arXiv · 2512.18935
Weak Lensing Mass Calibration of the ACT DR5 Galaxy Clusters with the DES Year 3 Weak Lensing Data
Abstract
We use weak gravitational lensing measurements from Year 3 Dark Energy Survey data to calibrate the masses of 443 galaxy clusters selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect from Atacama Cosmology Telescope Data Release 5 maps. We incorporate redshift and SZ measurements for individual clusters into a hierarchical model for the stacked lensing signals and perform Bayesian analyses to constrain hydrostatic mass bias of the clusters. Our treatment of systematic uncertainties includes a prescription for measuring and accounting for the weak lensing boost factor, consideration of a miscentering effect, as well as marginalization over uncertainties in the source galaxy photometric redshift distributions and shear calibration. The constraints on the normalization of the mass-observable relation have a precision of 7%, with the mean WL halo mass $M_{\rm 500c} = 5.4 \times 10^{14} M_{\odot}$. We measure the bias between the true cluster mass and the mass estimated from the SZ signal assuming hydrostatic equilibrium, to be $1-b = 0.74^{+0.06}{-0.05}$ over the full sample. When splitting the clusters into high and low redshift bins, we measure $1-b = 0.58^{+0.06}{-0.05}$ and $0.81^{+0.08}{-0.06}$, respectively. When introducing additional freedom in redshift and mass to the hydrostatic bias model, we find that $1-b$ decreases with redshift (with the power law of $-1.8^{+0.5}{-0.6}$, 99.95% confidence), consistent with findings from other recent studies, while we do not find any significant trend in mass. We also demonstrate that our result is robust against various systematics such as a scale cut, priors on baryonic and miscentering parameters, and degree of scatter in mass-observable relation. The weak-lensing mass calibration presented in this study will be a useful tool for using the ACT clusters as probes of astrophysics, and as a step towards using their abundance as a cosmological probe.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Explore connections, maps & timelines
T. Shin, E. J. Baxter, E. Lee, N. Battaglia, A. Alarcon, A. Amon, M. Becker, G. Bernstein, J. R. Bond, A. Campos, C. Chang, R. Chen, A. Choi, J. DeRose, S. Dodelson, C. Doux, J. Dunkley, J. Elvin-Poole, J. H. Esteves, S. Everett, A. Ferté, M. Gatti, S. Grandis, D. Gruen, I. Harrison, J. C. Hill, M. Hilton, M. Jarvis, N. MacCrann, J. McCullough, K. Moodley, T. Mroczkowski, J. Myles, A. Navarro Alsina, A. Nicola, L. Page, S. Pandey, J. Prat, M. Raveri, B. Ried Guachalla, R. P. Rollins, C. Sanchez, L. F. Secco, E. Sheldon, C. Sifón, M. Troxel, I. Tutusaus, A. von der Linden, E. Wollack, B. Yin, M. Aguena, S. S. Allam, O. Alves, F. Andrade-Oliveira, D. Bacon, S. Bocquet, D. Brooks, R. Camilleri, A. Carnero Rosell, J. Carretero, F. J. Castander, M. Costanzi, L. da Costa, M. E. da Silva Pereira, T. Davis, J. De Vicente, S. Desai, B. Flaugher, J. Frieman, J. Garcia-Bellido, G. Gutierrez, S. Hinton, D. L. Hollowood, D. Huterer, D. James, S. Lee, J. Marshall, J. Mena-Fernández, F. Menanteau, R. Miquel, J. Mohr, J. Muir, R. Ogando, A. Plazas Malagón, A. Porredon, K. Romer, E. Sanchez, D. Sanchez Cid, I. Sevilla, M. Smith, M. Soares-Santos, E. Suchyta, M. Swanson, C. To, N. Weaverdyck, J. Weller. 2026-09-16. Weak Lensing Mass Calibration of the ACT DR5 Galaxy Clusters with the DES Year 3 Weak Lensing Data. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.18935
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.