We present a detailed strong-lensing, weak-lensing and X-ray analysis of Abell 2744 (z= 0.308), one of the most actively merging galaxy clusters known. It appears to have unleashed 'dark', 'ghost', ...'bullet' and 'stripped' substructures, each ∼1014 M⊙. The phenomenology is complex and will present a challenge for numerical simulations to reproduce. With new, multiband Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging, we identify 34 strongly lensed images of 11 galaxies around the massive Southern 'core'. Combining this with weak-lensing data from HST, VLT and Subaru, we produce the most detailed mass map of this cluster to date. We also perform an independent analysis of archival Chandra X-ray imaging. Our analyses support a recent claim that the Southern core and Northwestern substructure are post-merger and exhibit morphology similar to the Bullet Cluster viewed from an angle. From the separation between X-ray emitting gas and lensing mass in the Southern core, we derive a new and independent constraint on the self-interaction cross-section of dark matter particles σ/m < 3 ± 1 cm2 g−1. In the Northwestern substructure, the gas, dark matter and galaxy components have become separated by much larger distances. Most curiously, the 'ghost' clump (primarily gas) leads the 'dark' clump (primarily dark matter) by more than 150 kpc. We propose an enhanced 'ram-pressure slingshot' scenario which may have yielded this reversal of components with such a large separation, but needs further confirmation by follow-up observations and numerical simulations. A secondary merger involves a second 'bullet' clump in the North and an extremely 'stripped' clump to the West. The latter appears to exhibit the largest separation between dark matter and X-ray emitting baryons detected to date in our sky.
Here we present the results of various approaches to measure accurate colours and photometric redshifts (photo-z) from wide-field imaging data. We use data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope ...Legacy Survey which have been re-processed by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS) team in order to carry out a number of weak gravitational lensing studies. An emphasis is put on the correction of systematic effects in the photo-z arising from the different point spread functions (PSFs) in the five optical bands. Different ways of correcting these effects are discussed and the resulting photo-z accuracies are quantified by comparing the photo-z to large spectroscopic redshift (spec-z) data sets. Careful homogenization of the PSF between bands leads to increased overall accuracy of photo-z. The gain is particularly pronounced at fainter magnitudes where galaxies are smaller and flux measurements are affected more by PSF effects. We discuss ways of defining more secure subsamples of galaxies as well as a shape- and colour-based star-galaxy separation method, and we present redshift distributions for different magnitude limits. We also study possible re-calibrations of the photometric zero-points (ZPs) with the help of galaxies with known spec-z. We find that if PSF effects are properly taken into account, a re-calibration of the ZPs becomes much less important suggesting that previous such re-calibrations described in the literature could in fact be mostly corrections for PSF effects rather than corrections for real inaccuracies in the ZPs. The implications of this finding for future surveys like the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS), Dark Energy Survey (DES), Large Synoptic Survey Telescope or Euclid are mixed. On the one hand, ZP re-calibrations with spec-z values might not be as accurate as previously thought. On the other hand, careful PSF homogenization might provide a way out and yield accurate, homogeneous photometry without the need for full spectroscopic coverage. This is the first paper in a series describing the technical aspects of CFHTLenS.
We present an analysis of the MUSIC-2 /V-body/hydrodynamical simulations aimed at estimating the expected concentration-mass relation for the CLASH (Cluster Lensing and Supernova Survey with Hubble) ...cluster sample. We study nearly 1,400 halos simulated at high spatial and mass resolution. We study the shape of both their density and surface-density profiles and fit them with a variety of radial functions, including the Navarro-Frenk-White (NEW), the generalized NEW, and the Einasto density profiles. We derive concentrations and masses from these fits. We produce simulated Chandra observations of the halos, and we use them to identify objects resembling the X-ray morphologies and masses of the clusters in the CLASH X-ray-selected sample. We also derive a concentration-mass relation for strong-lensing clusters. We find that the sample of simulated halos that resembles the X-ray morphology of the CLASH clusters is composed mainly of relaxed halos, but it also contains a significant fraction of unrelaxed systems. For such a heterogeneous sample we measure an average two-dimensional concentration that is ~11% higher than is found for the full sample of simulated halos. After accounting for projection and selection effects, the average NEW concentrations of CLASH clusters are expected to be intermediate between those predicted in three dimensions for relaxed and super-relaxed halos. Matching the simulations to the individual CLASH clusters on the basis of the X-ray morphology, we expect that the NEW concentrations recovered from the lensing analysis of the CLASH clusters are in the range 3-6, with an average value of 3.87 and a standard deviation of 0.61.
