publications_vp – CosmoStat

UNIONS: The impact of systematic errors on weak-lensing peak counts

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Samuel Farrens

Abstract

Context. The Ultraviolet Near-Infrared Optical Northern Survey (UNIONS) is an ongoing deep photometric multi-band survey of the Northern sky. As part of UNIONS, the Canada-France Imaging Survey (CFIS) provides r-band data which we use to study weak-lensing peak counts for cosmological inference.
Aims. We assess systematic effects for weak-lensing peak counts and their impact on cosmological parameters for the UNIONS survey. In particular, we present results on local calibration, metacalibration shear bias, baryonic feedback, the source galaxy redshift estimate, intrinsic alignment, and the cluster member dilution.

Methods. For each uncertainty and systematic effect, we describe our mitigation scheme and the impact on cosmological parameter constraints. We obtain constraints on cosmological parameters from MCMC using CFIS data and MassiveNuS N-body simulations as a model for peak counts statistics.
Results. Depending on the calibration (local versus global, and the inclusion of the residual multiplicative shear bias), the mean matter density parameter Ωm can shift up to −0.024 (−0.5σ). We also see that including baryonic corrections can shift Ωm by +0.027 (+0.5σ) with respect to the DM-only simulations. Reducing the impact of the intrinsic alignment and cluster member dilution through signal-to-noise cuts can lead to a shift in Ωm of +0.027 (+0.5σ). Finally, with a mean redshift uncertainty of ∆z ̄ = 0.03, we see that the shift of Ωm (+0.001 which corresponds to +0.02σ) is not significant.

Conclusions. This paper investigates for the first time with UNIONS weak-lensing data and peak counts the impact of systematic effects. The value of Ωm is the most impacted and can shift up to ∼ 0.03 which corresponds to 0.5σ depending on the choices for each systematics. We expect constraints to become more reliable with future (larger) data catalogues, for which the current pipeline will provide a starting point. The code used to obtain the results is available in the following Github repository.

Early dark energy in the pre- and post-recombination epochs

Posted on January 11, 2022 by Valeria Pettorino

Abstract

Dark energy could play a role at redshifts $z ≫ O (1)$ . Many quintessence models possess scaling or attractor solutions where the fraction of dark energy follows the dominant component in previous epochs of the Universe’s expansion, or phase transitions may happen close to the time of matter-radiation equality. A non-negligible early dark energy (EDE) fraction around matter-radiation equality could contribute to alleviate the well-known $H_{0}$ tension. In this work, we constrain the fraction of EDE using two approaches: first, we use a fluid parameterization that mimics the plateaux of the dominant components in the past. An alternative tomographic approach constrains the EDE density in binned redshift intervals. The latter allows us to reconstruct the evolution of $Ω_{de} (z)$ before and after the decoupling of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. We have employed Planck data 2018, the Pantheon compilation of supernovae of Type Ia (SNIa), data on galaxy clustering, the prior on the absolute magnitude of SNIa by SH0ES, and weak lensing data from $KiDS + VIKING - 450$ and DES-Y1. When we use a minimal parameterization mimicking the background plateaux, EDE has only a small impact on current cosmological tensions. We show how the constraints on the EDE fraction weaken considerably when its sound speed is allowed to vary. By means of our binned analysis we put very tight constraints on the EDE fraction around the CMB decoupling time, $≲ 0.4 %$ at $2 σ$ c.l. We confirm previous results that a significant EDE fraction in the radiation-dominated epoch loosens the $H_{0}$ tension, but tends to worsen the tension for $σ_{8}$ . A subsequent presence of EDE in the matter-dominated era helps to alleviate this issue. When both the SH0ES prior and weak lensing data are considered in the fitting analysis in combination with data from CMB, SNIa and baryon acoustic oscillations, the EDE fractions are constrained to be $≲ 2.6 %$ in the radiation-dominated epoch and $≲ 1.5 %$ in the redshift range $z \in (100, 1000)$ at $2 σ$ c.l. The two tensions remain with a statistical significance of $\sim 2 - 3 σ$ c.l.

Press release (in Italian) by MEDIA INAF is available here.

