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Spurious shear in weak lensing with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

Chang, Chiway et al.
Kahn, S. M.; Jernigan, J. G.; Peterson, J. R.; AlSayyad, Y.; Ahmad, Z.; Bankert, J.; Bard, D.; Connolly, A.; Gibson, R. R.; Gilmore, K.; Grace, E.; Hannel, M.; Hodge, M. A.; Jee, M. J.; Jones, L.; Krughoff, S.; Lorenz, S.; Marshall, P. J.; Marshall, S.; Meert, A.; Nagarajan, S.; Peng, E.; Rasmussen, A. P.; Shmakova, M.; Sylvestre, N.; Todd, N.; Young, M.
Publication Date: 
Monday, November 19, 2012
Type: 
Journal Articles
Tags: 
Citable: 
no
Category: 
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume: 
428 Issue 3
Page #: 
2 695
Abstract: 
The complete 10-yr survey from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will image ∼20 000 deg2 of the sky in six filter bands every few nights, bringing the final survey depth to r ∼ 27.5, with over four billion well-measured galaxies. To take full advantage of this unprecedented statistical power, the systematic errors associated with weak lensing measurements need to be controlled to a level similar to the statistical errors. This work is the first attempt to quantitatively estimate the absolute level and statistical properties of the systematic errors on weak lensing shear measurements due to the most important physical effects in the LSST system via high-fidelity ray-tracing simulations. We identify and isolate the different sources of algorithm-independent, additive systematic errors on shear measurements for LSST and predict their impact on the final cosmic shear measurements using conventional weak lensing analysis techniques. We find that the main source of the errors comes from an inability to adequately characterize the atmospheric point spread function due to its high-frequency spatial variation on angular scales smaller than ∼10 arcmin in the single short exposures, which propagates into a spurious shear correlation function at the 10−4–10−3 level on these scales. With the large multi-epoch data set that will be acquired by LSST, the stochastic errors average out, bringing the final spurious shear correlation function to a level very close to the statistical errors. Our results imply that the cosmological constraints from LSST will not be severely limited by these algorithm-independent, additive systematic effects.
Reviewed Under: 
LSST Publication Policy (2015 or earlier)

Financial support for Rubin Observatory comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Cooperative Agreement No. 1258333, the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, and private funding raised by the LSST Corporation. The NSF-funded Rubin Observatory Project Office for construction was established as an operating center under management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).  The DOE-funded effort to build the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera (LSSTCam) is managed by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.
NSF and DOE will continue to support Rubin Observatory in its Operations phase. They will also provide support for scientific research with LSST data.   




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