Analyzing Deep Imaging Data: State of the art algorithms for weak lensing and galaxy formation

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。施特劳斯博士和他的团队将开发一个软件管道，以系统的方式分析来自大型天空调查的图像，以优化它们对弱透镜测量的使用：来自遥远星系的光在到达我们望远镜的途中被所有物质的引力所弯曲，扭曲了我们看到的星系的形状。该软件将描述望远镜的点扩散函数及其在观测场中的变化，并以自洽和统计严谨的方式分析给定场的多次曝光。该团队将改进观测到的“透镜”星系形状的测量方法，并试验表征其固有形状的方法。他们将把他们的代码应用于加拿大-法国-夏威夷遗产调查的原始数据，这些数据现在已经公开。他们对弱透镜信号的测量（表明质量在最大尺度上聚集的强度）将得出完全独立于调查小组的结果。这些数据将使研究1附近红移的星系特性成为可能，当宇宙膨胀到现在大小的一半时，它们就会被看到，与斯隆数字巡天中只有十分之一的红移所提供的精度大致相同。通过参与研究，培养一名博士后。校正后的光度表将公开，包括详细的形状测量和光度红移。软件工具也将公开。这些和获得的见解都将适用于下一代广角调查，这也旨在测量弱透镜信号。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Dr Strauss and his team will develop a software pipeline to analyze images from large sky surveys in a systematic way to optimize their use for weak-lensing measurements: light from a distant galaxy is bent by the gravity of all the matter that it passes by on its way to our telescopes, distorting the shape of the galaxy as we see it. The software will characterize the point spread function of the telescope and its variation across the observed field, and analyze multiple exposures of a given field in a self-consistent and statistically rigorous way. The team will both improve measurements of the observed shapes of the 'lensed' galaxies, and experiment with methods to characterize their intrinsic shapes. They will apply their code to raw data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Legacy Survey, which is now public. Their measurement of the weak-lensing signal (an indication of how strongly mass is clumped on the largest scales) will give results completely independent from those of that survey team. These data will enable the study of galaxy properties at redshifts around one, which are seen as they were when the cosmos had expanded to only half its present size, with roughly the same precision as that available at redshifts of only a tenth from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.A postdoctoral scholar will be trained by participating in the research. The calibrated photometric catalogs will be made public, with the detailed shape measurements and photometric redshifts. The software tools will also be made public. Both those and the insights gained will be applicable to the next generation of wide-angle surveys, which also aim to measure weak-lensing signals.