Abstract
Strong gravitational lensing provides a powerful means for studying
faint galaxies in the distant universe. By magnifying the apparent
brightness of background sources, massive clusters enable the detection
of galaxies fainter than the usual sensitivity limit for blank fields.
However, this gain in effective sensitivity comes at the cost of a
reduced survey volume and, in this Letter, we demonstrate that there is
an associated increase in the cosmic variance uncertainty. As an
example, we show that the cosmic variance uncertainty of the
high-redshift population viewed through the Hubble Space Telescope
Frontier Field cluster Abell 2744 increases from ~35% at redshift z ~ 7
to >~ 65% at z ~ 10. Previous studies of high-redshift galaxies
identified in the Frontier Fields have underestimated the cosmic
variance uncertainty that will affect the ultimate constraints on both
the faint-end slope of the high-redshift luminosity function and the
cosmic star formation rate density, key goals of the Frontier Field
program.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 27 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal Letters |
Volume | 796 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2014 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- galaxies: high-redshift
- galaxies: statistics
- gravitational lensing: strong
- ULTRA-DEEP FIELD
- STAR-FORMING GALAXIES
- EXTRAGALACTIC LEGACY SURVEY
- SIMILAR-TO 7
- LUMINOSITY FUNCTION
- YOUNG GALAXY
- REIONIZATION
- CAMPAIGN
- CANDELS
- A2744