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The Merian survey is mapping ∼ 850 deg2 of the Hyper Suprime-Cam Strategic Survey Program (HSC-SSP) wide layer with two medium-band filters on the 4-m Victor M. Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, with the goal of carrying the first high signal-to-noise (S/N) measurements of weak gravitational lensing around dwarf galaxies. This paper presents the design of the Merian filter set: N708 (λ c  = 7080 Å, Δλ = 275 Å) and N540 (λ c  = 5400 Å, Δλ = 210 Å). The central wavelengths and filter widths of N708 and N540 were designed to detect the |$\rm H\alpha$| and |$\rm [OIII]$| emission lines of galaxies in the mass range |$8\lt \rm \log M_*/M_\odot \lt 9$| by comparing Merian fluxes with HSC broad-band fluxes. Our filter design takes into account the weak lensing S/N and photometric redshift performance. Our simulations predict that Merian will yield a sample of ∼ 85 000 star-forming dwarf galaxies with a photometric redshift accuracy of σΔ z /(1 + z) ∼ 0.01 and an outlier fraction of |$\eta =2.8~{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| over the redshift range 0.058 < z < 0.10. With 60 full nights on the Blanco/Dark Energy Camera (DECam), the Merian survey is predicted to measure the average weak lensing profile around dwarf galaxies with lensing S/N ∼32 within r < 0.5 Mpc and lensing S/N ∼90 within r < 1.0 Mpc. This unprecedented sample of star-forming dwarf galaxies will allow for studies of the interplay between dark matter and stellar feedback and their roles in the evolution of dwarf galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the low surface brightness galaxy (LSBG) samples created from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (781 galaxies), the Dark Energy Survey (20977 galaxies), and the Legacy Survey (selected via H i detection in the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey, 188 galaxies) to infer the intrinsic shape distribution of the LSBG population. To take into account the effect of the surface brightness cuts employed when constructing LSBG samples, we simultaneously model both the projected ellipticity and the apparent surface brightness in our shape inference. We find that the LSBG samples are well characterized by oblate spheroids, with no significant difference between red and blue LSBGs. This inferred shape distribution is in good agreement with similar inferences made for ultra-diffuse cluster galaxy samples, indicating that environment does not play a key role in determining the intrinsic shape of LSBGs. We also find some evidence that LSBGs are more thickened than similarly massive high surface brightness dwarfs. We compare our results to intrinsic shape measures from contemporary cosmological simulations, and find that the observed LSBG intrinsic shapes place considerable constraints on the formation path of such galaxies. In particular, LSBG production via the migration of star formation to large radii produces intrinsic shapes in good agreement with our observational findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]