Galaxy clustering with photometric surveys using PDF redshift information

Abstract

Photometric surveys produce large-area maps of the galaxy distribution, but with less accurate redshift information than is obtained from spectroscopic methods. Modern photometric redshift (photo-z) algorithms use galaxy magnitudes, or colors, that are obtained through multi-band imaging to produce a probability density function (PDF) for each galaxy in the map. We used simulated data to study the effect of using different photo-z estimators to assign galaxies to redshift bins in order to compare their effects on angular clustering and galaxy bias measurements. We found that if we use the entire PDF, rather than a single-point (mean or mode) estimate, the deviations are less biased, especially when using narrow redshift bins. When the redshift bin widths are $\Delta z=0.1$, the use of the entire PDF reduces the typical measurement bias from 5%, when using single point estimates, to 3%.

Matches the MNRAS published version. 19 pages, 19 Figures

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• The PAU Survey: Early demonstration of photometric redshift performance in the COSMOS field
• ADDGALS: Simulated Sky Catalogs for Wide Field Galaxy Surveys
• Cross-correlating Carbon Monoxide Line-intensity Maps with Spectroscopic and Photometric Galaxy Surveys
• Cross-Correlation Redshift Calibration Without Spectroscopic Calibration Samples in DES Science Verification Data
• Optimized Clustering Estimators for BAO Measurements Accounting for Significant Redshift Uncertainty
• Weak lensing magnification in the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification Data
• Environmental Quenching and Galactic Conformity in the Galaxy Cross-Correlation Signal
• The ALHAMBRA survey : $B-$band luminosity function of quiescent and star-forming galaxies at $0.2\le z<1$ by PDF analysis
• The 2-degree Field Lensing Survey: photometric redshifts from a large new training sample to r<19.5
• The PAU Survey: Photometric redshift estimation in deep wide fields
• Angular Correlation Function Estimators Accounting for Contamination from Probabilistic Distance Measurements
• Optimizing galaxy samples for clustering measurements in photometric surveys
• The galaxy environment in GAMA G3C groups using the Kilo Degree Survey Data Release 3
• Influence of photometric galaxies redshift distribution in BAO estimation