Seeing in the dark – II. Cosmic shear in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Creators
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1.
University of California, Berkeley
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2.
The Ohio State University
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3.
Princeton University
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Carnegie Mellon University
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
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Ewha Womans University
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7.
University of Zurich
Abstract
Statistical weak lensing by large-scale structure – cosmic shear – is a promising cosmological tool, which has motivated the design of several large upcoming surveys. Here, we present a measurement of cosmic shear using co-added Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging in 168 square degrees of the equatorial region, with r < 23.5 and i < 22.5, a source number density of 2.2 per arcmin^2 and mean redshift of z_(med) = 0.52. These co-adds were generated using a new method described in the companion Paper I that was intended to minimize systematic errors in the lensing measurement due to coherent point spread function anisotropies that are otherwise prevalent in the SDSS imaging data. We present measurements of cosmic shear out to angular separations of 2°, along with systematics tests that (combined with those from Paper I on the catalogue generation) demonstrate that our results are dominated by statistical rather than systematic errors. Assuming a cosmological model corresponding to Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7(WMAP7) and allowing only the amplitude of matter fluctuations σ_8 to vary, we find a best-fitting value of σ_8=0.636^(+0.109)_(−0.154) (1σ); without systematic errors this would be σ_8=0.636^(+0.099)_(−0.137) (1σ). Assuming a flat Λ cold dark matter model, the combined constraints with WMAP7 are σ_8=0.784^(+0.028)_(−0.026)(1σ)^(+0.055)_(−0.054)(2σ) and Ω_mh^2=0.1303^(+0.0047)_(−0.0048)(1σ)^(+0.009)_(−0.009)(2σ); the 2σ error ranges are, respectively, 14 and 17 per cent smaller than WMAP7 alone.
Additional Information
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. First published online: March 23, 2014. Accepted 2014 January 17. Received 2014 January 16; in original form 2011 December 15. We thank Alexie Leauthaud for providing faint COSMOS galaxy postage-stamp images for simulation purposes. EMH is supported by the US Department of Energy's Office of High Energy Physics (DE-AC02-05CH11231). During the period of work on this paper, CMH was supported by the US Department of Energy's Office of High Energy Physics (DE-FG03-02-ER40701 and DE-SC0006624), the US National Science Foundation (AST-0807337), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. RM was supported for part of the duration of this project by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF-01199.02-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. US is supported by the DOE, the Swiss National Foundation under contract 200021-116696/1 and WCU grant R32-10130. We thank the PRIMUS team for sharing their redshift catalogue, and thank Alison Coil and John Moustakas for help with using the PRIMUS data set. Funding for PRIMUS has been provided by NSF grants AST-0607701, 0908246, 0908442, 0908354, and NASA grant 08-ADP08-0019. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. EMH thanks CCAPP for the hospitality during CCAPP Symposium and participants support provided through NSF grant #1135622. Funding for the DEEP2 survey has been provided by NSF grants AST95-09298, AST-0071048, AST-0071198, AST-0507428, and AST-0507483 as well as NASA LTSA grant NNG04GC89G. Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The DEEP2 team and Keck Observatory acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community and appreciate the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Funding for the SDSS and SDSS-II has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The SDSS website is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are the American Museum of Natural History, Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, University of Basel, University of Cambridge, Case Western Reserve University, University of Chicago, Drexel University, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics, the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, the Korean Scientist Group, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST), Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Ohio State University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.Attached Files
Published - MNRAS-2014-Huff-1322-44.pdf
Submitted - 1112.3143v1.pdf
Files
1112.3143v1.pdf
Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 46009
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20140530-111648679
Related works
- Describes
- http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3143 (URL)
Funding
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-FG03-02-ER40701
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-SC0006624
- NSF
- AST-0807337
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- NASA Hubble Fellowship
- HST-HF-01199.02-A
- NASA
- NAS 5-26555
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
- 200021-116696/1
- WCU
- R32-10130
- NSF
- AST-0607701
- NSF
- AST-0908246
- NSF
- AST-0908442
- NSF
- AST-0908354
- NASA
- 08-ADP08-0019
- NSF
- PHY-1135622
- NSF
- AST95-09298
- NSF
- AST-0071048
- NSF
- AST-0071198
- NSF
- AST-0507428
- NSF
- AST-0507483
- NASA
- NNG04GC89G
- W. M. Keck Foundation
Dates
- Created
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2014-05-30Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
Caltech Custom Metadata
- Caltech groups
- COSMOS