Related papers: Limitations of model fitting methods for lensing s…
We propose a new technique to directly measure the shapes of dark matter halos of galaxies using weak gravitational lensing. Extending the standard galaxy-galaxy lensing method, we show that the shape parameters of the mass distribution of…
We develop a new method to estimate gravitational shear by adopting an elliptical weight function to measure background galaxy images. In doing so, we introduce a new concept of "zero plane" which is an imaginal source plane where shapes of…
Cosmic shear is a powerful method to constrain cosmology, provided that any systematic effects are under control. The intrinsic alignment of galaxies is expected to severely bias parameter estimates if not taken into account. We explore the…
We present and describe im3shape, a new publicly available galaxy shape measurement code for weak gravitational lensing shear. im3shape performs a maximum likelihood fit of a bulge-plus-disc galaxy model to noisy images, incorporating an…
Strong gravitational lensing at the galaxy scale is a valuable tool for various applications in astrophysics and cosmology. The primary uses of galaxy-scale lensing are to study elliptical galaxies' mass structure and evolution, constrain…
In this paper we present results from the weak lensing shape measurement GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing 2010 (GREAT10) Galaxy Challenge. This marks an order of magnitude step change in the level of scrutiny employed in weak lensing…
Upcoming weak lensing surveys will survey large cosmological volumes to measure the growth of cosmological structure with time and thereby constrain dark energy. One major systematic uncertainty in this process is the calibration of the…
We have previously reported the discovery of strong gravitational lensing by faint elliptical galaxies using the WFPC2 on HST and here we investigate their potential usefulness in putting constraints on lens mass models. We compare various…
We derive expressions, in terms of "polar shapelets", for the image distortion operations associated with weak gravitational lensing. Shear causes galaxy shapes to become elongated, and is sensitive to the second derivative of the projected…
We identify and study a previously unknown systematic effect on cosmic shear measurements, caused by the selection of galaxies used for shape measurement, in particular the rejection of close (blended) galaxy pairs. We use ray-tracing…
Point estimators for the shearing of galaxy images induced by gravitational lensing involve a complex inverse problem in the presence of noise, pixelization, and model uncertainties. We present a probabilistic forward modeling approach to…
The fraction of high-redshift sources which are multiply-imaged by intervening galaxies is strongly dependent on the cosmological constant, and so can be a useful probe of the cosmological model. However its power is limited by various…
Subject of this paper is the weak lensing effect on galaxies that show intrinsically correlated ellipticities. In our model, we investigate the distortion of the ellipticity field if the galaxies experience an apparent shift in their…
Gravitational lensing of background galaxies by intervening matter is a powerful probe of the cosmological model. In the era of Stage IV surveys, contamination from galaxies below the detection threshold has emerged as a significant source…
We derive an estimator of weak gravitational lensing shear from background galaxy images that avoids noise-induced biases through a rigorous Bayesian treatment of the measurement. The derived shear estimator disposes with the assignment of…
With the advent of large-scale weak lensing surveys there is a need to understand how realistic, scale-dependent systematics bias cosmic shear and dark energy measurements, and how they can be removed. Here we describe how spatial…
Given a foreground galaxy-density field or shear field, its cross-correlation with the shear field from a background population of source galaxies scales with the source redshift in a way that is specific to lensing. Such a source-scaling…
The distribution of mass in galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses is often modelled as an elliptical power law plus 'external shear', which notionally accounts for neighbouring galaxies and cosmic shear. We show that it does not. Except…
One of the most powerful techniques to study the dark sector of the Universe is weak gravitational lensing. In practice, to infer the reduced shear, weak lensing measures galaxy shapes, which are the consequence of both the intrinsic…
Galaxy lenses are frequently modeled as an elliptical mass distribution with external shear and isothermal spheres to account for secondary and line-of-sight galaxies. There is statistical evidence that some fraction of observed quads are…