Download or read book Precision Cosmology with Weak Gravitational Lensing and Galaxy Populations written by Jenna Freudenburg and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Precision Cosmology with Galaxy Cluster Surveys written by Hao-Yi Wu and published by Stanford University. This book was released on 2011 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acceleration of the universe, which is often attributed to "dark energy, " has posed one of the main challenges to fundamental physics. Galaxy clusters provide one of the most sensitive probes of dark energy because their abundance reflects the growth rate of large-scale structure and the expansion rate of the universe. Several large galaxy cluster surveys will soon provide tremendous statistical power to constrain the properties of dark energy; however, the constraining power of these surveys will be determined by how well systematic errors are controlled. Of these systematic errors, the dominant one comes from inferring cluster masses using observable signals of clusters, the so-called "observable--mass distribution." This thesis focuses on extracting dark energy information from forthcoming large galaxy cluster surveys, including how we maximize the cosmological information, how we control important systematics, and how precisely we need to calibrate theoretical models. We study how multi-wavelength follow-up observations can improve cluster mass calibration in optical surveys. We also investigate the impact of theoretical uncertainties in calibrating the spatial distributions of galaxy clusters on dark energy constraints. In addition, we explore how the formation history of galaxy clusters impacts the self-calibration of cluster mass. In addition, we use N-body simulations to develop a new statistical sample of cluster-size halos in order to further understand the observable--mass distribution. We study the completeness of subhalos in our cluster sample by comparing them with the satellite galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We also study how subhalo selections impact the inferred correlation between formation time and optical mass tracers, including cluster richness and velocity dispersion.

Download or read book Gravitational Lensing in Standard and Non standard Frameworks as a Probe for Precision Cosmology written by Michael A. Troxel and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gravitational lensing has been identified as a critical cosmological tool in studying the evolution of large scale structure in the universe as well as the nature of dark matter and dark energy. One of the primary physical systematics of weak lensing due to large scale structure (cosmic shear) is the intrinsic alignment (IA) of galaxies, which poses a barrier to precision weak lensing measurements. Methods for identifying and removing its effects on cosmological information are key to the success of weak lensing survey science goals. We have expanded model-independent techniques to isolate and remove the IA contamination from the lensing signal. These self-calibration techniques take advantage of complementary survey information to self-calibrate the lensing signal, which along with unique lensing and IA geometry and separation dependencies, allow us to reconstruct the IA correlations at the level of the spectrum and bispectrum. We have demonstrated that the self-calibration approach can reduce the IA bias over most relevant scale and redshift ranges by up to a factor of 10 or more. This could reduce a potential 10-20% bias in some cosmological information down to the 1-2% level. The self-calibration techniques have the added benefit of preserving the IA signal, which itself provides additional information that can be used in studying the formation and evolution of large scale structure in the universe. We have also identified a new source of intrinsic alignment contamination in cross-correlations with cosmic microwave background lensing and proposed a method to calibrate it, and we explored the potential of future surveys to measure directly various 2- and 3-point intrinsic alignment correlations. Finally, we have investigated the use of exact anisotropic and inhomogeneous models in general relativity for large- and small-scale structures in the universe, developing the frameworks necessary to analyze gravitational lensing in such models, and have compared them to observations, identifying potential sources of bias. We have found, for example, that ignoring substructure level anisotropies in structures could bias the lensing convergence, shear, and kinematic mass estimates by up to 10% or more. We conclude by presenting a numerical code package for calculations in such exact anisotropic and inhomogeneous models.

