Day 30

Skipped two days due to the end-of-conference dinner parties and hiking in the >100% humidity.  Had lots of fun.


preprint
A photometric redshift catalog for SDSS DR8
Sheldon, Cunha, Mandelbaum


Get N(z) estimate, and photoz in the form of p(z) for each individual galaxies, a la Cunha+ 2009 for SDSS DR8 photometry.  The sum of p(z) do not match N(z), so apply correction.  Estimate errors in lensing signal using EGS as a calibration set.  Catalog available through SDSS website.


* hmm, I wonder if I should compare their N(z) with my sample.


1104.2596
Optimizing weak lensing mass estimates for cluster profile uncertainty
Gruen, Bernstein, Lam, Seitz


Cluster WL mass scatters due to galaxy shape noise, interfering foreground LSS, and intrinsic scatter in the structure of clusters (concentrations, asphericity, substructure).  Use N-body simulated halos to derive and evaluate WL circular aperture mass that minimizes aperture mass variance <(M_ap - M_200m)^2> in the presence of these variability.  Optimizing for uncorrelated LSS works very well (as much as optimizing against shape noise), but ignoring the structural variation puts too much weight on the profile near the core of halos, and can be worse than not accounting for LSS at all.  Briefly discuss the impact of structural variability on WL surveys intended to calibrate cluster mass-observable relations.


* Generate a M_ap filter for WL cluster mass!  Excellent job, Gary (well, okay, Dan).
* We need to do the same thing, except for the massive clusters that we observe.