Related papers: Cosmology with cosmic shear observations: a review
We present the current status of cosmic shear studies and their implications on cosmological models. Theoretical expectations and observational results are discussed in the framework of standard cosmology and CDM scenarios. The potentials…
Since the Universe is inhomogeneous on scales well below the Hubble radius, light bundles from distant galaxies are deflected and distorted by the tidal gravitational field of the large-scale matter distribution as they propagate through…
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…
Cosmic shear is one of the most powerful probes of Dark Energy, targeted by several current and future galaxy surveys. Lensing shear, however, is only sampled at the positions of galaxies with measured shapes in the catalog, making its…
Weak gravitational lensing has proven to be a powerful tool to map directly the distribution of dark matter in the Universe. The technique, currently used, relies on the accurate measurement of the gravitational shear that corresponds to…
(Abridged) Weak gravitational lensing induces distortions on the images of background galaxies, and thus provides a direct measure of mass fluctuations in the universe. Since the distortions induced by lensing on the images of background…
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…
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of weak gravitational lensing and its current applications in cosmology. We begin by introducing the fundamental concepts of gravitational lensing and derive the key equations for the…
Weak lensing by large-scale structure is an invaluable cosmological tool given that most of the energy density of the concordance cosmology is invisible. Several large ground-based imaging surveys will attempt to measure this effect over…
Weak Gravitational Lensing is a powerful probe of the dark sector of the Universe. One of the main challenges for this technique is the treatment of systematics in the measurement of cosmic shear from galaxy shapes. In an earlier work,…
We present the results of weak gravitational lensing statistics in four different cosmological $N$-body simulations. The data has been generated using an algorithm for the three-dimensional shear, which makes use of a variable softening…
Gravitational lenses can provide crucial information on the geometry of the Universe, on the cosmological scenario of formation of its structures as well as on the history of its components with look-back time. In this review, I focus on…
The correlation between cosmic shear as measured by the image distortion of high-redshift galaxies and the number counts of foreground galaxies is calculated. For a given power spectrum of the cosmic density fluctuations, this correlation…
Weak lensing magnification probes the correlation between galaxies and the underlying matter field in a similar fashion to galaxy-galaxy lensing shear. Although it has long been sidelined in favor of the latter on the grounds of a poorer…
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…
In tomographic weak lensing surveys, the presence of nulling properties reveals symmetries inherent in the data, which rely solely on the geometrical properties of the Universe. Ensuring its validity thus provides us with constraints on the…
Gravitational lensing can provide pure geometric tests of the structure of space-time, for instance by determining empirically the angular diameter distance-redshift relation. This geometric test has been demonstrated several times using…
We report a detection of the coherent distortion of faint galaxies arising from gravitational lensing by foreground structures. This ``cosmic shear'' is potentially the most direct measure of the mass power spectrum, as it is unaffected by…
The expansion of the universe causes spacetime curvature, distinguishing between distances measured along and transverse to the line of sight. The ratio of these distances, e.g. the cosmic shear distortion of a sphere defined by…
We review all the cosmic shear results obtained so far, with a critical discussion of the present strengths and weaknesses. We discuss the future prospects and the role cosmic shear could play in a precision cosmology era.