REVIEW 4 major objections 6 minor 61 references
Filtering out large-scale noise for cluster weak-lensing mass estimation
T0 review · 4 major / 6 minor · reviewed 2026-08-15 · deepseek-v4-flash
Pith's one-line read Wiener filtering the observed galaxy density field removes large-scale noise from cluster weak-lensing mass estimates.
desk verdict A credible, honest methods paper on Wiener filtering for stacked cluster magnification masses whose main validation gap — the forward model shares the filter's noise model — is real and fixable. read the letter →
The pith
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
The reading
What carries the argument
The Wiener filter, Eq. (25): each Fourier mode of the observed galaxy density field is rescaled by $\hat{\kappa}_{\ell m} = \frac{C^{\kappa}_{1h,\ell}}{C^{\kappa}_{1h,\ell}+C^{n}_{\ell}} d_{\ell m}$, where $C^{\kappa}_{1h,\ell}$ is the angular power spectrum of the NFW convergence profile (the signal prior, with small scales below 2 arcminutes downweighted) and $C^{n}_{\ell}$ is the noise power spectrum estimated by averaging 2D power spectra from 10,000 random sky positions. The filter removes both low-$\ell$ modes from large-scale structure along the line of sight and high-$\ell$ shot-noise-dominated modes. Because the filter changes the shape of the magnification profile, the paper forward-models filtered profiles from simulated noisy fields so that the mass estimate is unbiased.
What would settle it
Take the same 1155 clusters, measure their stacked shear profile (whose noise is largely independent of the magnification shot noise), and compare the shear-inferred mass to the filtered-magnification mass; a disagreement beyond the statistical error would indicate that the filter's noise model is wrong. A more direct test is to check that the filtered profiles around the 10,000 random positions have zero mean and that the empirical noise power measured at cluster positions matches the random-position estimate.
Extended reading notes
Core claim
The central claim is that Wiener filtering the observed magnification field, weighting each Fourier mode by the ratio of the NFW one-halo signal power to the total signal-plus-noise power, produces a stacked cluster magnification profile whose radial bins have substantially lower noise correlations than unfiltered profiles, with no loss of constraining power. The paper demonstrates this in two ways: simulated magnification fields show a clear reduction in off-diagonal covariance, and HSC data show the same effect. Mass estimates from filtered and unfiltered fields are consistent (log10 M/Msun = 14.10+0.15-0.22 vs 14.20+0.17-0.30), with the filtered posterior slightly tighter. The method is presented as a simplification of a full field-level maximum-a-posteriori estimate, and the authors emphasize that forward-modelling the filtered profile is required to avoid bias.
Load-bearing premise
The noise power spectrum measured from 10,000 random positions is an unbiased, stationary, Gaussian description of the noise at the cluster positions; if it is not, the filter will not remove the right modes and the forward-modelled mass estimate could be biased.
Editorial extensions
If this is right
- Noise correlations between radial magnification bins are significantly reduced by the filter, making the stacked signal closer to a diagonal-covariance measurement.
- Filtered and unfiltered mass estimates agree, so the method adds no detectable bias at the current precision.
- For deeper surveys with smaller shot noise, the relative improvement in mass uncertainty should grow because the correlated large-scale noise becomes the dominant error.
- The same Wiener filter construction is directly applicable to weak-lensing shear fields.
- Because the filter suppresses large-scale survey modes, it can relax requirements on survey uniformity for magnification-based mass estimates.
Reading between the lines
- If the method scales to individual clusters rather than stacks, it could turn the mass-richness relation itself into a field-level estimate, which the paper sketches in Sect. 3.2 but does not implement.
- The filter's signal prior is derived from an NFW profile with a fixed concentration; allowing the prior to vary with richness or redshift might recover some of the two-halo signal that the current filter removes, at the cost of reintroducing covariance.
- The testable prediction that deeper surveys will see larger gains could be checked by running the same pipeline on simulated deep surveys before real data arrive.
