Origins of weak lensing systematics, and requirements on future instrumentation (or knowledge of instrumentation)

Abstract

The first half of this paper explores the origin of systematic biases in the measurement of weak gravitational lensing. Compared to previous work, we expand the investigation of point spread function instability and fold in for the first time the effects of non-idealities in electronic imaging detectors and imperfect galaxy shape measurement algorithms. Together, these now explain the additive A( ) and multiplicative M( ) systematics typically reported in current lensing measurements. We find that overall performance is driven by a product of a telescope/camera's absolute performance, and our knowledge about its performance.