Galaxy Ellipticity Measurements in the Near-Infrared for Weak Lensing

TL;DR

This study shows that near-infrared imaging, despite lower resolution, can provide as precise or better galaxy ellipticity measurements than optical imaging for weak lensing, especially at higher redshifts.

Contribution

It demonstrates that NIR imaging can improve ellipticity measurements in weak lensing surveys, highlighting the advantages of NIR over optical in terms of galaxy smoothness and surface brightness.

Findings

NIR and optical imaging perform similarly in ellipticity measurement at 0.5 < z < 3.

NIR-selected sources are 1.4 times denser at z > 1.0, reducing measurement errors.

NIR imaging yields more precise ellipticities despite lower resolution.

Abstract

We investigate the value of the near-infrared imaging from upcoming surveys for constraining the ellipticities of galaxies. We select galaxies between 0.5 < z < 3 that are brighter than expected Euclid sensitivity limits from the GOODS-S and N fields in CANDELS. The co-added CANDELS/HST V+I and J+H images are degraded in resolution and sensitivity to simulate Euclid-quality optical and near-infrared (NIR) images. We then run GALFIT on these simulated images and find that optical and NIR provide similar performance in measuring galaxy ellipticities at redshifts 0.5 < z < 3. At z > 1.0, the NIR-selected source density is higher by a factor of 1.4 and therefore the standard error in NIR-derived ellipticities is about 30% smaller, implying a more precise ellipticity measurement. The good performance of the NIR is mainly because galaxies have an intrinsically smoother light distribution in the NIR bands than in the optical, the latter tracing the clumpy star-forming regions. In addition, the NIR bands have a higher surface brightness per pixel than the optical images, while being less affected by dust attenuation. Despite the worse spatial sampling and resolution of Euclid NIR compared to optical, the NIR approach yields equivalent or more precise galaxy ellipticity measurements. If systematics that affect shape such as dithering strategy and point spread function undersampling can be mitigated, inclusion of the NIR can improve galaxy ellipticity measurements over all redshifts. This is particularly important for upcoming weak lensing surveys, such as with Euclid and WFIRST.