Intrinsic alignment from multiple shear estimates: a first application to data and forecasts for stage IV

Abstract

ABSTRACT Without mitigation, the intrinsic alignment (IA) of galaxies poses a significant threat to achieving unbiased cosmological parameter constraints from precision weak lensing surveys. Here, we apply for the first time to data a method to extract the scale dependence of the IA contribution to galaxy–galaxy lensing, which takes advantage of the difference in alignment signal as measured by shear estimators with different sensitivities to galactic radii. Using data from Year 1 of the Dark Energy Survey, with shear estimators METACALIBRATION and IM3SHAPE, we investigate and address method systematics including non-trivial selection functions, differences in weighting between estimators, and multiplicative bias. We obtain a null detection of IA, which appears qualitatively consistent with existing work. We then forecast the application of this method to Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) data and place requirements on a pair of shear estimators for detecting IA and constraining its 1-halo scale dependence. We find that for LSST Year 1, shear estimators should have at least a 40 per cent difference in IA amplitude, and the Pearson correlation coefficient of their shape noise should be at least ρ = 0.50, to ensure a 1σ detection of IA and a constraint on its 1-halo scale dependence with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 1. For Year 10, a 1σ detection and constraint become possible for 20 per cent differences in alignment amplitude and ρ = 0.50.