- If dust extinction is non-negligible, the magnification response R differs by band; the filter would then need a multi-band extension, which the paper identifies but does not pursue.
Signed reviews
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. The paper proposes a Wiener-filtering method for cluster weak-lensing magnification maps, intended to remove spatially correlated large-scale noise before radial averaging. The filter is constructed from an NFW-based signal prior and a noise power spectrum estimated from random positions, and it is applied to 1-degree patches around 1155 CAMIRA clusters in HSC. The authors show that the filtered maps have substantially reduced off-diagonal radial-bin noise correlations, that the filtered and unfiltered stacked mass estimates are consistent (log10 M/M_sun = 14.10+0.15-0.22 vs 14.20+0.17-0.30), and that the filtered errors are slightly smaller. They argue that for deeper surveys, where shot noise is less dominant, the method will yield larger improvements.
Significance. If validated, this would be a useful and fairly general technique for suppressing large-scale structure noise in stacked cluster lensing measurements, applicable to both magnification and shear. The covariance formalism in Sect. 3.1 is standard, and the qualitative claim that Wiener filtering reduces radial-bin noise correlations is convincingly demonstrated in both idealized simulations (Fig. 3) and HSC data (Fig. 7). The HSC measurement is internally consistent, and the background selection and convergence-response treatment in Sect. 4 are careful. The main weakness is that the unbiasedness of the filtered mass estimate is not yet established: the forward model in Sect. 6 is unvalidated and shares its noise model with the filter, so the central methodological claim rests on an unproven condition. The projected improvement for deeper surveys is also not quantitatively supported by the simplified simulations.
major comments (4)
- [§6, Eq. (35)] The unbiasedness claim for the filtered mass estimate rests on the sentence: "This forward-modelling approach means that our mass estimation is not biased, provided our noise model describes accurately the observed data." This condition is never demonstrated. The noise power spectrum estimated in §5.1 is used both to construct the Wiener filter (Eq. 25) and to generate the noisy fields in the forward model, so any error in that spectrum affects the filtered data and the filtered model coherently; agreement between filtered and unfiltered masses in §6 is therefore not a test of the noise model. The mock fields in §3.4 are Gaussian, omit the two-halo term, and do not include the real survey mask, and the authors themselves describe quantitative forecasts from them as "overly optimistic." I would need an end-to-end recovery test, in which clusters of known mass are injected into realistic masked HSC-like fields and the full filtered pipeline is run, to support the central claim of unbiased mass estimation.
- [§5.1 and §2.2] The noise power spectrum is estimated by averaging over 10,000 random positions in the survey, but the filter is then applied to patches centered on CAMIRA clusters. Cluster positions are biased tracers of large-scale structure, so the noise at those positions includes the correlated two-halo environment described in §2.2 and possibly residual cluster-member contamination; the random-position average does not obviously capture these contributions. Because the same spectrum enters both the filter and the forward model, a cluster-environment-dependent error in the noise model is precisely the kind of systematic that would bias the filtered mass without producing a filtered/unfiltered inconsistency. A direct comparison of the power spectrum measured at cluster positions with the random-position estimate, or an explicit quantitative argument that the difference is negligible, is needed.
- [§3.3, Eqs. (24)-(25)] The signal prior C1h is defined as the Fourier transform of an NFW convergence profile, but the paper does not specify the mass, concentration, and redshift (or stacking distribution) used to construct it, nor the exact procedure for setting the sub-2-arcmin region to 10^-5. The Wiener filter, and therefore the filtered data and the forward-modeled profiles, depends on these unspecified choices. A sensitivity test over a plausible range of NFW prior parameters and downweight scales is required to show that the mass estimate and the claimed error reduction are robust to this prior.
