Multi-tracers, multi-surveys: a joint Fisher analysis of DESI+PFS
Abstract
Marginalizing over roughly 12 effective-field-theory (EFT) nuisance parameters per tracer per redshift bin is a dominant systematic cost in full-shape galaxy power spectrum analyses. Simulation-based priors (SBP) tighten these parameters but rely on N-body simulations and halo-occupation-distribution (HOD) models. We propose a multi-tracer Fisher analysis as a model-independent alternative: cross-spectra between galaxy populations calibrate EFT bias and stochastic parameters from data alone, through two channels -- within a survey and across overlapping surveys -- combined in a volume-partitioned joint Fisher. We forecast across the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) footprint, including the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) overlap at with up to 4 tracers (PFS-ELG, DESI-ELG, DESI-LRG, DESI-QSO). The internal-DESI channel (LRG, ELG, and QSO over the full footprint) provides most of the gain, improving by 33%, by 80%, and by 49% over a single-tracer broad-prior baseline at . Adding the PFSDESI overlap further tightens these by 9%, 24%, and 9%, respectively, after marginalizing over residual cross-population stochasticity. A parameter-importance decomposition shows that the dominant driver is calibration of the prior, tightened from a flat prior to , which breaks the -- degeneracy of single-tracer analyses. The multi-tracer multi-survey approach targets the same calibration as SBPs, using observed cross-spectra rather than HOD mocks as a model-independent check on SBP-driven shifts. The framework extends to any number of overlapping spectroscopic surveys.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.25171,
title = {Multi-tracers, multi-surveys: a joint Fisher analysis of DESI+PFS},
author = {Nhat-Minh Nguyen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.25171},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
15+9 pages, most likely too many words; 6 tables, 9 figures; main results in Figure 2-3. Code is available at this repo: https://github.com/MinhMPA/PFSxDESI-multi-fish. It takes two. v2: Revise PFS survey specs to follow PFS whitepaper; expand analysis scope, reframe discussions and update tracer cross-stochasticity modeling; submitted to JCAP. Comments still welcome!