Improving weak lensing mass map reconstructions using Gaussian and sparsity priors: Application to DES SV

DES Collaboration

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

Mapping the underlying density field, including non-visible dark matter, using weak gravitational lensing measurements is now a standard tool in cosmology. Due to its importance to the science results of current and upcoming surveys, the quality of the convergence reconstruction methods should be well understood.We compare three methods: Kaiser-Squires (KS),Wiener filter, and GLIMPSE. Kaiser-Squires is a direct inversion, not accounting for survey masks or noise. TheWiener filter is well-motivated for Gaussian density fields in a Bayesian framework. GLIMPSE uses sparsity, aiming to reconstruct non-linearities in the density field. We compare these methods with several tests using public Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification (SV) data and realistic DES simulations. The Wiener filter and GLIMPSE offer substantial improvements over smoothed Kaiser-Squires with a range of metrics. Both theWiener filter and GLIMPSE convergence reconstructions show a 12 per cent improvement in Pearson correlation with the underlying truth from simulations. To compare the mapping methods' abilities to find mass peaks, we measure the difference between peak counts from simulated (n-ary logical and)CDM shear catalogues and catalogues with no mass fluctuations (a standard data vector when inferring cosmology from peak statistics); the maximum signal-to-noise of these peak statistics is increased by a factor of 3.5 for the Wiener filter and 9 for GLIMPSE. With simulations, we measure the reconstruction of the harmonic phases; the phase residuals' concentration is improved 17 per cent by GLIMPSE and 18 per cent by theWiener filter. The correlation between reconstructions from data and foreground redMaPPer clusters is increased 18 per cent by the Wiener filter and 32 per cent by GLIMPSE.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2871-2888
Number of pages18
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume479
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 21 2018

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

Keywords

  • Gravitational lensing: weak
  • Large-scale structure of universe
  • Methods: statistical

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