Weak lensing mass-richness relation of redMaPPer clusters in the LSST DESC DC2 simulations

TL;DR

This study constrains the mass-richness relation of galaxy clusters detected by redMaPPer in LSST simulations using weak lensing, accounting for biases and uncertainties, and demonstrates the robustness of these constraints.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the mass-richness relation in LSST-like simulations, including bias mitigation strategies and covariance effects.

Findings

Constraints are robust to modeling choices with perfect source redshift knowledge.

Photometric redshift uncertainties can bias results but are correctable.

Including shear-richness covariance affects the mass estimates by up to 0.5σ.

Abstract

Cluster scaling relations are key ingredients in cluster abundance-based cosmological studies. In optical cluster cosmology, where clusters are detected through their richness, cluster-weak gravitational lensing has proven to be a powerful tool to constrain the cluster mass-richness relation. This work is conducted as part of the Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC), which aims to analyze the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, starting in 2026. Weak lensing-inferred cluster properties, such as mass, suffer from several sources of bias. We constrain the mass-richness relation of 3,600 clusters detected by the redMaPPer algorithm in the cosmoDC2 extra-galactic mock catalog of the LSST DESC DC2 simulation, covering 440 square degrees, using number count measurements and either stacked weak lensing profiles or mean cluster masses in intervals of richness ($20 < \lambda < 200$) and redshift ($0.2 < z < 1$). We find that, for an LSST-like source galaxy density, our constraints are robust to changes in the concentration-mass relation and dark matter density profile modeling choices, when source redshifts and shapes are perfectly known. We find that photometric redshift uncertainties can introduce bias at the 1$\sigma$ level, which can be mitigated by an overall correction factor, fitted jointly with the scaling parameters. We find that including positive shear-richness covariance in the fit shifts the results by up to 0.5$\sigma$. Our constraints also compare fairly to a fiducial mass-richness relation, obtained from matching cosmoDC2 halo masses to redMaPPer-detected cluster richnesses.