- [§3.4 and §7] The conclusion that the error reduction will become larger with future deeper datasets is stated in the abstract and conclusions, but the only quantitative support is the simplified simulation of §3.4, which the authors explicitly caution would yield "overly optimistic" forecasts. No forecast is made with an HSC-like noise amplitude, source density, mask, or cluster redshift distribution. This claim should either be supported by a more realistic end-to-end simulation or softened to a qualitative expectation.
minor comments (6)
- [§3.2, Eqs. (20)-(21)] The Gaussian likelihoods are missing the factor -1/2 and the transpose in the exponent; as written, exp[(d_i - kappa_i) C^-1 (d_i - kappa_i)] is not a correctly normalized Gaussian exponent.
- [§4.2] The sentence "We also employed a magnitude cut on the i-band magnitude with 23.5 < i" appears to have the inequality reversed; the text and Fig. 5 indicate the intended cut is i < 23.5.
- [§3.2] The phrase "not in the least because" should likely read "not least because" in the discussion of why estimating many cluster parameters is non-trivial.
- [§3.1, Eq. (18)] The subscript notation on C^n_total is inconsistent with the terms on the right-hand side, which all carry (i,j); the total covariance should be written C^n_total,ij, and the terms C^ulss_ij and C^clss_ij should be defined before or immediately in the equation.
- [§6] The text refers to "six linearly spaced angular bins between 0.75 and 5.2 Mpc," mixing angular and physical units; the conversion using the mean cluster redshift should be stated explicitly to avoid ambiguity.
- [References] The reference list contains two entries for Umetsu et al. 2014 with identical bibliographic data; one should be removed.
Circularity Check
No significant circularity: the Wiener filter uses a fixed NFW signal prior and a noise spectrum measured from random positions, and the cluster mass is not an input to the filter.
full rationale
The derivation chain is self-contained against external data (HSC galaxies and CAMIRA clusters) and does not reduce to its own inputs. The Wiener filter (Eq. 25) is built from two fixed ingredients: a signal prior C_{1h} obtained by Fourier-transforming the NFW convergence profile (Eq. 9) and a noise power spectrum estimated from 10,000 random positions (Sect. 5.1). Neither ingredient is fitted to the cluster mass being estimated; the likelihood (Eq. 35) then varies log10M against the measured stacked profiles. The filtered-field model is forward-modelled by applying the same filter to simulated noisy fields generated from the observed noise spectrum, so the filter's effect on the profile shape is accounted for rather than treated as an extra fitted parameter. The quoted conditionality, 'provided our noise model describes accurately the observed data' (Sect. 6), is an explicit assumption; if the noise model is wrong the filtered and unfiltered estimates could share a common bias, but that is a validation or systematic-error concern, not an equivalence of output to input by construction. The only self-citation (Murray et al. 2022) appears in a list of shear mass-estimation examples and is not load-bearing. Claims about reduced bin-to-bin noise correlations are checked with bootstrap covariances of the actual cluster profiles (Fig. 7), not assumed from the filter construction.
Assumptions & free parameters
free parameters (3)
- Convergence response R =
1.54
- Signal prior NFW parameters for C1h =
unspecified
- Small-scale downweight threshold in C1h =
<2 arcmin set to 1e-5
assumptions (5)
- domain assumption Cluster dark matter halos are well described by the NFW profile.
- domain assumption The noise in the magnification field is approximately Gaussian and stationary.
- domain assumption The galaxy angular power spectrum Cgg and the source redshift distribution are sufficient to model the noise covariance.
- domain assumption The mass-concentration relation (Dutton & Maccio 2014) and halo bias relation (Tinker 2010) are correct.
- domain assumption The colour-cut source selection removes cluster member contamination and the measured convergence response R is applicable.
