Previous   |   Session 69   |   Next

[69.18] Photometric Redshift Simulations for the Dark Energy Survey

H. Lin (Fermilab), C. Cunha, M. Lima, H. Oyaizu, J. Frieman (U. Chicago), A. Collister (Cambridge), O. Lahav (UCL), Dark Energy Survey Collaboration

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a 5000 sq. deg. griz imaging survey to be conducted using a proposed 3 sq. deg. wide-field mosaic camera on the CTIO Blanco 4m telescope. The primary scientific goal of the DES is to constrain dark energy cosmological parameters via 4 complementary methods: galaxy clusters, weak lensing, galaxy angular correlations, and Type Ia supernovae. Crucial to DES science is the measurement of well-understood photometric redshifts, derived from the survey griz imaging, for both cluster and field galaxies alike. Here we present the results of photometric redshift simulations for the DES, showing in particular comparisons and optimizations of photometric redshift error distributions, as derived from a number of different photometric redshift techniques, including template fitting, polynomial fitting, neural networks, and hybrid methods. We also examine the issues of the size of the necessary spectroscopic redshift training sample, and of the choice of filter set, including the benefits of adding complementary near-IR imaging data.

Previous   |   Session 69   |   Next

Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.