Intrinsic alignment demographics for next-generation lensing: Revealing galaxy property trends with DESI Y1 direct measurements

Abstract

Abstract We present direct measurements of the intrinsic alignments (IA) of over 2 million spectroscopic galaxies using DESI Data Release 1 and imaging from four lensing surveys: DES, HSC, KiDS, and SDSS. In this uniquely data-rich regime, we take initial steps towards a more tailored IA modelling approach by building a library of IA measurements across colour, luminosity, stellar mass, and redshift. We map the dependence between galaxy type—in terms of rest-frame colour, strength of the 4000 Å; break, and specific star formation rate—and IA amplitude; the bluest galaxies have an alignment consistent with zero, across low (0.05 < z < 0.5) and high (0.8 < z < 1.55) redshifts. In order to construct cosmic shear samples that are minimally impacted by IA but maintain maximum sample size and statistical power, we map the dependence of alignment with colour purity. Red, quenched galaxies are strongly aligned and the amplitude of the signal increases with luminosity, which is tightly correlated with stellar mass in our catalogues. For DESI galaxies between 0 < z < 1.5, trends in luminosity and colour alone are sufficient to explain the alignments we measure—with no need for an explicit redshift dependence. In a companion paper (Jeffrey et al., in prep), we perform detailed modelling of the IA signals with significant detections, including model comparison. Finally, to direct efforts for future IA measurements, we juxtapose the colour-magnitude-redshift coverage of existing IA measurements against modern and future lensing surveys.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2026 · DOI ↗