The Astronomical Journal (Jan 2023)
Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing
- Jacqueline E. McCleary,
- Spencer W. Everett,
- Mohamed M. Shaaban,
- Ajay S. Gill,
- Georgios N. Vassilakis,
- Eric M. Huff,
- Richard J. Massey,
- Steven J. Benton,
- Anthony M. Brown,
- Paul Clark,
- Bradley Holder,
- Aurelien A. Fraisse,
- Mathilde Jauzac,
- William C. Jones,
- David Lagattuta,
- Jason S.-Y. Leung,
- Lun Li,
- Thuy Vy T. Luu,
- Johanna M. Nagy,
- C. Barth Netterfield,
- Emaad Paracha,
- Susan F. Redmond,
- Jason D. Rhodes,
- Jürgen Schmoll,
- Ellen Sirks,
- Sut Ieng Tam
Affiliations
- Jacqueline E. McCleary
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Northeastern University , 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA ; [email protected]
- Spencer W. Everett
- ORCiD
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology , 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA, USA
- Mohamed M. Shaaban
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Toronto , 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada; Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Ajay S. Gill
- ORCiD
- Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Georgios N. Vassilakis
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Northeastern University , 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, USA ; [email protected]
- Eric M. Huff
- ORCiD
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology , 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA, USA
- Richard J. Massey
- ORCiD
- Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK; Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University , Durham DH1 3LE, UK; Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI), Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
- Steven J. Benton
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Princeton University , Jadwin Hall, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Anthony M. Brown
- Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University , Durham DH1 3LE, UK; Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI), Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
- Paul Clark
- Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI), Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
- Bradley Holder
- Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada; University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) , 4925 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Aurelien A. Fraisse
- Department of Physics, Princeton University , Jadwin Hall, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Mathilde Jauzac
- ORCiD
- Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK; Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University , Durham DH1 3LE, UK
- William C. Jones
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Princeton University , Jadwin Hall, Princeton, NJ, USA
- David Lagattuta
- ORCiD
- Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University , Durham DH1 3LE, UK
- Jason S.-Y. Leung
- ORCiD
- Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Lun Li
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Princeton University , Jadwin Hall, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Thuy Vy T. Luu
- Department of Physics, Princeton University , Jadwin Hall, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Johanna M. Nagy
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Washington University in St. Louis , 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA , 63130; McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis , 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
- C. Barth Netterfield
- Department of Physics, University of Toronto , 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada; Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Astronomy, University of Toronto , 50 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Emaad Paracha
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Toronto , 60 St. George Street, Toronto, ON, Canada
- Susan F. Redmond
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Princeton University , Jadwin Hall, Princeton, NJ, USA
- Jason D. Rhodes
- ORCiD
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology , 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA, USA
- Jürgen Schmoll
- ORCiD
- Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI), Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
- Ellen Sirks
- ORCiD
- Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK; Sydney Consortium for Particle Physics and Cosmology, School of Physics, The University of Sydney , NSW 2006, Australia
- Sut Ieng Tam
- Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) , No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ace7ca
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 166,
no. 3
p. 134
Abstract
The Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope ( SuperBIT ) is a diffraction-limited, wide-field, 0.5 m, near-infrared to near-ultraviolet observatory designed to exploit the stratosphere’s space-like conditions. SuperBIT ’s 2023 science flight will deliver deep, blue imaging of galaxy clusters for gravitational lensing analysis. In preparation, we have developed a weak-lensing measurement pipeline with modern algorithms for PSF characterization, shape measurement, and shear calibration. We validate our pipeline and forecast SuperBIT survey properties with simulated galaxy cluster observations in SuperBIT ’s near-UV and blue bandpasses. We predict imaging depth, galaxy number (source) density, and redshift distribution for observations in SuperBIT ’s three bluest filters; the effect of lensing sample selections is also considered. We find that, in three hours of on-sky integration, SuperBIT can attain a depth of b = 26 mag and a total source density exceeding 40 galaxies per square arcminute. Even with the application of lensing-analysis catalog selections, we find b -band source densities between 25 and 30 galaxies per square arcminute with a median redshift of z = 1.1. Our analysis confirms SuperBIT ’s capability for weak gravitational lensing measurements in the blue.
Keywords
