Cosmological constraining power of the redshifts, heights, and angular clustering of weak gravitational lensing peaks
5 affiliations
- 1Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University , PO Box 9506, NL-2300 RA Leiden ,
- 2Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , PO Box 9513, NL-2300 RA Leiden ,
- 3Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University , Liverpool L3 5RF ,
- 4Department of Physics, Institute for Computational Cosmology, University of Durham , South Road, Durham DH1 3LE ,
- 5Mathematical Institute, Leiden University , PO Box 9512, NL-2300 RA Leiden ,
Abstract
Weak gravitational lensing (WL) peaks probe non-Gaussian information of the large-scale distribution of matter that is not captured by two-point lensing statistics. We study the cosmological potential of the height distribution, redshift distribution, and angular clustering of high-valued WL peaks using a Bayesian inference approach that mimics a it Euclid analysis. We use a forthcoming dark-matter-only hypercube, which varies cosmology in a ten-dimensional space, including evolving dark energy, neutrino mass, decaying dark matter, and the running of the scalar spectral index. We find the individual WL peak statistics to be complementary, as the redshift distribution best constrains the matter density, Ω m, and the dark energy equation-of-state parameters, w0, and wa; the height distribution and angular clustering are most sensitive to the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum, ln (1010As); while combining the three statistics allows us to also probe the baryon density, Ω b, and the Hubble parameter, h. A comparison to the shear two-point correlation function demonstrates that WL peaks alone outperform the commonly used statistics, while even tighter constraints are obtained when combining all. Considering the two-dimensional Ω m−ln (1010As) and w0−wa parameter planes, we find that the redshift distribution outperforms the angular clustering and peak-height distributions. We study the impact of the smoothing scale and find that, typically, the smallest scales yield the best results and the figure of merit improves by a factor of ≈ 2 when combining multiple scales.
Versions
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BibTeX
@article{broxterman2026cosmological,
title = {{Cosmological constraining power of the redshifts, heights, and angular clustering of weak gravitational lensing peaks}},
author = {Jeger C Broxterman and Matthieu Schaller and Ian G McCarthy and Willem Elbers and John Helly and Henk Hoekstra and Konrad Kuijken and Jaime Salcido and Joop Schaye and Naomi Schutte and Elena Sellentin},
journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1093/mnras/stag1905},
url = {https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag1905/8885810},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Cosmological constraining power of the redshifts, heights, and angular clustering of weak gravitational lensing peaks
AU - Jeger C Broxterman
AU - Matthieu Schaller
AU - Ian G McCarthy
AU - Willem Elbers
AU - John Helly
AU - Henk Hoekstra
AU - Konrad Kuijken
AU - Jaime Salcido
AU - Joop Schaye
AU - Naomi Schutte
AU - Elena Sellentin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stag1905
UR - https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stag1905/8885810
AB - Weak gravitational lensing (WL) peaks probe non-Gaussian information of the large-scale distribution of matter that is not captured by two-point lensing statistics. We study the cosmological potential of the height distribution, redshift distribution, and angular clustering of high-valued WL peaks using a Bayesian inference approach that mimics a it Euclid analysis. We use a forthcoming dark-matter-only hypercube, which varies cosmology in a ten-dimensional space, including evolving dark energy, neutrino mass, decaying dark matter, and the running of the scalar spectral index. We find the individual WL peak statistics to be complementary, as the redshift distribution best constrains the matter density, Ω _m, and the dark energy equation-of-state parameters, w_0, and w_a; the height distribution and angular clustering are most sensitive to the amplitude of the primordial power spectrum, ln (10^10A_s); while combining the three statistics allows us to also probe the baryon density, Ω _b, and the Hubble parameter, h. A comparison to the shear two-point correlation function demonstrates that WL peaks alone outperform the commonly used statistics, while even tighter constraints are obtained when combining all. Considering the two-dimensional Ω _m−ln (10^10A_s) and w_0−w_a parameter planes, we find that the redshift distribution outperforms the angular clustering and peak-height distributions. We study the impact of the smoothing scale and find that, typically, the smallest scales yield the best results and the figure of merit improves by a factor of ≈ 2 when combining multiple scales.
SN - 0035-8711
SN - 1365-2966
ER -