensing journal August 2018
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: redshift distributions of the weak-lensing source galaxies journal April 2018
The DES Bright Arcs Survey: Hundreds of Candidate Strongly Lensed Galaxy Systems from the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification and Year 1 Observations journal September 2017
The Galaxy Cluster Mass Scale and Its Impact on Cosmological Constraints from the Cluster Population journal February 2019
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 results: cross-correlation redshifts – methods and systematics characterization journal February 2018
Morpho-z: improving photometric redshifts with galaxy morphology journal December 2017
Star–galaxy classification using deep convolutional neural networks journal October 2016
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: calibration of redMaGiC redshift distributions in DES and SDSS from cross-correlations journal September 2018
Joint measurement of lensing–galaxy correlations using SPT and DES SV data journal July 2016
Hierarchical Modeling and Statistical Calibration for Photometric Redshifts journal August 2019
Galaxy clustering, photometric redshifts and diagnosis of systematics in the DES Science Verification data journal December 2015
Detection and Classification of Supernovae Beyond z ∼ 2 Redshift with the James Webb Space Telescope journal April 2019
Candidate massive galaxies at z  ∼ 4 in the Dark Energy Survey journal December 2018
Feature importance for machine learning redshifts applied to SDSS galaxies journal March 2015
Improving photometric redshift estimation using GPz: size information, post processing, and improved photometry journal December 2017
Galaxies in X-ray selected clusters and groups in Dark Energy Survey data – II. Hierarchical Bayesian modelling of the red-sequence galaxy luminosity function journal June 2019
Baryons, neutrinos, feedback and weak gravitational lensing journal April 2015
Cross-correlation of gravitational lensing from DES Science Verification data with SPT and Planck lensing journal March 2016
WISE × SuperCOSMOS PHOTOMETRIC REDSHIFT CATALOG: 20 MILLION GALAXIES OVER 3 π STERADIANS journal July 2016
The Dark Energy Survey: more than dark energy – an overview journal March 2016
Cross-correlation redshift calibration without spectroscopic calibration samples in DES Science Verification Data journal March 2018
Cosmic distance determination from photometric redshift samples using BAO peaks only journal June 2019
Photometric Redshifts and Stellar Masses for Galaxies from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys journal May 2019
A cooperative approach among methods for photometric redshifts estimation: an application to KiDS data journal December 2016
CMB lensing tomography with the DES Science Verification galaxies journal January 2016
No galaxy left behind: accurate measurements with the faintest objects in the Dark Energy Survey journal January 2016
A new sample of southern radio galaxies: host-galaxy masses and star-formation rates journal August 2019
Cosmology constraints from shear peak statistics in Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data journal August 2016
ANNz2: Photometric Redshift and Probability Distribution Function Estimation using Machine Learning journal August 2016
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Calibration of redMaGiC redshift distributions in DES and SDSS from cross-correlations text January 2018
Baryons, Neutrinos, Feedback and Weak Gravitational Lensing text January 2014
Feature importance for machine learning redshifts applied to SDSS galaxies text January 2014
ANNz2 - photometric redshift and probability distribution function estimation using machine learning text January 2015
redMaGiC: Selecting Luminous Red Galaxies from the DES Science Verification Data text January 2015
CMB lensing tomography with the DES Science Verification galaxies text January 2015
Cross-correlation of gravitational lensing from DES Science Verification data with SPT and Planck lensing text January 2015
The Dark Energy Survey: more than dark energy - an overview text January 2016
Cosmology constraints from shear peak statistics in Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data text January 2016
WISE x SuperCOSMOS photometric redshift catalog: 20 million galaxies over 3pi steradians text January 2016
A cooperative approach among methods for photometric redshifts estimation: an application to KiDS data text January 2016
Morpho-z: improving photometric redshifts with galaxy morphology text January 2017
Cross-Correlation Redshift Calibration Without Spectroscopic Calibration Samples in DES Science Verification Data text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Redshift distributions of the weak lensing source galaxies text January 2017
Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: Galaxy-Galaxy Lensing text January 2017
Photometric redshifts for the Kilo-Degree Survey. Machine-learning analysis with artificial neural networks text January 2017
Galaxies in X-ray Selected Clusters and Groups in Dark Energy Survey Data II: Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling of the Red-Sequence Galaxy Luminosity Function preprint January 2017
Hierarchical modeling and statistical calibration for photometric redshifts text January 2018
The PAU Survey: Spectral features and galaxy clustering using simulated narrow band photometry text January 2018
Measuring Linear and Non-linear Galaxy Bias Using Counts-in-Cells in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification Data text January 2018
Statistical analysis of probability density functions for photometric redshifts through the KiDS-ESO-DR3 galaxies text January 2018
The galaxy cluster mass scale and its impact on cosmological constraints from the cluster population text January 2019
Cosmic distance determination from photometric redshift samples using BAO peaks only text January 2019
A new sample of southern radio galaxies: Host galaxy masses and star-formation rates text January 2019

Similar Records

Photometric redshift analysis in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data
Journal Article · Wed Oct 08 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · OSTI ID:1374719
+75 more
The PAU Survey: narrow-band photometric redshifts using Gaussian processes
Journal Article · Wed Mar 10 00:00:00 EST 2021 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · OSTI ID:1374719
+16 more
Photometric Redshifts for the Dark Energy Survey and VISTA and Implications for Large Scale Structure
Journal Article · Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · OSTI ID:1374719
+1 more

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Astronomical data bases: surveys
galaxies: distances and redshifts
galaxies: statistics
large-scale structure of Universe