Radio-Optical Galaxy Shape and Shear Correlations in the COSMOS Field using 3 GHz JVLA Observations

We present a weak lensing analysis of the 3 GHz JVLA radio survey of the COSMOS field, which we correlate with overlapping HST-ACS optical observations using both intrinsic galaxy shape and cosmic shear correlation statistics. After cross-matching sources between the two catalogues, we measure the correlations of galaxy position angles and find a Pearson correlation coefficient of $0.14 \pm 0.03$. This is a marked improvement from previous studies which found very weak, or non-existent correlations, and gives insight into the emission processes of radio and optical galaxies. We also extract cosmic shear power spectra from the two catalogues, and produce optical-optical, radio-optical and radio-radio spectra. The optical-optical auto-power weak lensing spectrum was measured to a detection significance of 9.80$\sigma$ and is consistent with previous observations of the same field. Although we do not detect significant radio-optical (1.50$\sigma$) or radio-radio (1.45$\sigma$) $E$-mode power spectra, we do find the $E$-mode spectra to be more consistent with the shear signal expected from previous studies than with a null signal, and vice versa for $B$-mode and $EB$ cross-correlation spectra. Our results give promise that future radio weak lensing surveys with larger source number densities over larger areas will have the capability to measure significant weak lensing signals.