Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Clusters are Consistent with Planck

Abstract

The recent Dark Energy Survey Year 1 (DES-Y1) analysis of galaxy cluster abundances and weak lensing produced $\Omega_{\rm m}$ and $\sigma_8$ constraints in 5.6$\sigma$ tension with Planck. It is suggested in that work that this tension is driven by unmodelled systematics in optical cluster selection. We present a novel simulation-based forward modeling framework that explicitly incorporates cluster selection into its model predictions. Applying this framework to the DES-Y1 data we find consistency with Planck, resolving the tension found in the DES-Y1 analysis. An extension of this approach to the final DES data set will produce robust constraints on $\Lambda$CDM parameters and correspondingly strong tests of cosmological models.