An analytic approach to number counts of weak-lensing peak detections

Details An analytic approach to number counts of weak-lensing peak detections An analytic approach to number counts of weak-lensing peak detections

2009-07-10

arxiv.org/abs/0907.1849v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

9 pages, 5 figures, submitted to A&A

Scientific paper

We develop and apply an analytic method to predict peak counts in weak-lensing surveys. It is based on the theory of Gaussian random fields and suitable to quantify the level of spurious detections caused by chance projections of large-scale structures as well as the shape and shot noise contributed by the background galaxies. We compare our method to peak counts obtained from numerical ray-tracing simulations and find good agreement at the expected level. The number of peak detections depends substantially on the shape and size of the filter applied to the gravitational shear field. Our main results are that weak-lensing peak counts are dominated by spurious detections up to signal-to-noise ratios of 3--5 and that most filters yield only a few detections per square degree above this level, while a filter optimised for suppressing large-scale structure noise returns up to an order of magnitude more.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

An analytic approach to number counts of weak-lensing peak detections does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with An analytic approach to number counts of weak-lensing peak detections, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and An analytic approach to number counts of weak-lensing peak detections will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-164879