Download or read book Analysis Methods for Precision Cosmology with Weak Gravitational Lensing written by Robin Upham and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Gravitational Lensing Strong Weak and Micro written by Peter Schneider and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-12-30 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The observation, in 1919 by A.S. Eddington and collaborators, of the gra- tational de?ection of light by the Sun proved one of the many predictions of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity: The Sun was the ?rst example of a gravitational lens. In 1936, Albert Einstein published an article in which he suggested - ing stars as gravitational lenses. A year later, Fritz Zwicky pointed out that galaxies would act as lenses much more likely than stars, and also gave a list of possible applications, as a means to determine the dark matter content of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. It was only in 1979 that the ?rst example of an extragalactic gravitational lens was provided by the observation of the distant quasar QSO 0957+0561, by D. Walsh, R.F. Carswell, and R.J. Weymann. A few years later, the ?rst lens showing images in the form of arcs was detected. The theory, observations, and applications of gravitational lensing cons- tute one of the most rapidly growing branches of astrophysics. The gravi- tional de?ection of light generated by mass concentrations along a light path producesmagni?cation,multiplicity,anddistortionofimages,anddelaysp- ton propagation from one line of sight relative to another. The huge amount of scienti?c work produced over the last decade on gravitational lensing has clearly revealed its already substantial and wide impact, and its potential for future astrophysical applications.

Download or read book Outskirts of Galaxies written by Johan H. Knapen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-07-09 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book consists of invited reviews written by world-renowned experts on the subject of the outskirts of galaxies, an upcoming field which has been understudied so far. These regions are faint and hard to observe, yet hide a tremendous amount of information on the origin and early evolution of galaxies. They thus allow astronomers to address some of the most topical problems, such as gaseous and satellite accretion, radial migration, and merging. The book is published in conjunction with the celebration of the end of the four-year DAGAL project, an EU-funded initial training network, and with a major international conference on the topic held in March 2016 in Toledo. It thus reflects not only the views of the experts, but also the scientific discussions and progress achieved during the project and the meeting. The reviews in the book describe the most modern observations of the outer regions of our own Galaxy, and of galaxies in the local and high-redshift Universe. They tackle disks, haloes, streams, and accretion as observed through deep imaging and spectroscopy, and guide the reader through the various formation and evolution scenarios for galaxies. The reviews focus on the major open questions in the field, and explore how they can be tackled in the future. This book provides a unique entry point into the field for graduate students and non-specialists, and serves as a reference work for researchers in this exciting new field.

Download or read book Impact of Gravitational Lensing on Cosmology IAU S225 written by International Astronomical Union. Symposium and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-09-05 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains the proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Symposium no. 225, held in July 2004 at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Lausanne, Switzerland. The meeting focused on the applications of gravitational lensing to cosmological physics, and this book summarizes the most recent theoretical and observational developments. With chapters written by leading scientists in the field, this is a valuable resource for professional astronomers and graduate students in astronomy, physics and astro-particle physics.

Download or read book From Galaxy Clustering to Dark Matter Clustering written by Jaiyul Yoo and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Galaxy clustering measurement has been one of the leading tools in cosmology for estimating a more fundamental quantity, the clustering of the underlying dark matter distribution. With the recent advances in galaxy redshift surveys, and hence dramatic improvement in observational data, the main obstacle to achieving this goal has become the theoretical uncertainty of galaxy bias, the difference between the galaxy and the matter distributions. The halo occupation distribution (HOD) program has emerged as a powerful tool to overcome the difficulty in inferring dark matter clustering by providing a theoretical framework that describes statistical properties of galaxy populations in individual dark matter halos. Moreover, gravitational lensing depends only on gravity, regardless of whether it is produced by dark or luminous matter, thus providing an observational method to break the degeneracy between the galaxy bias and underlying cosmology. In particular, weak gravitational lensing uses the subtle distortion of background galaxy shapes to measure how foreground lensing matter is statistically distributed, making its method well suited to the HOD description. In this thesis, I describe three methods to quantify dark matter clustering based on the HOD framework, making full use of precision measurements of galaxy clustering and weak lensing from recent galaxy redshift surveys. First, using galaxy clustering measurements on small scales, I infer the scale-dependent bias function, which makes it possible to extend the recovery of the primordial matter power spectrum over a large dynamic range, and thereby tighten constraints on cosmological parameters obtainable from the galaxy samples of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Second, I develop an analytic model for combining galaxy-galaxy lensing and galaxy clustering to constrain the matter density parameter and the matter fluctuation amplitude. Finally, I present a novel method to constrain dark energy models using cluster-galaxy weak lensing and apply our method to the planned Dark Energy Survey (DES), forecasting our ability to measure cosmological parameters. Comprehensive analysis of galaxy clustering measurements with these complementary approaches will provide a unique opportunity for a complete description of dark matter clustering.