Cite this review
Pith. "Pith review of Filtering out large-scale noise for cluster weak-lensing mass estimation." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/VJWSUDI2
@misc{pith2026250513399,
author = {Pith},
title = {Pith review of: Filtering out large-scale noise for cluster weak-lensing mass estimation},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/VJWSUDI2}},
note = {Machine review of arXiv:2505.13399}
}
read the original abstract
We present a new method for estimating galaxy cluster masses using weak-lensing magnification. The effect of weak-lensing magnification introduces a correlation between the position of foreground galaxy clusters and the density of background sources. Therefore, cluster masses can be inferred through observations of these correlations. In this work, we introduce a method that allows us to considerably reduce noise correlations between different radial bins of the cluster magnification signal via a Wiener filtering of our observed magnification field on large scales. This method can reduce the uncertainty on the estimated galaxy cluster mass and it can also be applied to cluster mass estimation for weak-lensing shear. The method was applied to Hyper-Suprime Cam galaxies and CAMIRA clusters detected within the Hyper-Suprime Cam survey (HSC). With HSC data, we find that our filtering method significantly reduces the correlation of noise between radial magnification bins. The estimated cluster mass is consistent between the filtered and unfiltered methods, with similar errors between the two methods as our current measurement errors contain significant contributions from the irreducible shot-noise. For deeper surveys, the effects of shot noise will be less important and this method will lead to greater improvements on the estimated cluster mass.
Figures
Figures from the paper (4 more)
Reference graph
Works this paper leans on
-
[1]
2019, PASJ, 71, 114
Aihara, H., AlSayyad, Y ., Ando, M., et al. 2019, PASJ, 71, 114
2019
-
[2]
2022, PASJ, 74, 247
Aihara, H., AlSayyad, Y ., Ando, M., et al. 2022, PASJ, 74, 247
2022
-
[3]
D., Allende Prieto, C., et al
Alam, S., Albareti, F. D., Allende Prieto, C., et al. 2015, ApJS, 219, 12
2015
-
[4]
E., von der Linden, A., Kelly, P
Applegate, D. E., von der Linden, A., Kelly, P. L., et al. 2014, MNRAS, 439, 48
work page 2014
-
[5]
2019, MNRAS, 484, 1598 Article number, page 10 of 11 C
Bellagamba, F., Sereno, M., Roncarelli, M., et al. 2019, MNRAS, 484, 1598 Article number, page 10 of 11 C. Murray et al.: Filtering out large-scale noise for cluster weak-lensing mass estimation
work page 2019
-
[6]
Bradshaw, E. J., Almaini, O., Hartley, W. G., et al. 2013, MNRAS, 433, 194
work page 2013
-
[7]
E., Alonso, D., Krause, E., et al
Chisari, N. E., Alonso, D., Krause, E., et al. 2019, ApJ, 242, 2
work page 2019
-
[8]
Chiu, I., Dietrich, J., Mohr, J., et al. 2016, MNRAS, 457, 3050
work page 2016
Show all 61 references
-
[9]
N., Chen, K.-F., Oguri, M., et al
