English

Multi-tracers, multi-surveys: a joint Fisher analysis of DESI+PFS

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-05-07 v2

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 14,000  deg214{,}000\;\mathrm{deg}^2 Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) footprint, including the  ⁣1,200  deg2\sim\!1{,}200\;\mathrm{deg}^2 Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) overlap at z[0.6,1.6]z\in[0.6,1.6] 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 σ(fσ8)\sigma(f\sigma_8) by 33%, σ(Mν)\sigma(M_\nu) by 80%, and σ(Ωm)\sigma(\Omega_m) by 49% over a single-tracer broad-prior baseline at kmax=0.20hMpc1k_{\rm max}=0.20\,h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}. Adding the PFS×\,\times\,DESI 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 b1σ8b_1\sigma_8 prior, tightened from a flat prior to σ0.13\sigma\approx 0.13, which breaks the b1σ8b_1\sigma_8--fσ8f\sigma_8 degeneracy of single-tracer analyses. The multi-tracer multi-survey approach targets the same b1b_1 calibration as SBPs, using observed cross-spectra rather than HOD mocks as a model-independent check on SBP-driven b1σ8b_1\sigma_8 shifts. The framework extends to any number of overlapping spectroscopic surveys.

Keywords

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!