Download or read book Improving Accuracy in Gravitational Weak Lensing Measurements of Clusters written by Julia Young and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Measuring the distribution of galaxy clusters provides a powerful constraint on cosmological parameters. Currently, the largest challenge for using the observed abundance of clusters to constrain cosmology is to measure their mass accurately. The best tool to measure the mass of clusters is weak gravitational lensing, which measures the baryonic and dark matter present in galaxy clusters by observing the distortion of the shape of sources behind the gravitational lens called shear. Weak lensing measurements are technically challenging to measure due to the distortion in the shape of sources from the atmosphere and telescope optics called the Point Spread Function or PSF. To measure shear, images are processed by various software programs called lensing pipelines which correct for the distortion due to the PSF. Using image simulations with sources of known characteristics and known shear the systematic error of different lensing pipelines can be compared. In this dissertation the results of the Cluster Shear TEsting Program (CSTEP), a test of lensing pipelines on simulated images, is presented. CSTEP was developed to accurately measure the systematic bias on weak lensing measurements of clusters expected by the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The systematic error from lensing pipelines is then used to predict the error on mass measurements of galaxy clusters observed by DES.

Download or read book Constraining Cosmology with Weak Gravitational Lensing written by Kellen J. Murphy and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cosmological Physics written by J. A. Peacock and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and authoritative introduction to contemporary cosmology for advanced undergraduate and graduate students.

Download or read book Studies Into the Averaging Problem written by Tharake S. Wijenayake and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the tremendous improvement in the precision of available astrophysical data in the recent past, it becomes increasingly important to examine some of the underlying assumptions behind the standard model of cosmology and take into consideration nonlinear and relativistic corrections which may affect it at percent precision level. Due to its mathematical rigor and fully covariant and exact nature, Zalaletdinov's macroscopic gravity (MG) is arguably one of the most promising frameworks to explore nonlinearities due to inhomogeneities in the real Universe. We study the application of MG to precision cosmology, focusing on developing a self-consistent cosmology model built on the averaging framework that adequately describes the large-scale Universe and can be used to study real data sets. We first implement an algorithmic procedure using computer algebra systems to explore new exact solutions to the MG field equations. After validating the process with an existing isotropic solution, we derive a new homogeneous, anisotropic and exact solution. Next, we use the simplest (and currently only) solvable homogeneous and isotropic model of MG and obtain an observable function for cosmological expansion using some reasonable assumptions on light propagation. We find that the principal modification to the angular diameter distance is through the change in the expansion history. We then linearize the MG field equations and derive a framework that contains large-scale structure, but the small scale inhomogeneities have been smoothed out and encapsulated into an additional cosmological parameter representing the averaging effect. We derive an expression for the evolution of the density contrast and peculiar velocities and integrate them to study the growth rate of large-scale structure. We find that increasing the magnitude of the averaging term leads to enhanced growth at late times. Thus, for the same matter content, the growth rate of large scale structure in the MG model is stronger than that of the standard model. Finally, we constrain the MG model using Cosmic Microwave Background temperature anisotropy data, the distance to supernovae data, the galaxy power spectrum, the weak lensing tomography shear-shear cross-correlations and the baryonic acoustic oscillations. We find that for this model the averaging density parameter is very small and does not cause any significant shift in the other cosmological parameters. However, it can lead to increased errors on some cosmological parameters such as the Hubble constant and the amplitude of the linear matter spectrum at the scale of 8h-1Mpc. Further studies are needed to explore other solutions and models of MG as well as their effects on precision cosmology.

Download or read book The Extragalactic Distance Scale written by Space Telescope Science Institute (U.S.). Symposium and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-06-28 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the hottest debates in astronomy and cosmology today concerns the value of the Hubble constant. This constant is of paramount importance since it fixes the size and age of the Universe. At a symposium at the Space Telescope Science Institute, experts from around the world presented the latest results from a plethora of techniques for determining the Hubble constant. The value has always been controversial, but at this meeting experts' results agreed for the first time to within about 20%. Based on the meeting, this book presents twenty-three specially written review articles. They provide a comprehensive account of the Hubble-constant debate with the latest results from gravitational lensing, supernovae and novae, the Tully-Fisher relation, the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, globular clusters, planetary nebulae, light echoes, and the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project. This timely volume provides a standard reference for graduate students and researchers in astronomy and cosmology.

