Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation

    Lensing counter narrative: An effective description of small-scale clustering in weak lensing power spectra

    Joseph DeRose1,2,*,† and Shi-Fan Chen3,4,*,‡,§

    • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
    • †Contact author: jderose@bnl.gov
    • ‡Contact author: sc5888@columbia.edu
    • §NASA Einstein Fellow.

    Phys. Rev. D 114, 043522 – Published 13 August, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/v932-b6rl

    Abstract

    We present a new formalism to separate large- and small-scale contributions to cosmic shear through lensing counterterms (LCTs) inspired by effective field theory (EFT). Marginalizing over these LCTs isolates the large-scale cosmological signal in weak lensing power spectra while simultaneously constraining the impact of baryonic feedback or new physics (e.g., axion dark matter) at small scales. Our formalism removes the need for hard scale cuts in standard analyses, even when theoretical predictions are limited to below a physical cutoff Λ, resulting in significant improvements in constraining power—more than 5× smaller in the case of an legacy survey of space and time-Y10-like analysis without marginalizing over baryons when the analysis cutoff is set to Λ=1.0h  Mpc−1. We conduct a proof-of-principle analysis on the publicly available Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data, finding S8=0.783±0.029 and S8=0.798±0.026 for analyses with cutoffs of Λ=0.5h  Mpc−1 and 1.0h  Mpc−1, respectively, with no detection of modifications to small-scale clustering at k>Λ beyond the predictions of collisionless dark matter in a Λ cold dark matter universe. We make our jax-based pipeline, gholax, integrated with intrinsic alignment predictions from the EFT of large-scale structure at 1-loop, publicly available.

    Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

    Authorization Required

    We need you to provide your credentials before accessing this content.

    References (Subscription Required)

    Outline

    Information

    Sign In to Your Journals Account

    Filter

    Filter

    Article Lookup

    Enter a citation