Chiu, I. N., Chen, K.-F., Oguri, M., et al. 2024, OJAp, 7, 90
2024
-
[10]
2020, MN- RAS, 495, 428
Chiu, I.-N., Umetsu, K., Murata, R., Medezinski, E., & Oguri, M. 2020, MN- RAS, 495, 428
2020
-
[11]
L., Blanton, M
Coil, A. L., Blanton, M. R., Burles, S. M., et al. 2011, ApJ, 741, 8
2011
-
[12]
2018, PASJ, 70, S7
Coupon, J., Czakon, N., Bosch, J., et al. 2018, PASJ, 70, S7
2018
-
[13]
J., Jurek, R
Drinkwater, M. J., Jurek, R. J., Blake, C., et al. 2010, MNRAS, 401, 1429
2010
-
[14]
A., Heymans, C., Heavens, A
Duncan, C. A., Heymans, C., Heavens, A. F., & Joachimi, B. 2016, MNRAS, 457, 764
2016
-
[15]
Dutton, A. A. & Macciò, A. V . 2014, MNRAS, 441, 3359 Euclid Collaboration, Sereno, M., Farrens, S., et al. 2024, A&A, 689, A252
2014
-
[16]
2014, MNRAS, 439, 3755
Ford, J., Hildebrandt, H., Van Waerbeke, L., et al. 2014, MNRAS, 439, 3755
2014
-
[17]
W., Lang, D., & Goodman, J
Foreman-Mackey, D., Hogg, D. W., Lang, D., & Goodman, J. 2013, PASP, 125, 306
2013
-
[18]
2014, A&A, 562, A23
Garilli, B., Guzzo, L., Scodeggio, M., et al. 2014, A&A, 562, A23
2014
-
[19]
& Weare, J
Goodman, J. & Weare, J. 2010, CAMCoS, 5, 65
2010
-
[20]
2015, MNRAS, 449, 4264
Gruen, D., Seitz, S., Becker, M., Friedrich, O., & Mana, A. 2015, MNRAS, 449, 4264
2015
-
[21]
2016, MNRAS, 455, 3943
Hildebrandt, H. 2016, MNRAS, 455, 3943
2016
-
[22]
2011, APJL, 733, L30
Hildebrandt, H., Muzzin, A., Erben, T., et al. 2011, APJL, 733, L30
2011
-
[23]
2003, MNRAS, 339, 1155
Hoekstra, H. 2003, MNRAS, 339, 1155
2003
-
[24]
Hsieh, B. C. & Yee, H. K. C. 2014, ApJ, 792, 102
2014
-
[25]
2007, Phys
Hui, L., Gaztañaga, E., & Loverde, M. 2007, Phys. Rev. D, 76, 103502 Le Fevre, O., Cassata, P., Cucciati, O., et al. 2013, arXiv e-prints, arXiv:1307.0545
2007 arXiv
-
[26]
J., Le Brun, V ., Maier, C., et al
Lilly, S. J., Le Brun, V ., Maier, C., et al. 2009, ApJ, 184, 218
2009
-
[27]
K., Driver, S
Liske, J., Baldry, I. K., Driver, S. P., et al. 2015, MNRAS, 452, 2087
2015
-
[28]
N., Gruen, D., et al
McClintock, T., Varga, T. N., Gruen, D., et al. 2019, MNRAS, 482, 1352
2019
-
[29]
2013, MNRAS, 428, 1088
McLure, R., Pearce, H., Dunlop, J., et al. 2013, MNRAS, 428, 1088
2013
-
[30]
J., et al
Medezinski, E., Oguri, M., Nishizawa, A. J., et al. 2018, PASJ, 70, 30
2018
-
[31]
2017, MNRAS, 469, 4899 Ménard, B., Scranton, R., Fukugita, M., & Richards, G
Melchior, P., Gruen, D., McClintock, T., et al. 2017, MNRAS, 469, 4899 Ménard, B., Scranton, R., Fukugita, M., & Richards, G. 2010, MNRAS, 405, 1025
2017
-
[32]
G., Brammer, G
Momcheva, I. G., Brammer, G. B., van Dokkum, P. G., et al. 2016, ApJS, 225, 27
2016
-
[33]
2023, Phys
More, S., Sugiyama, S., Miyatake, H., et al. 2023, Phys. Rev. D, 108, 123520
2023
-
[34]
G., Artis, E., & Melin, J.-B
Murray, C., Bartlett, J. G., Artis, E., & Melin, J.-B. 2022, MNRAS, 512, 4785
2022
-
[35]
1989, ApJL, vol
Narayan, R. 1989, ApJL, vol. 339, April 15, 1989, p. L53-L56., 339, L53
1989
-
[36]
F., Frenk, C
Navarro, J. F., Frenk, C. S., & White, S. D. M. 1997, ApJ, 490, 493
1997
-
[37]
A., Cooper, M
