Instrumental systematics and weak gravitational lensing

TL;DR

This paper reviews the process of weak gravitational lensing measurement, focusing on instrumental systematics, their impact on dark matter and dark energy studies, and future directions for reducing systematic errors.

Contribution

It provides a pedagogical overview of systematic errors in weak lensing and discusses how instrumental systematics influence cosmological measurements.

Findings

Systematic errors significantly affect weak lensing measurements.

Instrumental systematics can be parametrized to assess their impact.

Future improvements are needed to mitigate instrumental systematics.

Abstract

We present a pedagogical review of the weak gravitational lensing measurement process and its connection to major scientific questions such as dark matter and dark energy. Then we describe common ways of parametrizing systematic errors and understanding how they affect weak lensing measurements. Finally, we discuss several instrumental systematics and how they fit into this context, and conclude with some future perspective on how progress can be made in understanding the impact of instrumental systematics on weak lensing measurements.