Starlet l1-norm for weak lensing cosmology

Posted on January 6, 2021 by Valeria Pettorino

Abstract

We present a new summary statistic for weak lensing observables, higher than second order, suitable for extracting non-Gaussian cosmological information and inferring cosmological parameters. We name this statistic the 'starlet ℓ1-norm' as it is computed via the sum of the absolute values of the starlet (wavelet) decomposition coefficients of a weak lensing map. In comparison to the state-of-the-art higher-order statistics -- weak lensing peak counts and minimum counts, or the combination of the two -- the ℓ1-norm provides a fast multi-scale calculation of the full void and peak distribution, avoiding the problem of defining what a peak is and what a void is: The ℓ1-norm carries the information encoded in all pixels of the map, not just the ones in local maxima and minima. We show its potential by applying it to the weak lensing convergence maps provided by the MassiveNus simulations to get constraints on the sum of neutrino masses, the matter density parameter, and the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum. We find that, in an ideal setting without further systematics, the starlet ℓ1-norm remarkably outperforms commonly used summary statistics, such as the power spectrum or the combination of peak and void counts, in terms of constraining power, representing a promising new unified framework to simultaneously account for the information encoded in peak counts and voids. We find that the starlet ℓ1-norm outperforms the power spectrum by 72% on Mν, 60% on Ωm, and 75% on As for the Euclid-like setting considered; it also improves upon the state-of-the-art combination of peaks and voids for a single smoothing scale by 24% on Mν, 50% on Ωm, and 24% on As.

Euclid preparation: VII. Forecast validation for Euclid cosmological probes

Posted on October 20, 2020November 22, 2020 by Valeria Pettorino

Abstract

Aims: The Euclid space telescope will measure the shapes and redshifts of galaxies to reconstruct the expansion history of the Universe and the growth of cosmic structures. The estimation of the expected performance of the experiment, in terms of predicted constraints on cosmological parameters, has so far relied on various individual methodologies and numerical implementations, which were developed for different observational probes and for the combination thereof. In this paper we present validated forecasts, which combine both theoretical and observational ingredients for different cosmological probes. This work is presented to provide the community with reliable numerical codes and methods for Euclid cosmological forecasts.
Methods: We describe in detail the methods adopted for Fisher matrix forecasts, which were applied to galaxy clustering, weak lensing, and the combination thereof. We estimated the required accuracy for Euclid forecasts and outline a methodology for their development. We then compare and improve different numerical implementations, reaching uncertainties on the errors of cosmological parameters that are less than the required precision in all cases. Furthermore, we provide details on the validated implementations, some of which are made publicly available, in different programming languages, together with a reference training-set of input and output matrices for a set of specific models. These can be used by the reader to validate their own implementations if required.
Results: We present new cosmological forecasts for Euclid. We find that results depend on the specific cosmological model and remaining freedom in each setting, for example flat or non-flat spatial cosmologies, or different cuts at non-linear scales. The numerical implementations are now reliable for these settings. We present the results for an optimistic and a pessimistic choice for these types of settings. We demonstrate that the impact of cross-correlations is particularly relevant for models beyond a cosmological constant and may allow us to increase the dark energy figure of merit by at least a factor of three.

Euclid: The importance of galaxy clustering and weak lensing cross-correlations within the photometric Euclid survey

Posted on April 30, 2020November 22, 2020 by Valeria Pettorino

Authors:	Tutusaus, I.;Martinelli, M.;Cardone, V. F.;Camera, S.;Yahia-Cherif, S.;Casas, S.;Blanchard, A.;Kilbinger, M.;Lacasa, F.;Sakr, Z.;Ilić, S.;Kunz, M.;Carbone, C.;Castander, F. J.;Dournac, F.;Fosalba, P.;Kitching, T.;Markovic, K.;Mangilli, A.;Pettorino, V.;Sapone, D.;Yankelevich, V.;et al.
Journal:	Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 643, id.A70, 17 pp.
Year:	11/2020
Download:	Inspire\| Arxiv \| DOI