Newman, J. A., Cooper, M. C., Davis, M., et al. 2013, ApJS, 208, 5
2013
-
[38]
Nicola, A., Alonso, D., Sánchez, J., et al. 2020, J. Cosmology Astropart. Phys., 2020, 044
2020
-
[39]
2014, MNRAS, 444, 147
Oguri, M. 2014, MNRAS, 444, 147
2014
-
[40]
& Hamana, T
Oguri, M. & Hamana, T. 2011, MNRAS, 414, 1851
2011
-
[41]
2018, PASJ, 70, S20
Oguri, M., Lin, Y .-T., Lin, S.-C., et al. 2018, PASJ, 70, S20
2018
-
[42]
2021, PASJ, 73, 817
Oguri, M., Miyazaki, S., Li, X., et al. 2021, PASJ, 73, 817
2021
-
[43]
& Takada, M
Oguri, M. & Takada, M. 2011, Physical Review D, 83, 023008
2011
-
[44]
& Smith, G
Okabe, N. & Smith, G. P. 2016, MNRAS, 461, 3794
2016
-
[45]
2009, Phys
Schmidt, F., Rozo, E., Dodelson, S., Hui, L., & Sheldon, E. 2009, Phys. Rev. Lett., 103, 051301
2009
-
[46]
1996, MNRAS, 283, 837
Schneider, P. 1996, MNRAS, 283, 837
1996
-
[47]
2000, A&A, 353, 41
Schneider, P., King, L., & Erben, T. 2000, A&A, 353, 41
2000
-
[48]
1998, MNRAS, 296, 873
Schneider, P., Van Waerbeke, L., Jain, B., & Kruse, G. 1998, MNRAS, 296, 873
1998
-
[49]
D., Kashino, D., Sanders, D., et al
Silverman, J. D., Kashino, D., Sanders, D., et al. 2015, ApJS, 220, 12
2015
-
[50]
2017, MNRAS, 466, 3103
Simet, M., McClintock, T., Mandelbaum, R., et al. 2017, MNRAS, 466, 3103
2017
-
[51]
Smith, R. E. 2012, MNRAS, 426, 531
2012
-
[52]
2023, Phys
Sugiyama, S., Miyatake, H., More, S., et al. 2023, Phys. Rev. D, 108, 123521
2023
-
[53]
J., Benitez, N., & Van Kampen, E
Taylor, A., Dye, S., Broadhurst, T. J., Benitez, N., & Van Kampen, E. 1998, ApJ, 501, 539
1998
-
[54]
L., Robertson, B
Tinker, J. L., Robertson, B. E., Kravtsov, A. V ., et al. 2010, ApJ, 724, 878
2010
-
[55]
2017, Astronomy & Astro- physics, 608, A141
Tudorica, A., Hildebrandt, H., Tewes, M., et al. 2017, Astronomy & Astro- physics, 608, A141
2017
-
[56]
2020, The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, 28, 7
Umetsu, K. 2020, The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review, 28, 7
2020
-
[57]
2011, ApJ, 738, 41
Umetsu, K., Broadhurst, T., Zitrin, A., et al. 2011, ApJ, 738, 41
2011
-
[59]
2014, ApJ, 795, 163
Umetsu, K., Medezinski, E., Nonino, M., et al. 2014, ApJ, 795, 163
2014
-
[60]
2020, ApJ, 890, 148 von der Linden, A., Allen, M
Umetsu, K., Sereno, M., Lieu, M., et al. 2020, ApJ, 890, 148 von der Linden, A., Allen, M. T., Applegate, D. E., et al. 2014, MNRAS, 439, 2
2020
-
[61]
1949, Extrapolation, Interpolation, and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series: With Engineering Applications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press)
Wiener, N. 1949, Extrapolation, Interpolation, and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series: With Engineering Applications (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press)
1949
-
[62]
Wright, C. O. & Brainerd, T. G. 2000, ApJ, 534, 34 Article number, page 11 of 11
2000
Reviewed August 15, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.
Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.