Euclid preparation XXVI. The Euclid Morphology Challenge. Towards structural parameters for billions of galaxies
Abstract
The various Euclid imaging surveys will become a reference for studies of galaxy morphology by delivering imaging over an unprecedented area of 15 000 square degrees with high spatial resolution. In order to understand the capabilities of measuring morphologies from Euclid-detected galaxies and to help implement measurements in the pipeline, we have conducted the Euclid Morphology Challenge, which we present in two papers. While the companion paper by Merlin et al. focuses on the analysis of photometry, this paper assesses the accuracy of the parametric galaxy morphology measurements in imaging predicted from within the Euclid Wide Survey. We evaluate the performance of five state-of-the-art surface-brightness-fitting codes DeepLeGATo, Galapagos-2, Morfometryka, Profit and SourceXtractor++ on a sample of about 1.5 million simulated galaxies resembling reduced observations with the Euclid VIS and NIR instruments. The simulations include analytic S\'ersic profiles with one and two components, as well as more realistic galaxies generated with neural networks. We find that, despite some code-specific differences, all methods tend to achieve reliable structural measurements (10% scatter on ideal S\'ersic simulations) down to an apparent magnitude of about 23 in one component and 21 in two components, which correspond to a signal-to-noise ratio of approximately 1 and 5 respectively. We also show that when tested on non-analytic profiles, the results are typically degraded by a factor of 3, driven by systematics. We conclude that the Euclid official Data Releases will deliver robust structural parameters for at least 400 million galaxies in the Euclid Wide Survey by the end of the mission. We find that a key factor for explaining the different behaviour of the codes at the faint end is the set of adopted priors for the various structural parameters.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2209.12907,
title = {Euclid preparation XXVI. The Euclid Morphology Challenge. Towards structural parameters for billions of galaxies},
author = {Euclid Collaboration and H. Bretonnière and U. Kuchner and M. Huertas-Company and E. Merlin and M. Castellano and D. Tuccillo and F. Buitrago and C. J. Conselice and A. Boucaud and B. Häußler and M. Kümmel and W. G. Hartley and A. Alvarez Ayllon and E. Bertin and F. Ferrari and L. Ferreira and R. Gavazzi and D. Hernández-Lang and G. Lucatelli and A. S. G. Robotham and M. Schefer and L. Wang and R. Cabanac and H. Domínguez Sánchez and P. -A. Duc and S. Fotopoulou and S. Kruk and A. La Marca and B. Margalef-Bentabol and F. R. Marleau and C. Tortora and N. Aghanim and A. Amara and N. Auricchio and R. Azzollini and M. Baldi and R. Bender and C. Bodendorf and E. Branchini and M. Brescia and J. Brinchmann and S. Camera and V. Capobianco and C. Carbone and J. Carretero and F. J. Castander and S. Cavuoti and A. Cimatti and R. Cledassou and G. Congedo and L. Conversi and Y. Copin and L. Corcione and F. Courbin and M. Cropper and A. Da Silva and H. Degaudenzi and J. Dinis and F. Dubath and C. A. J. Duncan and X. Dupac and S. Dusini and S. Farrens and S. Ferriol and M. Frailis and E. Franceschi and M. Fumana and S. Galeotta and B. Garilli and B. Gillis and C. Giocoli and A. Grazian and F. Grupp and S. V. H. Haugan and H. Hoekstra and W. Holmes and F. Hormuth and A. Hornstrup and P. Hudelot and K. Jahnke and S. Kermiche and A. Kiessling and R. Kohley and M. Kunz and H. Kurki-Suonio and S. Ligori and P. B. Lilje and I. Lloro and O. Mansutti and O. Marggraf and K. Markovic and F. Marulli and R. Massey and H. J. McCracken and E. Medinaceli and M. Melchior and M. Meneghetti and G. Meylan and M. Moresco and L. Moscardini and E. Munari and S. M. Niemi and C. Padilla and S. Paltani and F. Pasian and K. Pedersen and W. Percival and V. Pettorino and G. Polenta and M. Poncet and L. Pozzetti and F. Raison and R. Rebolo and A. Renzi and J. Rhodes and G. Riccio and E. Romelli and C. Rosset and E. Rossetti and R. Saglia and D. Sapone and B. Sartoris and P. Schneider and A. Secroun and G. Seidel and C. Sirignano and G. Sirri and J. Skottfelt and J. -L. Starck and P. Tallada-Crespí and A. N. Taylor and I. Tereno and R. Toledo-Moreo and I. Tutusaus and E. A. Valentijn and L. Valenziano and T. Vassallo and Y. Wang and J. Weller and G. Zamorani and J. Zoubian and S. Andreon and S. Bardelli and C. Colodro-Conde and D. Di Ferdinando and J. Graciá-Carpio and V. Lindholm and N. Mauri and S. Mei and V. Scottez and E. Zucca and C. Baccigalupi and M. Ballardini and F. Bernardeau and A. Biviano and S. Borgani and A. S. Borlaff and C. Burigana and A. Cappi and C. S. Carvalho and S. Casas and G. Castignani and A. R. Cooray and J. Coupon and H. M. Courtois and S. Davini and G. De Lucia and G. Desprez and J. A. Escartin and S. Escoffier and M. Fabricius and M. Farina and A. Fontana and K. Ganga and J. Garcia-Bellido and K. George and G. Gozaliasl and H. Hildebrandt and I. Hook and O. Ilbert and S. Ilić and B. Joachimi and V. Kansal and E. Keihanen and C. C. Kirkpatrick and A. Loureiro and J. Macias-Perez and M. Magliocchetti and R. Maoli and S. Marcin and M. Martinelli and N. Martinet and M. Maturi and P. Monaco and G. Morgante and S. Nadathur and A. A. Nucita and L. Patrizii and V. Popa and C. Porciani and D. Potter and A. Pourtsidou and M. Pöntinen and P. Reimberg and A. G. Sánchez and Z. Sakr and M. Schirmer and E. Sefusatti and M. Sereno and J. Stadel and R. Teyssier and J. Valiviita and S. E. van Mierlo and A. Veropalumbo and M. Viel and J. R. Weaver and D. Scott},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.12907},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
Accepted by A&A. 30 pages, 23+6 figures, Euclid pre-launch key paper. Companion paper: Euclid Collaboration XXV: Merlin et al. 2022 Minor corrections after journal review