Related papers: Cosmic Shear Measurement using Autoconvolved Image…
We propose to measure the weak cosmic shear using the spatial derivatives of the galaxy surface brightness field. The measurement should be carried out in Fourier space, in which the point spread function (PSF) can be transformed to a…
Cosmic shear measurements rely on our ability to measure and correct the Point Spread Function (PSF) of the observations. This PSF is measured using stars in the field, which give a noisy measure at random points in the field. Using Wiener…
A long standing problem in weak lensing is about how to construct cosmic shear estimators from galaxy images. Conventional methods average over a single quantity per galaxy to estimate each shear component. We show that any such shear…
Images taken by space telescopes typically have a superb spatial resolution, but a relatively poor sampling rate due to the finite CCD pixel size. Beyond the Nyquist limit, it becomes uncertain how much the pixelation effect may affect the…
For cosmic shear to become an accurate cosmological probe, systematic errors in the shear measurement method must be unambiguously identified and corrected for. Previous work of this series has demonstrated that cosmic shears can be…
We have developed a new technique for weak lensing analysis, with which the effect of the point spread function (PSF) on small galaxy images can be corrected for accurately. Rather than relying on weighted second moments of detected images,…
Current and future imaging surveys will measure cosmic shear with a statistical precision that demands a deeper understanding of potential systematic biases in galaxy shape measurements than has been achieved to date. We investigate the…
Cosmic shear has been identified as the method with the most potential to constrain dark energy. To capitalise on this potential it is necessary to measure galaxy shapes with great accuracy, which in turn requires a detailed model for the…
Since cosmic shear was first observed in 2000, it has become a key cosmological probe and promises to deliver exquisite dark energy constraints. However, shear is inferred from coherent distortions of galaxy shapes, and the relation between…
Statistics of the weak lensing of galaxies can be used to constrain cosmology if the galaxy shear can be estimated accurately. In general this requires accurate modelling of unlensed galaxy shapes and the point spread function (PSF). I…
Dedicated 'Stage IV' observatories will soon observe the entire extragalactic sky, to measure the 'cosmic shear' distortion of galaxy shapes by weak gravitational lensing. To measure the apparent shapes of those galaxies, we present an…
Cosmic shear requires high precision measurement of galaxy shapes in the presence of the observational Point Spread Function (PSF) that smears out the image. The PSF must therefore be known for each galaxy to a high accuracy. However, for…
Weak lensing by large-scale structure is an invaluable cosmological tool given that most of the energy density of the concordance cosmology is invisible. Several large ground-based imaging surveys will attempt to measure this effect over…
We investigate the extent to which cosmic size magnification may be used to com- plement cosmic shear in weak gravitational lensing surveys, with a view to obtaining high-precision estimates of cosmological parameters. Using simulated…
Given a galaxy image, one cannot simply measure its flexion. An image's spin one and three shape properties, typically associated with F- and G-flexion, are actually complicated functions of the galaxy's intrinsic shape and the telescope's…
We propose easy ways of correcting for the systematic errors caused by the photon noise and the pixelation effect in cosmic shear measurements. Our treatment of noise can reliably remove the noise contamination to the cosmic shear even when…
We present the theoretical and analytical bases of optimal techniques to measure weak gravitational shear from images of galaxies. We first characterize the geometric space of shears and ellipticity, then use this geometric interpretation…
We investigate cosmological parameter inference from realistic simulated weak lensing image data using only galaxy position angles, as opposed to full-ellipticity information. We demonstrate that input shear fields can be accurately…
We present a new shear estimator for weak lensing observations which properly accounts for the effects of a realistic point spread function (PSF). Images of faint galaxies are subject to gravitational shearing followed by smearing with the…
The tilt, rotation, or offset of each CCD with respect to the focal plane, as well as the distortion of the focal plane itself, cause shape distortions to the observed objects, an effect typically known as field distortion (FD). We point…