Abstract
In this paper, we present and validate the galaxy sample used for the analysis of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) signal in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Y6 data. The definition is based on a color and redshift-dependent magnitude cut optimized to select galaxies at redshifts higher than 0.6, while ensuring a high-quality photo-z determination. The optimization is performed using a Fisher forecast algorithm, finding the optimal i-magnitude cut to be given by i<19.64+2.894zph. For the optimal sample, we forecast an increase in precision in the BAO measurement of ∼25% with respect to the Y3 analysis. Our BAO sample has a total of 15,937,556 galaxies in the redshift range 0.6<zph<1.2, and its angular mask covers 4,273.42 deg2 to a depth of i=22.5. We validate its redshift distributions with three different methods: directional neighborhood fitting algorithm (DNF), which is our primary photo-z estimation; direct calibration with spectroscopic redshifts from VIPERS, which is a spectroscopic galaxy sample that overlaps with our BAO sample and is complete within our selection cuts; and clustering redshift using SDSS galaxies. The fiducial redshift distribution is a combination of these three techniques performed by modifying the mean and width of the DNF distributions to match those of VIPERS and clustering redshift. In this paper, we also describe the methodology used to mitigate the effect of observational systematics, which is analogous to the one used in the Y3 analysis. This paper is one of the two dedicated to the analysis of the BAO signal in DES Y6. In its companion paper, we present the angular diameter distance constraints obtained through the fitting to the BAO scale.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 063514 |
| Journal | Physical Review D |
| Volume | 110 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 15 2024 |
Funding
A. Po. acknowledges support from the European Union\u2019s Horizon Europe program under the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Grant No. 101068581. K.\u2009C.\u2009C. is supported by the National Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 12273121 and the science research grants from the China Manned Space Project. H.\u2009C. is supported by FAPESP and CNPq. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Funda\u00E7\u00E3o Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo \u00E0 Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient\u00EDfico e Tecnol\u00F3gico and the Minist\u00E9rio da Ci\u00EAncia, Tecnologia e Inova\u00E7\u00E3o, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energ\u00E9ticas, Medioambientales y Tecnol\u00F3gicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgen\u00F6ssische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Z\u00FCrich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Institut de Ci\u00E8ncies de l\u2019Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de F\u00EDsica d\u2019Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universit\u00E4t M\u00FCnchen and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, NSF\u2019s NOIRLab, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University and the OzDES Membership Consortium. Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory at NSF\u2019s NOIRLab (NOIRLab Prop. ID 2012B-0001; PI: J. Frieman), which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MICINN under Grant Nos. PID2021-123012, PID2021-128989, PID2022-141079, SEV-2016-0588, CEX2020-001058-M, and CEX2020-001007-S, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. I.\u2009F.\u2009A.\u2009E. is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya.Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union\u2019s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC Grant Nos. 240672, 291329 and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia (INCT) do e-Universo (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. This paper uses data from the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS). VIPERS has been performed using the ESO Very Large Telescope, under the \u201CLarge Programme\u201D 182.A-0886. The participating institutions and funding agencies are listed at http://vipers.inaf.it . A. Po. acknowledges support from the European Union's Horizon Europe program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant No. 101068581. K.C.C. is supported by the National Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 12273121 and the science research grants from the China Manned Space Project. H.C. is supported by FAPESP and CNPq. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnolegico and the Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnolegicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgenessische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, NSF's NOIRLab, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University and the OzDES Membership Consortium. Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory at NSF's NOIRLab (NOIRLab Prop. ID 2012B-0001; PI: J. Frieman), which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MICINN under Grant Nos. PID2021-123012, PID2021-128989, PID2022-141079, SEV-2016-0588, CEX2020-001058-M, and CEX2020-001007-S, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. I.F.A.E. is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC Grant Nos. 240672, 291329 and 306478. We acknowledge support from the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia (INCT) do e-Universo (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). This manuscript has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. This paper uses data from the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS). VIPERS has been performed using the ESO Very Large Telescope, under the Large Programme 182.A-0886. The participating institutions and funding agencies are listed at.