Modelling the impact of intrinsic size and luminosity correlations on magnification estimation

Abstract

Spatial correlations of the observed sizes and luminosities of galaxies can be used to estimate the magnification that arises through weak gravitational lensing. However, the intrinsic properties of galaxies can be similarly correlated through local physical effects, and these present a possible contamination to the weak lensing estimation. In an earlier paper we modelled the intrinsic size correlations using the halo model, assuming the galaxy sizes reflect the mass in the associated halo. Here we extend this work to consider galaxy magnitudes and show that these may be even more affected by intrinsic correlations than galaxy sizes, making this a bigger systematic for measurements of the weak lensing signal. We also quantify how these intrinsic correlations are affected by sample selection criteria based on sizes and magnitudes.