Related papers: Chasing the peak: optimal statistics for weak shea…
We develop a method for performing a weak lensing analysis using only measurements of galaxy position angles. By analysing the statistical properties of the galaxy orientations given a known intrinsic ellipticity distribution, we show that…
In this paper we derive an exact full expression for the 2D probability distribution of the ellipticity of an object measured from data, only assuming Gaussian noise in pixel values. This is a generalisation of the probability distribution…
The intrinsic scatter in the ellipticities of galaxies about the mean shape, known as "shape noise," is the most important source of noise in weak lensing shear measurements. Several approaches to reducing shape noise have recently been put…
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…
Weak-lensing shear estimates show a troublesome dependence on the apparent brightness of the galaxies used to measure the ellipticity: In several studies, the amplitude of the inferred shear falls sharply with decreasing source…
Weak gravitational lensing has the potential to constrain cosmological parameters to high precision. However, as shown by the Shear TEsting Programmes (STEP) and GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing (GREAT) Challenges, measuring galaxy…
We extend the Bayesian model fitting shape measurement method presented in Miller et al. (2007) and use the method to estimate the shear from the Shear TEsting Programme simulations (STEP). The method uses a fast model fitting algorithm…
We derive an estimator of weak gravitational lensing shear from background galaxy images that avoids noise-induced biases through a rigorous Bayesian treatment of the measurement. The derived shear estimator disposes with the assignment of…
One of the most powerful techniques to study the dark sector of the Universe is weak gravitational lensing. In practice, to infer the reduced shear, weak lensing measures galaxy shapes, which are the consequence of both the intrinsic…
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…
We investigate the problem of noise bias in maximum likelihood and maximum a posteriori estimators for cosmic shear. We derive the leading and next-to-leading order biases and compute them in the context of galaxy ellipticity measurements,…
We show that galaxy ellipticity estimation for weak gravitational lensing with unweighted image moments reduces to the problem of measuring a combination of the means of three independent normal random variables. Under very general…
In weak gravitational lensing, weighted quadrupole moments of the brightness profile in galaxy images are a common way to estimate gravitational shear. We employ general adaptive moments (GLAM) to study causes of shear bias on a fundamental…
Gravitational lensing shear has the potential to be the most powerful tool for constraining the nature of dark energy. However, accurate measurement of galaxy shear is crucial and has been shown to be non-trivial by the Shear TEsting…
We describe a simple and fast method to correct ellipticity measurements of galaxies from the distortion by the instrumental and atmospheric point spread function (PSF), in view of weak lensing shear measurements. The method performs a…
Metacalibration is a recently introduced method to accurately measure weak gravitational lensing shear using only the available imaging data, without need for prior information about galaxy properties or calibration from simulations. The…
A likelihood-based method for measuring weak gravitational lensing shear in deep galaxy surveys is described and applied to the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS). CFHTLenS comprises 154 sq deg of multicolour…
We study the ellipticity of galaxy cluster halos as characterized by the distribution of cluster galaxies and as measured with weak lensing. We use monte-carlo simulations of elliptical cluster density profiles to estimate and correct for…
We study various measures of weak lensing distortions in future surveys, taking into account the noise arising from the finite survey size and the intrinsic ellipticity of galaxies. We also consider a realistic redshift distribution of the…
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…