Characterizing and Propagating Modeling Uncertainties in Photometrically Derived Redshift Distributions

The uncertainty in the redshift distributions of galaxies has a significant potential impact on the cosmological parameter values inferred from multi-band imaging surveys. The accuracy of the photometric redshifts measured in these surveys depends not only on the quality of the flux data, but also o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2011-06, Vol.734 (1), p.36-jQuery1323907683036='48'
Main Authors: Abrahamse, Augusta, Knox, Lloyd, Schmidt, Samuel, Thorman, Paul, Anthony Tyson, J, Zhan, Hu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ACCURACY
Astronomy
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
DISTRIBUTION
Earth, ocean, space
ENERGY SPECTRA
Exact sciences and technology
GALAXIES
PHOTOMETRY
RED SHIFT
SIMULATION
SPECTRA
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Summary:The uncertainty in the redshift distributions of galaxies has a significant potential impact on the cosmological parameter values inferred from multi-band imaging surveys. The accuracy of the photometric redshifts measured in these surveys depends not only on the quality of the flux data, but also on a number of modeling assumptions that enter into both the training set and spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting methods of photometric redshift estimation. In this work we focus on the latter, considering two types of modeling uncertainties: uncertainties in the SED template set and uncertainties in the magnitude and type priors used in a Bayesian photometric redshift estimation method. We find that SED template selection effects dominate over magnitude prior errors. We introduce a method for parameterizing the resulting ignorance of the redshift distributions, and for propagating these uncertainties to uncertainties in cosmological parameters.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/734/1/36