Abstract

Context. The data from the Euclid mission will enable the measurement of the angular positions and weak lensing shapes of over a billion galaxies, with their photometric redshifts obtained together with ground-based observations. This large dataset, with well-controlled systematic effects, will allow for cosmological analyses using the angular clustering of galaxies (GC_ph) and cosmic shear (WL). For Euclid, these two cosmological probes will not be independent because they will probe the same volume of the Universe. The cross-correlation (XC) between these probes can tighten constraints and is therefore important to quantify their impact for Euclid.
Aims: In this study, we therefore extend the recently published Euclid forecasts by carefully quantifying the impact of XC not only on the final parameter constraints for different cosmological models, but also on the nuisance parameters. In particular, we aim to decipher the amount of additional information that XC can provide for parameters encoding systematic effects, such as galaxy bias, intrinsic alignments (IAs), and knowledge of the redshift distributions.
Methods: We follow the Fisher matrix formalism and make use of previously validated codes. We also investigate a different galaxy bias model, which was obtained from the Flagship simulation, and additional photometric-redshift uncertainties; we also elucidate the impact of including the XC terms on constraining these latter.
Results: Starting with a baseline model, we show that the XC terms reduce the uncertainties on galaxy bias by ∼17% and the uncertainties on IA by a factor of about four. The XC terms also help in constraining the γ parameter for minimal modified gravity models. Concerning galaxy bias, we observe that the role of the XC terms on the final parameter constraints is qualitatively the same irrespective of the specific galaxy-bias model used. For IA, we show that the XC terms can help in distinguishing between different models, and that if IA terms are neglected then this can lead to significant biases on the cosmological parameters. Finally, we show that the XC terms can lead to a better determination of the mean of the photometric galaxy distributions.
Conclusions: We find that the XC between GC_ph and WL within the Euclid survey is necessary to extract the full information content from the data in future analyses. These terms help in better constraining the cosmological model, and also lead to a better understanding of the systematic effects that contaminate these probes. Furthermore, we find that XC significantly helps in constraining the mean of the photometric-redshift distributions, but, at the same time, it requires more precise knowledge of this mean with respect to single probes in order not to degrade the final "figure of merit".

XC importance — Ratio of the errors on Δzi\Delta z_iΔzi without and with the inclusion of XC. Yellow and red lines refer to the pessimistic and optimistic scenario.

Euclid: The reduced shear approximation and magnification bias for Stage IV cosmic shear experiments

Posted on April 27, 2020June 30, 2020 by Valeria Pettorino

Abstract

Stage IV weak lensing experiments will offer more than an order of magnitude leap in precision. We must therefore ensure that our analyses remain accurate in this new era. Accordingly, previously ignored systematic effects must be addressed. In this work, we evaluate the impact of the reduced shear approximation and magnification bias, on the information obtained from the angular power spectrum. To first-order, the statistics of reduced shear, a combination of shear and convergence, are taken to be equal to those of shear. However, this approximation can induce a bias in the cosmological parameters that can no longer be neglected. A separate bias arises from the statistics of shear being altered by the preferential selection of galaxies and the dilution of their surface densities, in high-magnification regions. The corrections for these systematic effects take similar forms, allowing them to be treated together. We calculated the impact of neglecting these effects on the cosmological parameters that would be determined from Euclid, using cosmic shear tomography. To do so, we employed the Fisher matrix formalism, and included the impact of the super-sample covariance. We also demonstrate how the reduced shear correction can be calculated using a lognormal field forward modelling approach. These effects cause significant biases in Omega_m, sigma_8, n_s, Omega_DE, w_0, and w_a of -0.53 sigma, 0.43 sigma, -0.34 sigma, 1.36 sigma, -0.68 sigma, and 1.21 sigma, respectively. We then show that these lensing biases interact with another systematic: the intrinsic alignment of galaxies. Accordingly, we develop the formalism for an intrinsic alignment-enhanced lensing bias correction. Applying this to Euclid, we find that the additional terms introduced by this correction are sub-dominant.

Euclid: The selection of quiescent and star-forming galaxies using observed colours

Posted on April 7, 2020June 30, 2020 by Valeria Pettorino

Abstract

The Euclid mission will observe well over a billion galaxies out to z∼6 and beyond. This will offer an unrivalled opportunity to investigate several key questions for understanding galaxy formation and evolution. The first step for many of these studies will be the selection of a sample of quiescent and star-forming galaxies, as is often done in the literature by using well known colour techniques such as the `UVJ' diagram. However, given the limited number of filters available for the Euclid telescope, the recovery of such rest-frame colours will be challenging. We therefore investigate the use of observed Euclid colours, on their own and together with ground-based u-band observations, for selecting quiescent and star-forming galaxies. The most efficient colour combination, among the ones tested in this work, consists of the (u-VIS) and (VIS-J) colours. We find that this combination allows users to select a sample of quiescent galaxies complete to above ∼70% and with less than 15% contamination at redshifts in the range 0.75<z<1. For galaxies at high-z or without the u-band complementary observations, the (VIS-Y) and (J-H) colours represent a valid alternative, with >65% completeness level and contamination below 20% at 1<z<2 for finding quiescent galaxies. In comparison, the sample of quiescent galaxies selected with the traditional UVJ technique is only ∼20% complete at z<3, when recovering the rest-frame colours using mock Euclid observations. This shows that our new methodology is the most suitable one when only Euclid bands, along with u-band imaging, are available.

