Radio Weak Gravitational Lensing with VLA and MERLIN

TL;DR

This paper presents the first measurement of shear estimators in radio data from VLA and MERLIN, compares them with optical data, and explores the potential of radio-optical cross-correlation for weak lensing cosmology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel radio weak lensing analysis using combined VLA and MERLIN data, and demonstrates the utility of cross-correlating radio and optical shear estimators to reduce systematics.

Findings

Radio shear estimator distribution is similar to optical in Hubble Deep Field North.

No correlation found between optical and radio intrinsic ellipticities.

Radio-optical shear cross-correlation can help mitigate systematic errors.

Abstract

We carry out an exploratory weak gravitational lensing analysis on a combined VLA and MERLIN radio data set: a deep (3.3 micro-Jy beam^-1 rms noise) 1.4 GHz image of the Hubble Deep Field North. We measure the shear estimator distribution at this radio sensitivity for the first time, finding a similar distribution to that of optical shear estimators for HST ACS data in this field. We examine the residual systematics in shear estimation for the radio data, and give cosmological constraints from radio-optical shear cross-correlation functions. We emphasize the utility of cross-correlating shear estimators from radio and optical data in order to reduce the impact of systematics. Unexpectedly we find no evidence of correlation between optical and radio intrinsic ellipticities of matched objects; this result improves the properties of optical-radio lensing cross-correlations. We explore the ellipticity distribution of the radio counterparts to optical sources statistically, confirming the lack of correlation; as a result we suggest a connected statistical approach to radio shear measurements.