ABSTRACT
The next generation of galaxy surveys will allow us to test one of the most fundamental assumptions of the standard cosmology, i.e. that gravity is governed by the general theory of ...relativity (GR). In this paper, we investigate the ability of the Javalambre Physics of the Accelerating Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS) to constrain GR and its extensions. Based on the J-PAS information on clustering and gravitational lensing, we perform a Fisher matrix forecast on the effective Newton constant, μ, and the gravitational slip parameter, η, whose deviations from unity would indicate a breakdown of GR. Similar analysis is also performed for the DESI and Euclid surveys and compared to J-PAS with two configurations providing different areas, namely an initial expectation with 4000 deg2 and the future best case scenario with 8500 deg2. We show that J-PAS will be able to measure the parameters μ and η at a sensitivity of $2\!-\!7{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, and will provide the best constraints in the interval z = 0.3–0.6, thanks to the large number of ELGs detectable in that redshift range. We also discuss the constraining power of J-PAS for dark energy models with a time-dependent equation-of-state parameter of the type w(a) = w0 + wa(1 − a), obtaining Δw0 = 0.058 and Δwa = 0.24 for the absolute errors of the dark energy parameters.
Aims. Our goal is to develop and test a novel methodology to compute accurate close-pair fractions with photometric redshifts. Methods. We improved the currently used methodologies to estimate the ...merger fraction fm from photometric redshifts by (i) using the full probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the sources in redshift space; (ii) including the variation in the luminosity of the sources with z in both the sample selection and the luminosity ratio constrain; and (iii) splitting individual PDFs into red and blue spectral templates to reliably work with colour selections. We tested the performance of our new methodology with the PDFs provided by the ALHAMBRA photometric survey. Results. The merger fractions and rates from the ALHAMBRA survey agree excellently well with those from spectroscopic work for both the general population and red and blue galaxies. With the merger rate of bright (MB ≤ −20−1.1z) galaxies evolving as (1 + z)n, the power-law index n is higher for blue galaxies (n = 2.7 ± 0.5) than for red galaxies (n = 1.3 ± 0.4), confirming previous results. Integrating the merger rate over cosmic time, we find that the average number of mergers per galaxy since z = 1 is Nmred = 0.57 ± 0.05 for red galaxies and Nmblue = 0.26 ± 0.02 for blue galaxies. Conclusions. Our new methodology statistically exploits all the available information provided by photometric redshift codes and yields accurate measurements of the merger fraction by close pairs from using photometric redshifts alone. Current and future photometric surveys will benefit from this new methodology.
Aims.Several photometric redshift (photo-z) codes are discussed in the literature and some are publicly available to be used by the community. We analyse the relative performance of different codes ...in blind applications to ground-based data. In particular, we study how the choice of the code-template combination, the depth of the data, and the filter set influences the photo-z accuracy. Methods.We performed a blind test of different photo-z codes on imaging datasets with different depths and filter coverages and compared the results to large spectroscopic catalogues. We analysed the photo-z error behaviour to select cleaner subsamples with more secure photo-z estimates. We consider Hyperz, BPZ, and the code used in the CADIS, COMBO-17, and HIROCS surveys. Results. The photo-z error estimates of the three codes do not correlate tightly with the accuracy of the photo-z's. While very large errors sometimes indicate a true catastrophic photo-z failure, smaller errors are usually not meaningful. For any given dataset, we find significant differences in redshift accuracy and outlier rates between the different codes when compared to spectroscopic redshifts. However, different codes excel in different regimes. The agreement between different sets of photo-z's is better for the subsample with secure spectroscopic redshifts than for the whole catalogue. Outlier rates in the latter are typically larger by at least a factor of two. Conclusions. Running today's photo-z codes on well-calibrated ground-based data can lead to reasonable accuracy. The actual performance on a given dataset is largely dependent on the template choice and on realistic instrumental response curves. The photo-z error estimation of today's codes from the probability density function is not reliable, and reported errors do not correlate tightly with accuracy. It would be desirable to improve this aspect for future applications so as to get a better handle on rejecting objects with grossly inaccurate photo-z's. The secure spectroscopic subsamples commonly used for assessments of photo-z accuracy may be biased toward objects for which the photo-z's are easier to estimate than for a complete flux-limited sample, resulting in very optimistic estimates.
