No galaxy left behind: accurate measurements with the faintest objects in the Dark Energy Survey

2015/07/31 by E. Suchyta, Eric Huff, E. M. Huff +86 · 97 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Cosmology #Dark energy #Estimator #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Physics #Statistics #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.IM

paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2953

published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 457(1), 786-808 (Oxford University Press) · 24 pages, 17 figures. This is the version accepted by MNRAS. Changes compared to the original version are very minimal; the biggest update is including a curve for a theoretical model in the clustering results

openalex publication_date 2016/01/27 · arxiv created 2016/01/28 · arxiv updated 2016/01/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Accurate statistical measurement with large imaging surveys has traditionally required throwing away a sizable fraction of the data. This is because most measurements have relied on selecting nearly complete samples, where variations in the composition of the galaxy population with seeing, depth, or other survey characteristics are small. We introduce a new measurement method that aims to minimize this wastage, allowing precision measurement for any class of detectable stars or galaxies. We have implemented our proposal in balrog, software which embeds fake objects in real imaging to accurately characterize measurement biases. We demonstrate this technique with an angular clustering measurement using Dark Energy Survey (DES) data. We first show that recovery of our injected galaxies depends on a variety of survey characteristics in the same way as the real data. We then construct a flux-limited sample of the faintest galaxies in DES, chosen specifically for their sensitivity to depth and seeing variations. Using the synthetic galaxies as randoms in the Landy–Szalay estimator suppresses the effects of variable survey selection by at least two orders of magnitude. With this correction, our measured angular clustering is found to be in excellent agreement with that of a matched sample from much deeper, higher resolution space-based Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS) imaging; over angular scales of 0|_.^∘|004 < θ < 0|_.^∘|2, we find a best-fitting scaling amplitude between the DES and COSMOS measurements of 1.00 ± 0.09. We expect this methodology to be broadly useful for extending measurements’ statistical reach in a variety of upcoming imaging surveys.

Citations

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Cited by

• Noise from undetected sources in Dark Energy Survey images
• Blending and obscuration in weak-lensing magnification