Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing

McCleary, Jacqueline E.; Everett, Spencer W.; Shaaban, Mohamed M.; Gill, Ajay S.; Vassilakis, Georgios N.; Huff, Eric M.; Massey, Richard J.; Benton, Steven J.; Brown, Anthony M.; Clark, Paul; Holder, Bradley; Fraisse, Aurelien A.; Jauzac, Mathilde; Jones, William C.; Lagattuta, David; Leung, Jason S.-Y.; Li, Lun; T. Luu, Thuy Vy; Nagy, Johanna M.; Netterfield, C. Barth; Paracha, Emaad; Redmond, Susan F.; Rhodes, Jason D.; Schmoll, Jürgen; Sirks, Ellen; Tam, Sut Ieng

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.

Citation

McCleary, J. E., Everett, S. W., Shaaban, M. M., Gill, A. S., Vassilakis, G. N., Huff, E. M., …Tam, S. I. (2023). Lensing in the Blue. II. Estimating the Sensitivity of Stratospheric Balloons to Weak Gravitational Lensing. Astronomical Journal, 166(3), https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ace7ca

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 15, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Aug 31, 2023
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Feb 21, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 21, 2024
• Journal: The Astronomical Journal
• Print ISSN: 0004-6256
• Electronic ISSN: 1538-3881
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 166
• Issue: 3
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ace7ca
• Keywords: Space and Planetary Science; Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2271781