Download or read book New Worlds New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-02-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by discoveries, and enabled by leaps in technology and imagination, our understanding of the universe has changed dramatically during the course of the last few decades. The fields of astronomy and astrophysics are making new connections to physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Based on a broad and comprehensive survey of scientific opportunities, infrastructure, and organization in a national and international context, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics outlines a plan for ground- and space- based astronomy and astrophysics for the decade of the 2010's. Realizing these scientific opportunities is contingent upon maintaining and strengthening the foundations of the research enterprise including technological development, theory, computation and data handling, laboratory experiments, and human resources. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics proposes enhancing innovative but moderate-cost programs in space and on the ground that will enable the community to respond rapidly and flexibly to new scientific discoveries. The book recommends beginning construction on survey telescopes in space and on the ground to investigate the nature of dark energy, as well as the next generation of large ground-based giant optical telescopes and a new class of space-based gravitational observatory to observe the merging of distant black holes and precisely test theories of gravity. New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics recommends a balanced and executable program that will support research surrounding the most profound questions about the cosmos. The discoveries ahead will facilitate the search for habitable planets, shed light on dark energy and dark matter, and aid our understanding of the history of the universe and how the earliest stars and galaxies formed. The book is a useful resource for agencies supporting the field of astronomy and astrophysics, the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over those agencies, the scientific community, and the public.

Download or read book Strong Gravitational Lensing as a Probe of Galaxy Evolution and Cosmology written by Kenneth Christopher Wong and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thesis, I explore how the environments of both galaxy and cluster-scale strong gravitational lenses affect studies of cosmology and the properties of the earliest galaxies. Galaxy-scale lenses with measured time delays can be used to determine the Hubble constant, given an accurate lens model. However, perturbations from structures along the line of sight can introduce errors into the measurement. I use data from a survey towards known lenses in group environments to calculate the external shear in these systems, which is typically marginalized over in standard lens analyses. In three of six systems where I compare the independently-calculated environment shear to lens model shears, the quantities disagree at greater than 95% confidence. We explore possible sources of this disagreement. Using these data, I generate fiducial lines of sight and insert mock lenses with assumed input physical and cosmological parameters and find that those parameters can be recovered with {598} 5-10% scatter when uncertainties in my characterization of the environment are applied. The lenses in groups have larger bias and scatter. I predict how well new time delay lenses from LSST will constrain H0 and find that an ensemble of 500 quad lenses will recover H0 with {598} 2% bias with {598} 0.3% precision. On larger scales, galaxy cluster lenses can magnify the earliest galaxies into detectability. While past studies have focused on single massive clusters, I investigate the properties of lines of sight, or "beams", containing multiple cluster-scale halos in projection. Even for beams of similar total mass, those with multiple halos have higher lensing cross sections on average. The optimal configurations for maximizing the cross section are also those that maximize faint z {598} 10 detections. I present a new selection technique to identify beams in wide-area photometric surveys that contain high total masses and often multiple clusters in projection as traced by luminous red galaxies. I apply this technique to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and present the 200 most promising beams. Several are confirmed spectroscopically to be among the highest mass beams known with some containing multiple clusters. These are among the best fields to search for faint high-redshift galaxies.

Download or read book Formation of Structure in the Universe written by Avishai Dekel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-04-15 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This advanced textbook provides an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to the very active field of structure formation in cosmology. It is written by eleven world-leading authorities. Written in a clear and pedagogical style appropriate for graduate students in astronomy and physics, this textbook introduces the reader to a wide range of exciting topics in contemporary cosmology: from recent advances in redshift surveys, to the latest models in gravitational lensing and cosmological simulations. The authors are all world-renowned experts both for their research and teaching skills. In the fast-moving field of structure formation, this book provides advanced undergraduate and graduate students with a welcome textbook which unites the latest theory and observations.

Download or read book An Investigation of Cosmological Dark Matter Using Weak Gravitational Lensing written by R. Michael Jarvis and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: