The SDSS Coadd: Cosmic Shear Measurement

Abstract

Stripe 82 in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey was observed multiple times, allowing deeper images to be constructed by coadding the data. Here we analyze the ellipticities of background galaxies in this 275 square degree region, searching for evidence of distortions due to cosmic shear. The E-mode is detected in both real and Fourier space with $>5$-$σ$ significance on degree scales, while the B-mode is consistent with zero as expected. The amplitude of the signal constrains the combination of the matter density $Ω_m$ and fluctuation amplitude $σ_8$ to be $Ω_m^{0.7}σ_8 = 0.252^{+0.032}_{-0.052}$.

17 pages, 19 figures, submitted to ApJ. Analysis updated using revised photo-z catalog of Reis et al. arXiv:1111.6620v2. Changes in results are within the errors and the conclusions are unaffected