Kinematic lensing with the Roman Space Telescope

Abstract

Kinematic lensing (KL) is a new cosmological measurement technique that combines traditional weak lensing (WL) shape measurements of disc galaxies with their kinematic information. Using the Tully–Fisher relation, KL breaks the degeneracy between intrinsic and observed ellipticity and significantly reduces the impact of multiple systematics that are present in traditional WL. We explore the performance of KL given the instrument capabilities of the Roman Space Telescope, assuming overlap of the High Latitude Imaging Survey (HLIS) and the High Latitude Spectroscopy Survey (HLSS) over 2000 deg2. Our KL suitable galaxy sample has a number density of ngal = 4 arcmin−1 with an estimated shape noise level of σ∊ = 0.035. We quantify the cosmological constraining power on Ωm–S8 and wp–wa by running simulated likelihood analyses that account for redshift and shear calibration uncertainties, intrinsic alignment, and baryonic feedback. Compared to a traditional WL survey, we find that KL significantly improves the constraining power on Ωm–S8 (FoMKL = 1.70FoMWL) and wp–wa (FoMKL = 3.65FoMWL). We also explore a ‘narrow tomography KL survey’ using 30 instead of the default 10 tomographic bins; however, we find no meaningful enhancement to the figure of merit even when assuming a significant time dependence in our fiducial dark energy input scenarios. © 2022 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.