Euclid preparation: VI. Verifying the Performance of Cosmic Shear Experiments

Posted on March 30, 2020June 30, 2020 by Samuel Farrens

Abstract

Our aim is to quantify the impact of systematic effects on the inference of cosmological parameters from cosmic shear. We present an end-to-end approach that introduces sources of bias in a modelled weak lensing survey on a galaxy-by-galaxy level. Residual biases are propagated through a pipeline from galaxy properties (one end) through to cosmic shear power spectra and cosmological parameter estimates (the other end), to quantify how imperfect knowledge of the pipeline changes the maximum likelihood values of dark energy parameters. We quantify the impact of an imperfect correction for charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) and modelling uncertainties of the point spread function (PSF) for Euclid, and find that the biases introduced can be corrected to acceptable levels.

Constraining neutrino masses with weak-lensing multiscale peak counts

Posted on January 31, 2020January 6, 2021 by Valeria Pettorino

Massive neutrinos influence the background evolution of the Universe as well as the growth of structure. Being able to model this effect and constrain the sum of their masses is one of the key challenges in modern cosmology. Weak-lensing cosmological constraints will also soon reach higher levels of precision with next-generation surveys like LSST, WFIRST and Euclid. In this context, we use the MassiveNus simulations to derive constraints on the sum of neutrino masses Mν , the present- day total matter density Ωm, and the primordial power spectrum normalization As in a tomographic setting. We measure the lensing power spectrum as second-order statistics along with peak counts as higher-order statistics on lensing convergence maps generated from the simulations. We investigate the impact of multi-scale filtering approaches on cosmological parameters by employing a starlet (wavelet) filter and a concatenation of Gaussian filters. In both cases peak counts perform better than the power spectrum on the set of parameters [Mν, Ωm, As] respectively by 63%, 40% and 72% when using a starlet filter and by 70%, 40% and 77% when using a multi-scale Gaussian. More importantly, we show that when using a multi-scale approach, joining power spectrum and peaks does not add any relevant information over considering just the peaks alone. While both multi-scale filters behave similarly, we find that with the starlet filter the majority of the information in the data covariance matrix is encoded in the diagonal elements; this can be an advantage when inverting the matrix, speeding up the numerical implementation. For the starlet case, we further identify the minimum resolution required to obtain constraints comparable to those achievable with the full wavelet decomposition and we show that the information contained in the coarse-scale map cannot be neglected.

Reference: Virginia Ajani, Austin Peel, Valeria Pettorino, Jean-Luc Starck, Zack Li, Jia Liu, 2020. More details in the paper

Beyond self-acceleration: force- and fluid-acceleration

Posted on January 15, 2020January 15, 2020 by Valeria Pettorino

The notion of self acceleration has been introduced as a convenient way to theoretically distinguish cosmological models in which acceleration is due to modified gravity from those in which it is due to the properties of matter or fields. In this paper we review the concept of self acceleration as given, for example, by [1], and highlight two problems. First, that it applies only to universal couplings, and second, that it is too narrow, i.e. it excludes models in which the acceleration can be shown to be induced by a genuine modification of gravity, for instance coupled dark energy with a universal coupling, the Hu-Sawicki f(R) model or, in the context of inflation, the Starobinski model. We then propose two new, more general, concepts in its place: force-acceleration and field-acceleration, which are also applicable in presence of non universal cosmologies. We illustrate their concrete application with two examples, among the modified gravity classes which are still in agreement with current data, i.e. f(R) models and coupled dark energy.

