Session C3 - Astrophysics and Cosmology.
FOCUS session, Monday afternoon, June 25
Building 4, Room 153,
The determination of the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe (LSS) is one of the major goals of Cosmology. Images of distant galaxies are tangentially stretched in relation to mass concentrations present in their light path due to weak gravitational lensing. The statistical measurement of this effect defines maps (lensing maps) which contain information about the sources and lenses, and therefore about the LSS. We want to know which and how much information can be extracted from these maps.
We construct mock lensing maps from realizations of simulated LSS. N-body simulations provide snapshots of the mass distribution in the universe at several moments of its evolution. A multiple-plane lensing approximation is then used to calculate the convergence field (our weak gravitational lensing map). Because we know the statistical properties of both mock LSS's and their respective mock lensing maps, an "information link" can be established between them. The use of this information link on real lensing maps may constitute a powerful tool for the study of the LSS.