Cosmology from HSC Y1 Weak Lensing with Combined Higher-Order Statistics and Simulation-based Inference

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that combining higher-order non-Gaussian statistics with simulation-based inference from HSC Y1 data significantly improves cosmological parameter constraints, especially on matter density and structure growth.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of simulation-based inference with higher-order statistics to weak lensing data, enhancing cosmological constraints without assuming likelihood forms.

Findings

Non-Gaussian statistics tighten constraints on S8 by ~25%.

Minkowski functionals are key to the improved constraints.

Results are consistent with Planck 2018 and previous HSC analyses.

Abstract

We present cosmological constraints from weak lensing with the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) first-year (Y1) data, using a simulation-based inference (SBI) method. % We explore the performance of a set of higher-order statistics (HOS) including the Minkowski functionals, counts of peaks and minima, and the probability distribution function and compare them to the traditional two-point statistics. The HOS, also known as non-Gaussian statistics, can extract additional non-Gaussian information that is inaccessible to the two-point statistics. We use a neural network to compress the summary statistics, followed by an SBI approach to infer the posterior distribution of the cosmological parameters. We apply cuts on angular scales and redshift bins to mitigate the impact of systematic effects. Combining two-point and non-Gaussian statistics, we obtain $S_8 \equiv \sigma_8 \sqrt{\Omega_m/0.3} = 0.804_{-0.040}^{+0.041}$ and $\Omega_m = 0.344_{-0.090}^{+0.083}$, similar to that from non-Gaussian statistics alone. These results are consistent with previous HSC analyses and Planck 2018 cosmology. Our constraints from non-Gaussian statistics are $\sim 25\%$ tighter in $S_8$ than two-point statistics, where the main improvement lies in $\Omega_m$, with $\sim 40$\% tighter error bar compared to using the angular power spectrum alone ($S_8 = 0.766_{-0.056}^{+0.054}$ and $\Omega_m = 0.365_{-0.141}^{+0.148}$). We find that, among the non-Gaussian statistics we studied, the Minkowski functionals are the primary driver for this improvement. Our analyses confirm the SBI as a powerful approach for cosmological constraints, avoiding any assumptions about the functional form of the data's likelihood.