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Weak gravitational lensing with COSMOS: Galaxy selection and shape measurements

Leauthaud, Alexie; Massey, Richard; Kneib, Jean-Paul; Rhodes, Jason; Johnston, David E.; Capak, Peter; Heymans, Catherine; Ellis, Richard S.; Koekemoer, Anton M.; Le Fevre, Oliver; Mellier, Yannick; Refregier, Alexandre; Robin, Annie C.; Scoville, Nick; Tasca, Lidia; Taylor, James E.; Van Waerbeke, Ludovic

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Authors

Alexie Leauthaud

Jean-Paul Kneib

Jason Rhodes

David E. Johnston

Peter Capak

Catherine Heymans

Richard S. Ellis

Anton M. Koekemoer

Oliver Le Fevre

Yannick Mellier

Alexandre Refregier

Annie C. Robin

Nick Scoville

Lidia Tasca

James E. Taylor

Ludovic Van Waerbeke



Abstract

With a primary goal of conducting precision weak-lensing measurements from space, the COSMOS survey has imaged the largest contiguous area observed by Hubble Space Telescope to date, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). This is the first paper in a series in which we describe our strategy for addressing the various technical challenges in the production of weak-lensing measurements from COSMOS data. We first construct a source catalog from 575 ACS/WFC tiles (1.64 deg2) subsampled at a pixel scale of 0.03''. Defects and diffraction spikes are carefully removed, leaving a total of 1.2 × 106 objects to a limiting magnitude of F814W = 26.5. This catalog is made publicly available. Multiwavelength follow-up observations of the COSMOS field provide photometric redshifts for 73% of the source galaxies in the lensing catalog. We analyze and discuss the COSMOS redshift distribution and show broad agreement with other surveys to z ~ 1. Our next step is to measure the shapes of galaxies and correct them for the distortion induced by the time-varying ACS point-spread function and for charge transfer efficiency (CTE) effects. Simulated images are used to derive the shear susceptibility factors that are necessary in transforming shape measurements into unbiased shear estimators. For every galaxy we derive a shape measurement error and utilize this quantity to extract the intrinsic shape noise of the galaxy sample. Interestingly, our results indicate that intrinsic shape noise varies little with size, magnitude, or redshift. Representing a number density of 66 galaxies per arcmin2, the final COSMOS weak-lensing catalog contains 3.9 × 105 galaxies with accurate shape measurements. The properties of the COSMOS weak-lensing catalog described throughout this paper will provide key input numbers for the preparation and design of next-generation wide field space missions.

Citation

Leauthaud, A., Massey, R., Kneib, J., Rhodes, J., Johnston, D. E., Capak, P., …Van Waerbeke, L. (2007). Weak gravitational lensing with COSMOS: Galaxy selection and shape measurements. Astrophysical Journal Supplement, 172(1), 219-238. https://doi.org/10.1086/516598

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Sep 1, 2007
Deposit Date Mar 21, 2013
Publicly Available Date May 6, 2015
Journal Astrophysical Journal Supplement
Print ISSN 0067-0049
Electronic ISSN 1538-4365
Publisher American Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 172
Issue 1
Pages 219-238
DOI https://doi.org/10.1086/516598

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Copyright Statement
© 2007. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.





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