Handbook for the GREAT08 Challenge: An image analysis competition for cosmological lensing

Sarah Bridle , John Shawe-Taylor , Adam Amara (1, 2) , Douglas Applegate , Sreekumar T. Balan , Joel Berge (3) , Gary Bernstein , Hakon Dahle (4) , Thomas Erben , Mandeep Gill , Alan Heavens , Catherine Heymans , Will High , Henk Hoekstra , Mike Jarvis (5) , Donnacha Kirk , Thomas Kitching , Jean-Paul Kneib (6, 7, 8) , Konrad Kuijken , David Lagattuta , Rachel Mandelbaum , Richard Massey (9) , Yannick Mellier (10, 11, 12) , Baback Moghaddam , Yassir Moudden (2, 13) , Reiko Nakajima , Stephane Paulin-Henriksson (2) , Sandrine Pires , Anais Rassat , Alexandre Refregier (2) , Jason D. Rhodes (9, 14, 15) , Tim Schrabback , Elisabetta Semboloni (11) , Marina Shmakova , Ludovic van Waerbeke (11, 16) , Dugan Witherick , Lisa Voigt , David Wittman

1 ISET - Institut Supérieur des Etudes Technologiques
2 DAPNIA - Département d'Astrophysique, de physique des Particules, de physique Nucléaire et de l'Instrumentation Associée
3 Station de recherches de nématologie et de génétique moléculaire des invertébrés
4 Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics [Oslo]
5 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Philadelphia]
6 LATT - Laboratoire Astrophysique de Toulouse-Tarbes
7 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
8 UMS 831 - Services communs OMP
9 CALTECH - California Institute of Technology
10 DEMIRM - Departement de Radioastronomie Millimétrique
11 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
12 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
13 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
14 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
15 Department of Mathematics [Berkeley]
16 CITA - Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics

The GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing 2008 (GREAT08) Challenge focuses on a problem that is of crucial importance for future observations in cosmology. The shapes of distant galaxies can be used to determine the properties of dark energy and the nature of gravity, because light from those galaxies is bent by gravity from the intervening dark matter. The observed galaxy images appear distorted, although only slightly, and their shapes must be precisely disentangled from the effects of pixelisation, convolution and noise. The worldwide gravitational lensing community has made significant progress in techniques to measure these distortions via the Shear TEsting Program (STEP). Via STEP, we have run challenges within our own community, and come to recognise that this particular image analysis problem is ideally matched to experts in statistical inference, inverse problems and computational learning. Thus, in order to continue the progress seen in recent years, we are seeking an infusion of new ideas from these communities. This document details the GREAT08 Challenge for potential participants.

Mots clés: astronomy; inverse problems; Inference

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Sarah Bridle, John Shawe-Taylor, Adam Amara, Douglas Applegate, Sreekumar T. Balan, et al.. Handbook for the GREAT08 Challenge: An image analysis competition for cosmological lensing. Annals of Applied Statistics, 2009, 3 (1), pp.6-37. ⟨10.1214/08-AOAS222⟩. ⟨hal-00326477⟩