Multitracing anisotropic non-Gaussianity with galaxy shapes

Abstract

Correlations between intrinsic galaxy shapes on large-scales arise due to the effect of the tidal field of the large-scale structure. Anisotropic primordial non-Gaussianity induces a distinct scaledependent imprint in these tidal alignments on large scales. Motivated by the observational finding that the alignment strength of luminous red galaxies depends on how galaxy shapes are measured, we study the use of two different shape estimators as a multi-tracer probe of intrinsic alignments. We show, by means of a Fisher analysis, that this technique promises a significant improvement on anisotropic non-Gaussianity constraints over a single-tracer method. For future weak lensing surveys, the uncertainty in the anisotropic non-Gaussianity parameter, A2, is forecast to be σ(A2) ≈ 50, ∼ 40% smaller than currently available constraints from the bispectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background. This corresponds to an improvement of a factor of 4 − 5 over the uncertainty from a single-tracer analysis.