Isolating Geometry in Weak Lensing Measurements

dc.creatorZhang, Jun
dc.creatorHui, Lam
dc.creatorStebbins, Albert
dc.date2003-12-14
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T10:27:09Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T10:27:09Z
dc.descriptionGiven a foreground galaxy-density field or shear field, its cross-correlation with the shear field from a background population of source galaxies scales with the source redshift in a way that is specific to lensing. Such a source-scaling can be exploited to effectively measure geometrical distances as a function of redshift and thereby constrain dark energy properties, free of any assumptions about the galaxy-mass/mass power spectrum (its shape, amplitude or growth). Such a geometrical method can yield a ~ 0.03 - 0.07 f_{sky}^{-1/2} measurement on the dark energy abundance and equation of state, for a photometric redshift accuracy of dz ~ 0.01 - 0.05 and a survey with median redshift of ~ 1. While these constraints are weaker than conventional weak lensing methods, they provide an important consistency check because the geometrical method carries less theoretical baggage: there is no need to assume any structure formation model (e.g. CDM). The geometrical method is at the most conservative end of a whole spectrum of methods which obtain smaller errorbars by making more restrictive assumptions -- we discuss some examples. Our geometrical approach differs from previous investigations along similar lines in three respects. First, the source-scaling we propose to use is less demanding on the photometric redshift accuracy. Second, the scaling works for both galaxy-shear and shear-shear correlations. Third, we find that previous studies underestimate the statistical errors associated with similar geometrical methods, the origin of which is discussed.
dc.description13 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0312348
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0312348
dc.identifierAstrophys.J.635:806-820,2005
dc.identifierdoi:10.1086/497676
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/177069
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleIsolating Geometry in Weak Lensing Measurements
dc.typetext

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