As noted already for example in [35, 36], we further remark that at present non-universal couplings are among the (few) classes of models which survive gravitational wave detection and local constraints (see [12] for a review on models surviving with a universal coupling). This is because, by construction, baryonic interactions are standard and satisfy solar system constraints; furthermore the speed of gravitational waves in these models is cT = 1 and therefore in agreement with gravitational wave detection. It has also been noted (see for example [37–39] and the update in [33]) that models in which a non-universal coupling between dark matter particles is considered would also solve the tension in the measurement of the Hubble parameter [40] due to the degeneracy beta - H0 first noted in Ref. [41].

Reference: L.Amendola, V.Pettorino "Beyond self-acceleration: force- and fluid-acceleration", Physics Letters B, in press, 2020.

Authors:	E. Ayçoberry, V. Ajani, A. Guinot, M. Kilbinger, V. Pettorino, S. Farrens, J.-L. Starck, R. Gavazzi, M. Hudson
Journal:	A&A
Year:	2022
DOI:
Download:	ADS \| arXiv

Authors:	A.C. Deshpande, ..., S. Casas, M. Kilbinger, V. Pettorino, S. Pires, J.-L. Starck, F. Sureau, et al.
Journal:	Astronomy and Astrophysics
Year:	2020
DOI:	10.1051/0004-6361/201937323
Download:	ADS \| arXiv

Authors:	L. Bisigello, ..., V. Pettorino, S. Pires, F. Sureau, et al.
Journal:	MNRAS
Year:	2020
DOI:	10.1093/mnras/staa885
Download:	ADS \| arXiv

Authors:	Euclid Collaboration, P. Paykari, ..., S. Farrens, M. Kilbinger, V. Pettorino, S. Pires, J.-L. Starck, F. Sureau, et al.
Journal:	Astronomy and Astrophysics
Year:	2020
DOI:	10.1051/0004-6361/201936980
Download:	ADS \| arXiv

Category: publications_vp

UNIONS: The impact of systematic errors on weak-lensing peak counts

Abstract

Early dark energy in the pre- and post-recombination epochs

Early dark energy in the pre- and postrecombination epochs

Abstract

Starlet l1-norm for weak lensing cosmology

Starlet l1-norm for weak lensing cosmology

Abstract

Euclid preparation: VII. Forecast validation for Euclid cosmological probes

Euclid: impact of nonlinear prescriptions on cosmological parameter estimation from weak lensing cosmic shear

Abstract

Euclid: The importance of galaxy clustering and weak lensing cross-correlations within the photometric Euclid survey

Euclid: impact of nonlinear prescriptions on cosmological parameter estimation from weak lensing cosmic shear

Abstract

Euclid: The reduced shear approximation and magnification bias for Stage IV cosmic shear experiments

Euclid: The reduced shear approximation and magnification bias for Stage IV cosmic shear experiments

Abstract

Euclid: The selection of quiescent and star-forming galaxies using observed colours

Euclid: The selection of quiescent and star-forming galaxies using observed colours

Abstract

Euclid preparation: VI. Verifying the Performance of Cosmic Shear Experiments

Euclid preparation: VI. Verifying the Performance of Cosmic Shear Experiments

Abstract

Constraining neutrino masses with weak-lensing multiscale peak counts

Constraining neutrino masses with weak-lensing multiscale peak counts

Beyond self-acceleration: force- and fluid-acceleration

Authors:	Adrià Gómez-Valent, Ziyang Zheng, Luca Amendola, Valeria Pettorino, Christof Wetterich
Journal:	PRD
Year:	07/2021
Download:	PRD \| Arxiv

Authors:	Virginia Ajani, Jean-Luc Starck, Valeria Pettorino
Journal:	Astronomy & Astrophysics , Forthcoming article, Letters to the Editor
Year:	01/2021
Download:	A&A\| Arxiv

Authors:	Euclid Collaboration;Blanchard, A.;Camera, S.;Carbone, C.;Cardone, V. F.;Casas, S.;Clesse, S.;Ilić, S.;Kilbinger, M.;Kitching, T.;Kunz, M.;Lacasa, F.;Linder, E.;Majerotto, E.;Markovič, K.;Martinelli, M.;Pettorino, V.;Pourtsidou, A.;Sakr, Z.;Sánchez, A. G.;Sapone, D.;Tutusaus, I.;Yahia-Cherif, S.;Yankelevich, V.;et al.
Journal:	Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 642, id.A191, 66 pp.
Year:	10/2020
Download:	Inspire\| Arxiv