Gravitational Lensing

This paper describes measurements of cosmic shear from a 2 square degree Hubble Space Telescope survey, combined with photometric redshifts of the lensed galaxies. The addition of the photometric redshifts allowed the authors to measure the evolution of the mass power-spectrum, which provides additional information about the cosmological model beyond what the integrated power-spectrum can provide.

This paper describes measurements of cosmic shear from a 2 square degree Hubble Space Telescope survey, combined with photometric redshifts of the lensed galaxies. The addition of photometric redshifts allowed the authors to produce a three dimensional reconstruction of the mass structures in the field. (A)

This paper presents results from a combination of 4 blank-field surveys to achieve a 100 square degree total area, and contains a good discussion on how errors in Point Spread Function correction and background galaxy selection can propagate through to the cosmic-shear measurement. (A)

This paper presents results from a combination of 4 blank-field surveys to achieve a 100 square degree total area, and contains a good discussion on how errors in Point Spread Function correction and background galaxy selection can propagate through to the cosmic-shear measurement. (A)

This paper presents results from the first analysis of a data set large enough to place significant constraints on the equation of state of dark energy. It includes a good discussion of how the constraints are measured and how systematic errors in the data can affect the results. (A)

Weak lensing can be used to measure statistically the distribution of mass in structures that are not dense enough to be detected individually in mass reconstructions. This weak-lensing signal is conventionally known as "cosmic shear," and its measurement is one of the primary methods that has been proposed for accurately measuring cosmological parameters such as the matter and energy content of the universe, the curvature of the universe, and the scale of matter density fluctuations. From 2000-2002, several competing groups produced the first measurements of cosmic shear from surveys each covering ~10 square degrees. A summary of these results can be found in this review article.

Weak lensing can be used to measure statistically the distribution of mass in structures that are not dense enough to be detected individually in mass reconstructions. This weak-lensing signal is conventionally known as "cosmic shear," and its measurement is one of the primary methods that has been proposed for accurately measuring cosmological parameters such as the matter and energy content of the universe, the curvature of the universe, and the scale of matter density fluctuations. From 2000-2002, several competing groups produced the first measurements of cosmic shear from surveys each covering ~10 square degrees. A summary of these results can be found in this review article.

This paper describes a type of lensing that is between the strong and weak-lensing limits: only single images are formed, but lensing introduces a measurable curvature to the galaxy shape. There is some theoretical promise for this "flexion" improving the combination of strong and weak-lensing data, but current attempts to measure the effect have shown it to be difficult.

This paper describes a type of lensing that is between the strong and weak-lensing limits: only single images are formed, but lensing introduces a measurable curvature to the galaxy shape. There is some theoretical promise for this "flexion" improving the combination of strong and weak-lensing data, but current attempts to measure the effect have shown it to be difficult.

LoCuSS is a large sample of nearby galaxy clusters with good weak lensing and X-ray measurements; Zhang, et al., use these clusters to investigate the agreement between mass estimates based on X-ray and weak lensing, and provide a good discussion of potential sources of errors in both of these methods.

This paper compares mass measurements from weak lensing and X-ray observations for a large sample of clusters, also providing a good discussion of the differences among various methods of measuring the cluster mass just with weak-lensing data.

This paper compares mass measurements from weak lensing and X-ray observations for a large sample of clusters.

This paper describes further mass measurements of a particular merging cluster system, the "Bullet Cluster," showing how gravitational lensing can be used to measure the mass of a structure that is not in dynamical equilibrium, and without assuming that "mass follows light." Strong lensing information is combined in a joint analysis, improving the accuracy of the mass peak positions.

This paper describes mass measurements of a particular merging cluster system, the "Bullet Cluster," showing how gravitational lensing can be used to measure the mass of a structure that is not in dynamical equilibrium, and without assuming that "mass follows light." (In this case, it does not!) It also demonstrates how noise in the weak-lensing data can affect the centers of the inferred two-dimensional mass distributions.

This paper investigates an error that pervades mass measurements with weak lensing, namely the assumption of a spherical mass model when fitting a non-spherical system. It explores whether the departure from the expected concentrations of certain clusters is a result of this effect. (A)

This paper investigates an error that pervades mass measurements with weak lensing, namely the assumption of a spherical mass model when fitting a non-spherical system. It gives theoretical expectations of the effect from N-body simulations and analytic tri-axial mass models. (A)

This paper investigates an error that pervades mass measurements with weak lensing, namely the assumption of a spherical mass model when fitting a non-spherical system. It gives theoretical expectations of the effect from N-body simulations and analytic tri-axial mass models. (A)

There is no publicly available package to fully perform a cosmic-shear analysis of a data set. However, some very useful tools can be found at Martin Kilbinger's webpage under his software section. (A)

Software for performing two-dimensional mass reconstructions in individual fields. (A)

Software for performing two-dimensional mass reconstructions in individual fields. (A)