Related papers: Detection of shear due to weak lensing by large-sc…
We perform a cosmic shear analysis of the COMBO-17 survey -- a unique dataset with shear quality R-band imaging and accurate photometric redshift estimates (dz=0.05) for ~90% of galaxies to R=24.0. We undertake a full maximum likelihood…
We present a study of weak lensing shear measurements for simulated galaxy images at radio wavelengths. We construct a simulation pipeline into which we can input galaxy images of known ellipticity, and with which we then simulate…
Weak lensing is an important technique to determine the masses of galaxy groups. However, the distortion imprint on the shape of the background galaxies is affected by all the mass content along the line-of-sight. Using COSMOS shear mock…
We present a general linear algorithm for measuring the surface mass density 1-\kappa from the observable reduced shear g=\gamma/(1-\kappa) in the strong lensing regime. We show that in general, the observed polarization field can be…
The Shear TEsting Programme, STEP, is a collaborative project to improve the accuracy and reliability of all weak lensing measurements in preparation for the next generation of wide-field surveys. In this first STEP paper we present the…
We present an in-depth weak lensing analysis of the cluster MS1008 based on deep multicolor imaging obtained during the Science Verification of FORS1 at the VLT. The image quality (half arcsec seeing) and depth of the VLT images allow the…
We apply a mass reconstruction technique to simulated large-scale structure gravitational distortion maps, from 2.5' to 10 degree scales, for different cosmological scenarii. The projected mass is reconstructed using a non-parametric least…
We present a combined cosmic shear analysis of the modeling of line-of-sight distortions on strongly lensed extended arcs and galaxy shape measurements in the COSMOS field. We develop a framework to predict the covariance of strong lensing…
We present a cosmic shear analysis of the 100 square degree weak lensing survey, combining data from the CFHTLS-Wide, RCS, VIRMOS-DESCART and GaBoDS surveys. Spanning ~100 square degrees, with a median source redshift z~0.78, this combined…
The Shear TEsting Programme (STEP) is a collaborative project to improve the accuracy and reliability of weak lensing measurement, in preparation for the next generation of wide-field surveys. We review sixteen current and emerging shear…
We present a first attempt to reveal the possible existence of large foreground mass condensations directly responsible for the gravitational magnification of four distant luminous radiosources and one optical QSO. The technique uses a weak…
For cosmic shear to become an accurate cosmological probe, systematic errors in the shear measurement method must be unambiguously identified and corrected for. Previous work of this series has demonstrated that cosmic shears can be…
Neglecting the second order corrections in weak lensing measurements can lead to a few percent uncertainties on cosmic shears, and becomes more important for cluster lensing mass reconstructions. Existing methods which claim to measure the…
(abridged) We present measurements of galaxy-galaxy lensing from early commissioning imaging data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We measure a mean tangential shear around a stacked sample of foreground galaxies in three…
We report a measurement of cosmic shear correlations using an effective area of 6.5 sq. deg. of the VIRMOS deep imaging survey in progress at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. We measured various shear correlation functions, the aperture…
We investigate biases induced by the conversion between the observed image shape to shear distortion in current weak lensing analysis methods. Such overall calibration biases cannot be detected by the standard tests such as E/B…
We use weak lensing data from the Hubble Space Telescope COSMOS survey to measure the second- and third-moments of the cosmic shear field, estimated from about 450,000 galaxies with average redshift <z> ~ 1.3. We measure two- and…
Evolution in the mass function of galaxy clusters sensitively traces both the expansion history of the Universe and cosmological structure formation. Robust cluster mass determinations are a key ingredient for a reliable measurement of this…
We present new results on the gravitational lensing shear and magnification power spectra obtained from numerical simulations of a flat cosmology with a cosmological constant. These results are of considerable interest since both the shear…
We report the detection of weak gravitational lensing of faint, distant background galaxies by the rich, X-ray luminous cluster of galaxies MS1054-03 at z=0.83. This is the first measurement of weak lensing by a bona fide cluster at such a…