A measurement of weak lensing by large scale structure in RCS fields

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arXiv:astro-ph/0202285v1 14 Feb 2002DraftversionFebruary1,2008

PreprinttypesetusingLATEXstyleemulateapjv.14/09/00

AMEASUREMENTOFWEAKLENSINGBYLARGESCALESTRUCTUREINRCSFIELDS

HenkHoekstra1,2,3,HowardK.C.Yee2,3,4,MichaelD.Gladders2,3,4,L.FelipeBarrientos4,5,PatrickB.Hall2,3,4,5,6,andLeopoldoInfante4,5

DraftversionFebruary1,2008

ABSTRACT

Wehaveanalysed∼24squaredegreesofRC-bandimagingdatafromtheRed-SequenceCluster

Survey(RCS),andmeasuredtheexcesscorrelationsbetweengalaxyellipticitiesonscalesrangingfrom1

to30arcminutes.Wehaveuseddatafromtwodifferenttelescopes:∼16.4squaredegreesofCFHTdataand∼7.6squaredegreesofCTIO4-meterdata,distributedover13widelyseparatedpatches.Forthe

firsttime,adirectcomparisoncanbemadeofthelensingsignalmeasuredusingdifferentinstruments,whichprovidesanimportanttestoftheweaklensinganalysisitself.Themeasurementsobtainedfrom

thetwotelescopesagreewell.Forthelensinganalysisweusegalaxiesdowntoalimitingmagnitudeof

RC=24,forwhichtheredshiftdistributionisknownrelativelywell.Thisallowsustoconstrainsomecosmologicalparameters.ForthecurrentlyfavoredΛCDMmodel(Ωm=0.3,ΩΛ=0.7,Γ=0.21)

weobtainσ8=0.81+0.14−0.19(95%confidence),inagreementwiththeresultsfromVanWaerbekeetal.

(2001)whichusedfaintergalaxies(andconsequentlyhigherredshiftgalaxies).Thegoodagreement

betweenthesetwoverydifferentweaklensingstudiesdemonstratesthatweaklensingisausefultoolinobservationalcosmology.

Subjectheadings:cosmology:observations−darkmatter−gravitationallensing

1.introduction

Weakgravitationallensinghasproventobeapowerful

toolforstudiesofthemassdistributioninrichclustersof

galaxies(forareviewseeMellier1999).Sincethepioneer-ingworkbyTyson,Wenk,&Valdes(1990)muchprogress

hasbeenmade,andnowadaystheweaklensingsignalsin-

ducedbyclustersofgalaxiesatintermediateredshiftscanbemeasuredwithoutmuchdifficulty.

Thedevelopmentofadvancedtechniquestocorrect

forthevariousobservationaldistortions,suchastheanisotropyofthepointspreadfunction(PSF),thecircu-

larizationbythePSF,andthecamerainduceddistortion,

hasbeenacrucialstep,resultinginwellcalibratedsig-nals(e.g.,Kaiser,Squires,&Broadhurst1995;Luppino&

Kaiser1997;Hoekstraetal.1998;Kuijken1999;Refregier

2001).AnotherimportantdevelopmentinrecentyearsistheadventofmosaicCCDcameras,whichenableusto

quicklyimagelargeportionsofthesky.

Theseadvanceshavemadeitpossibletopursueoneofthemostdifficultmeasurementsinthefieldofweaklens-

ing:themeasurementofthecoherentdistortionsofthe

imagesoffaintgalaxiescausedbylensingbyinterveninglargescalestructure,theso-called‘cosmicshear’.The

analysisofthislensingsignalprovidesanimportantdirect

1CITA,UniversityofToronto,Toronto,OntarioM5S3H8,Canada2DepartmentofAstronomyandAstrophysics,UniversityofToronto,Toronto,OntarioM5S3H8,Canada3VisitingAstronomer,Canada-France-HawaiiTelescope,whichisoperatedbytheNationalResearchCouncilofCanada,LeCentreNationaldeRechercheScientifique,andtheUniversityofHawaii4GuestobserverattheCerroTololoInter-AmericanObservatory(CTIO),adivisionoftheNationalOpticalAstronomyObservato-ries,whichisoperatedbytheAssociationofUniversitiesforResearchinAstronomy,Inc.,undercooperativeagreementwiththeNationalScienceFoundation5UniversidadCat´olicadeChile,Depto.Astronom´ıayAstrof´ısica,Avda.Vicu˜naMackenna4860,Casilla306,Santiago22,Chile6PrincetonUniversityObservatory,Princeton,NJ98544-1001measurementofthestatisticalpropertiesofthelargescale

massdistribution(e.g.,Blandfordetal1991;Kaiser1992;

Bernardeau,vanWaerbeke,&Mellier1997;Schneideretal.1998).

Comparedtomanyothermethodsthatareusedtocon-straincosmologicalparameters,weaklensinghasthead-

vantagethatnoassumptionsaboutthelightdistribution

arerequired.However,weaklensinginitselfcannotcon-strainalltheparameters,becauseofdegeneraciesbetween

them.Betterconstraintscanbeobtainedbycomparing

weaklensingstudiesthatprobedifferentredshifts(e.g.,Hu1999)orwhenthesedataarecombinedwithmeasure-

mentsofthefluctuationsofthecosmicmicrowaveback-

ground(e.g.,Hu&Tegmark1999).Bynow,severalgroupshavereportedthedetectionof

anexcesscorrelationbetweengalaxyellipticities,andhave

arguedthatthissignaliscausedbylensingbylargescalestructure(e.g.,Baconetal.2000;Kaiser,Wilson,&Lup-

pino2000;vanWaerbekeetal.2000;Wittmanetal.2000;

Maolietal.2001;vanWaerbekeetal.2001).Maolietal.(2001)combinedtheirownresultswithpublishedmea-

surementsinanattempttoobtainconstraintsonσ8,the

normalisationofthepowerspectrum,andΩm,thematterdensityoftheuniverse.Theyfoundgoodagreementwith

studiesofclusterabundances.However,thedatasetstud-

iedbyMaolietal.(2001)isveryinhomogeneous,whichlimitstheaccuracyofsuchadirectcomparison.

Aftertheseinitialdetections,whichdemonstratedthe

feasibilityofthemethod,theobviousnextstepistoob-tainlargeuniformdatasets.Thefirstresultsfromsuch