Related papers: The effect of distant large scale structure on wea…
Weak gravitational lensing can be used to directly measure the mass along a line-of-sight without any dependence on the dynamical state of the mass, and thus can be used to measure the masses of clusters even if they are not relaxed. One…
A synopsis of the recent results from our study of galaxy-galaxy lensing in clusters is presented. We have applied our analysis techniques to the sample of HST cluster-lenses that span a redshift range from redshift 0.18 to 0.58. We find…
We use weak lensing shear measurements of six z>0.5 clusters of galaxies to derive the mean lensing redshift of the background galaxies used to measure the shear. Five of these clusters are compared to X-ray mass models and verify a mean…
The angular cross-correlation between two galaxy samples separated in redshift is shown to be a useful measure of weak lensing by large-scale structure. Angular correlations in faint galaxies arise due to spatial clustering of the galaxies…
Measuring the distribution of mass on galaxy cluster scales is a crucial test of the Lambda CDM model, providing constraints on the nature of dark matter. Recent work investigating mass distributions of individual galaxy clusters using…
Substructure in distant gravitational lens galaxies can be detected because it alters the brightnesses and shapes of the lensed images. The optical and radio flux ratios in the four-image lens B1422+231 imply that there is a \sim 10^4-10^7…
We forecast constraints on the amplitude of matter clustering sigma_8(z) achievable with the combination of cluster weak lensing and number counts, in current and next-generation weak lensing surveys. We advocate an approach, analogous to…
Weak lensing by large-scale mass inhomogeneities in the Universe induces correlations in the observed ellipticities of distant sources. We first review the harmonic analysis and statistics required of these correlations and discuss…
Weak gravitational lensing due to nearby structures, such as the Coma cluster, and the Local Supercluster can be expected to polarize images of distant galaxies by ${\cal O}(0.2%\Omega)$ with coherence over scales of tens of square degrees.…
The Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (RCS) is a 100 deg^2 galaxy cluster survey designed to provide a large sample of optically selected clusters of galaxies with redshifts 0.1<z<1.4. The survey data are also useful for a variety of lensing…
Several recent studies show that bright, intermediate and high redshift optically and radio selected QSOs are positively correlated with nearby galaxies on a range of angular scales up to a degree. Obscuration by unevenly distributed…
We construct models describing the velocity field in the infall regions of clusters. The velocity field is the superposition of a systematic component and a "noise" component accounting for the effects of small scale substructure and…
We introduce a new method for constraining the redshift distribution of a set of galaxies, using weak gravitational lensing shear. Instead of using observed shears and redshifts to constrain cosmological parameters, we ask how well the…
Selected results on estimating cosmological parameters from simulated weak lensing data with noise are presented. Numerical simulations of ray tracing through N-body simulations have been used to generate shear and convergence maps due to…
Recent studies of lensing clusters reveal that it might be fairly common for a galaxy cluster that the X-ray center has an obvious offset from its gravitational center which is measured by strong lensing. We argue that if these offsets…
The flux density from undetected sources in the observing beam of a telescope produces source confusion noise in the resulting maps of the sky, and thus limits sensitivity. In a recent paper we discussed this effect in the…
With the advent of wide-field cosmological surveys, we are approaching samples of hundreds of thousands of galaxy clusters. While such large numbers will help reduce statistical uncertainties, the control of systematics in cluster masses…
The magnification effects of clustered matter produce variations in the image sizes and number density of galaxies across the sky. This paper advocates the use of these effects in wide field surveys to map large-scale structure and the…
The total mass of clusters of galaxies is a key parameter to study massive halos. It relates to numerous gravitational and baryonic processes at play in the framework of large scale structure formation, thus rendering its determination…
The determination of the mass of galaxy clusters from observations is subject to systematic uncertainties. Beyond the errors due to instrumental and observational systematic effects, in this work we investigate the bias introduced by…