Abstract
We study the consistency of the physical properties of galaxies retrieved from spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting as a function of spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio ...(SNR). Using a selection of physically motivated star formation histories, we set up a control sample of mock galaxy spectra representing observations of the local Universe in high-resolution spectroscopy, and in 56 narrow-band and 5 broad-band photometry. We fit the SEDs at these spectral resolutions and compute their corresponding stellar mass, the mass- and luminosity-weighted age and metallicity, and the dust extinction. We study the biases, correlations and degeneracies affecting the retrieved parameters and explore the role of the spectral resolution and the SNR in regulating these degeneracies. We find that narrow-band photometry and spectroscopy yield similar trends in the physical properties derived, the former being considerably more precise. Using a galaxy sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), we compare more realistically the results obtained from high-resolution and narrow-band SEDs (synthesized from the same SDSS spectra) following the same spectral fitting procedures. We use results from the literature as a benchmark to our spectroscopic estimates and show that the prior probability distribution functions, commonly adopted in parametric methods, may introduce biases not accounted for in a Bayesian framework. We conclude that narrow-band photometry yields the same trend in the age–metallicity relation in the literature, provided it is affected by the same biases as spectroscopy, albeit the precision achieved with the latter is generally twice as large as with the narrow-band, at SNR values typical of the different kinds of data.
PHAT: PHoto-z Accuracy Testing Hildebrandt, H.; Arnouts, S.; Capak, P. ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
11/2010, Volume:
523
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Context. Photometric redshifts (photo-z’s) have become an essential tool in extragalactic astronomy. Many current and upcoming observing programmes require great accuracy of photo-z’s to reach their ...scientific goals. Aims. Here we introduce PHAT, the PHoto-z Accuracy Testing programme, an international initiative to test and compare different methods of photo-z estimation. Methods. Two different test environments are set up, one (PHAT0) based on simulations to test the basic functionality of the different photo-z codes, and another one (PHAT1) based on data from the GOODS survey including 18-band photometry and ~2000 spectroscopic redshifts. Results. The accuracy of the different methods is expressed and ranked by the global photo-z bias, scatter, and outlier rates. While most methods agree very well on PHAT0 there are differences in the handling of the Lyman-α forest for higher redshifts. Furthermore, different methods produce photo-z scatters that can differ by up to a factor of two even in this idealised case. A larger spread in accuracy is found for PHAT1. Few methods benefit from the addition of mid-IR photometry. The accuracy of the other methods is unaffected or suffers when IRAC data are included. Remaining biases and systematic effects can be explained by shortcomings in the different template sets (especially in the mid-IR) and the use of priors on the one hand and an insufficient training set on the other hand. Some strategies to overcome these problems are identified by comparing the methods in detail. Scatters of 4–8% in Δz / (1 + z) were obtained, consistent with other studies. However, somewhat larger outlier rates (>7.5% with Δz / (1 + z) > 0.15; > 4.5% after cleaning) are found for all codes that can only partly be explained by AGN or issues in the photometry or the spec-z catalogue. Some outliers were probably missed in comparisons of photo-z’s to other, less complete spectroscopic surveys in the past. There is a general trend that empirical codes produce smaller biases than template-based codes. Conclusions. The systematic, quantitative comparison of different photo-z codes presented here is a snapshot of the current state-of-the-art of photo-z estimation and sets a standard for the assessment of photo-z accuracy in the future. The rather large outlier rates reported here for PHAT1 on real data should be investigated further since they are most probably also present (and possibly hidden) in many other studies. The test data sets are publicly available and can be used to compare new, upcoming methods to established ones and help in guiding future photo-z method development.
We present a new approach to gravitational lens mass map reconstruction. Our mass map solutions perfectly reproduce the positions, fluxes, and shears of all multiple images, and each mass map ...accurately recovers the underlying mass distribution to a resolution limited by the number of multiple images detected. We demonstrate our technique given a mock galaxy cluster similar to Abell 1689, which gravitationally lenses 19 mock background galaxies to produce 93 multiple images. We also explore cases in which as few as four multiple images are observed. Mass map solutions are never unique, and our method makes it possible to explore an extremely flexible range of physical (and unphysical) solutions, all of which perfectly reproduce the data given. Each reconfiguration of the source galaxies produces a new mass map solution. An optimization routine is provided to find those source positions (and redshifts, within uncertainties) that produce the 'most physical' mass map solution, according to a new figure of merit developed here. Our method imposes no assumptions about the slope of the radial profile or mass following light. However, unlike 'nonparametric' grid-based methods, the number of free parameters that we solve for is only as many as the number of observable constraints (or slightly greater if fluxes are constrained). For each set of source positions and redshifts, mass map solutions are obtained 'instantly' via direct matrix inversion by smoothly interpolating the deflection field using a recently developed mathematical technique. Our LensPerfect software is straightforward and easy to use, and is publicly available on our Web site.
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