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Weak lensing mass-mapping is a useful tool to access the full distribution of dark matter on the sky, but because of intrinsic galaxy ellipticies and finite fields/missing data, the recovery of dark matter maps constitutes a challenging…
The available probes of the large scale structure in the Universe have distinct properties: galaxies are a high resolution but biased tracer of mass, while weak lensing avoids such biases but, due to low signal-to-noise ratio, has poor…
A microlensing exoplanet search is a unique method for finding planets orbiting distant stars. However, in the past, the method used to analyze microlensing data could not deal with complex lens systems. The number of lenses was limited…
The next decade will bring massive new data sets from experiments of the direct detection of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter. The primary goal of these experiments is to identify and characterize the dark-matter…
The large-scale structure is a major source of cosmological information. However, next-generation photometric galaxy surveys will only provide a distorted view of cosmic structures due to large redshift uncertainties. To address the need…
Clues to the identity of dark matter have remained surprisingly elusive, given the scope of experimental programs aimed at its identification. While terrestrial experiments may be able to nail down a model, an alternative, and equally…
We present the theoretical and analytical bases of optimal techniques to measure weak gravitational shear from images of galaxies. We first characterize the geometric space of shears and ellipticity, then use this geometric interpretation…
Constraining the distribution of small-scale structure in our universe allows us to probe alternatives to the cold dark matter paradigm. Strong gravitational lensing offers a unique window into small dark matter halos ($<10^{10} M_\odot$)…
This paper reviews statistical methods recently developed to reconstruct and analyze dark matter mass maps from weak lensing observations. The field of weak lensing is motivated by the observations made in the last decades showing that the…
We present a two-dimensional (2-D) fitting algorithm (GALFIT, Version 3) with new capabilities to study the structural components of galaxies and other astronomical objects in digital images. Our technique improves on previous 2-D fitting…
Tens of thousands of galaxy-galaxy strong lensing systems are expected to be discovered by the end of the decade. These will form a vast new dataset that can be used to probe subgalactic dark matter structures through its gravitational…
Measurement of the gravitational distortion of images of distant galaxies is rapidly becoming established as a powerful probe of the dark mass distribution in clusters of galaxies. With the advent of large mosaics of CCD's these methods…
Large-scale structure distorts the images of background galaxies, which allows one to measure directly the projected distribution of dark matter in the universe and determine its power spectrum. Here we address the question of how to…
We propose a new mass-mapping algorithm, specifically designed to recover small-scale information from a combination of gravitational shear and flexion. Including flexion allows us to supplement the shear on small scales in order to…
Strong gravitational lensing is a promising probe of the substructure of dark matter halos. Deep learning methods have the potential to accurately identify images containing substructure, and differentiate WIMP dark matter from other well…
Gravitational weak lensing maps the location of (dark) matter at all scales. The lens-induced distortion field traces gravity fields and can be used to reconstruct the mass distribution in galaxies, groups, clusters of galaxies or…
Large aperture ground based solar telescopes allow the solar atmosphere to be resolved in unprecedented detail. However, observations are limited by Earths turbulent atmosphere, requiring post image corrections. Current reconstruction…
Strong-lensing images provide a wealth of information both about the magnified source and about the dark matter distribution in the lens. Precision analyses of these images can be used to constrain the nature of dark matter. However, this…
Weak gravitational lensing is the slight distortion of galaxy shapes caused primarily by the gravitational effects of dark matter in the universe. In our work, we seek to invert the weak lensing signal from 2D telescope images to…
Weak gravitational lensing on a cosmological scales can provide strong constraints both on the nature of dark matter and the dark energy equation of state. Most current weak lensing studies are restricted to (two-dimensional) projections,…