Dwarf galaxy halo masses from spectroscopic and photometric lensing in DESI and DES
Helena Treiber, Alexandra Amon, Risa H. Wechsler, Viraj Manwadkar, Justin Myles, ChangHoon Hahn, Andrew Hearin, Sven Heydenreich, Amélie Saintonge, Manasvee Saraf, Jessica Nicole Aguilar, Steven Ahlen, Abhijeet Anand, Davide Bianchi, David Brooks, Francisco Javier Castander, Todd Claybaugh, Andrew P. Cooper, Andrei Cuceu, Axel de la Macorra, Biprateep Dey, Jaime E. Forero-Romero, Enrique Gaztañaga, Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, Gaston Gutierrez, Dragan Huterer, Dick Joyce, Stephanie Juneau, Anthony Kremin, Martin Landriau, Laurent Le Guillou, Marc Manera, Aaron Meisner, Ramon Miquel, John Moustakas, Seshadri Nadathur, Will J. Percival, Francisco Prada, Ignasi Pérez-Ràfols, Graziano Rossi, Eusebio Sanchez, David Schlegel, Michael Schubnell, Joseph Harry Silber, David Sprayberry, Gregory Tarlé, Benjamin Alan Weaver, Rongpu Zhou, Hu Zou
Published: 2025/9/24
Abstract
We present the most precise and lowest-mass weak lensing measurements of dwarf galaxies to date, enabled by spectroscopic lenses from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and photometric lenses from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) calibrated with DESI redshifts. Using DESI spectroscopy from the first data release, we construct clean samples of galaxies with median stellar masses $\log_{10}(M_*/M_{\odot})=8.3-10.1$ and measure their weak lensing signals with sources from DES, KiDS, and SDSS, achieving detections with $S/N$ up to 14 for dwarf galaxies ($\log_{10}(M_*/M_{\odot})<$9.25) -- opening up a new regime for lensing measurements of low-mass systems. Leveraging DES photometry calibrated with DESI, we extend to a photometric dwarf sample of over 700,000 galaxies, enabling robust lensing detections of dwarf galaxies with combined $S/N=38$ and a significant measurement down to $\log_{10}(M_*/M_{\odot})=8.0$. We show that the one-halo regime (scales $\lesssim 0.15h^{-1}\rm Mpc$) is insensitive to various systematic and sample selection effects, providing robust halo mass estimates, while the signal in the two-halo regime depends on galaxy color and environment. These results demonstrate that DESI already enables precise dwarf lensing measurements, and that calibrated photometric samples extend this capability. Together, they pave the way for novel constraints on dwarf galaxy formation and dark matter physics with upcoming surveys like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's LSST.