Related papers: Cosmic Shear with Keck: Systematic Effects
Weak gravitational lensing provides a unique method to directly measure the distribution of mass in the universe. Because the distortions induced by lensing in the shape of background galaxies are small, the measurement of weak lensing…
The upcoming new generation of spectroscopic galaxy redshift surveys will provide large samples of cosmic voids, the distinct, large underdense structures in the universe. Combining these with future galaxy imaging surveys, we study the…
We explore a new technique to measure cosmic shear using Einstein rings. In Birrer et al. (2017), we showed that the detailed modelling of Einstein rings can be used to measure external shear to high precision. In this letter, we explore…
Kinematic weak lensing describes the distortion of a galaxy's projected velocity field due to lensing shear, an effect recently reported for the first time by Gurri et al. based on a sample of 18 galaxies at $z \sim 0.1$. In this paper, we…
Gravitational lensing has become one of the most interesting tools to study the mass distribution in the Universe. Since gravitational light deflection is independent of the nature and state of the matter, it is ideally suited to…
We describe a new method for reducing the shape noise in weak lensing measurements by an order of magnitude. Our method relies on spectroscopic measurements of disk galaxy rotation and makes use of the Tully-Fisher relation in order to…
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…
Using data from the HST Medium Deep Survey, a long-term Key Project, together with generically similar archived data, we have discovered evidence for weak gravitational `shear' of background field galaxies (I = 22 -- 26) in the vicinity of…
The magnification of galaxies in modern galaxy surveys induces additional correlations in the cosmic shear, galaxy-galaxy lensing and clustering observables used in modern lensing "3x2pt" analyses, due to sample selection. In this paper, we…
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…
Weak-lensing searches for galaxy clusters are plagued by low completeness and purity, severely limiting their usefulness for constraining cosmological parameters with the cluster mass function. A significant fraction of `false positives'…
We derive a new relation between cosological distances, valid in any (statistically) isotropic space-time and independent of cosmological parameters or even the validity of the field equation of General Relativity. In particular, this…
We explore the stability of the variance and skewness of the cosmic gravitational convergence field, using two different approaches: first we simulate a whole MEGACAM survey (100 sq. degrees). The reconstructed mass map, obtained from a…
We present results of our cosmic shear survey in progress at the Canada- France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT). We analysed 1.7 sq. degrees of data, out of which we measured a significant correlation of galaxy shape-orientation over several arcmin…
The first detections of cosmic shear signal reported recently by 4 independent groups cover angular scales between one and 10 arcmin. On those scales, the cosmic shear is a signature of non-linear perturbations, like groups and clusters of…
Weak gravitational lensing provides a unique method to directly map the dark matter in the universe and measure cosmological parameters. Current weak lensing surveys are limited by the atmospheric seeing from the ground and by the small…
In June 1997, parallel observations using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the HST started to be taken in substantial numbers along many different lines-of-sight. We are using the imaging data to investigate the distortion…
The problem of detecting dark matter filaments in the cosmic web is considered. Weak lensing is an ideal probe of dark matter, and therefore forms the basis of particularly promising detection methods. We consider and develop a number of…
We introduce a novel approach for detecting gravitational waves through their influence on the shape of resolved astronomical objects. This method, complementary to pulsar timing arrays and astrometric techniques, explores the…
We study the accuracy with which weak lensing measurements could be made from a future space-based survey, predicting the subsequent precisions of 3-dimensional dark matter maps, projected 2-dimensional dark matter maps, and mass-selected…