hol-IA: a holistic approach to galaxy intrinsic alignments

Galaxies are not randomly oriented in the universe but are aligned, pointing in the directions of other galaxies. These “intrinsic alignments” are now understood to be caused by gravity and strongly depend on the properties of galaxies in the studied sample. As such, they encode information about the properties of our Universe and the formation and evolution of galaxies. Moreover, intrinsic alignments constitute a contaminant to weak gravitational lensing; if left unaccounted for, the interpretation of weak gravitational lensing measurements will be heavily biased. It is crucial that intrinsic alignments are modelled accurately and sufficiently in order to obtain accurate cosmological constraints from imminent observational campaigns such as the LSST at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory or ESA’a Euclid satellite.

The aim of this workshop is to provide the scientific community with the tools needed to be able to model intrinsic alignments in the best way possible to avoid systematic biases in cosmological results. We plan to bring together experts in all aspects of intrinsic alignments, from observations to theory and simulations, and make progress towards achieving this goal.