MEASURING THE GEOMETRY OF THE UNIVERSE FROM WEAK GRAVITATIONAL LENSING BEHIND GALAXY GROUPS IN THE HST COSMOS SURVEY

Journal Article · Fri Apr 20 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/749/2/127· OSTI ID:22020410

Taylor, James E ^[1]; Massey, Richard J ^[2]; Leauthaud, Alexie; Tanaka, Masayuki ^[3]; George, Matthew R ^[4]; Rhodes, Jason; Ellis, Richard; Scoville, Nick ^[5]; Kitching, Thomas D ^[6]; Capak, Peter ^[7]; Finoguenov, Alexis ^[8]; Ilbert, Olivier; Kneib, Jean-Paul ^[9]; Jullo, Eric ^[10]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1 (Canada)
2. Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE (United Kingdom)
3. Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa-shi, Chiba 277-8583 (Japan)
4. Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
5. California Institute of Technology, MC 249-17, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
6. Institute for Astronomy, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ (United Kingdom)
7. Spitzer Science Center, 314-6 Caltech, 1201 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
8. Max-Planck-Institut fuer extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse, 85748 Garching (Germany)
9. LAM, CNRS-UNiv Aix-Marseille, 38 rue F. Joliot-Curis, 13013 Marseille (France)
10. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States)

Gravitational lensing can provide pure geometric tests of the structure of spacetime, for instance by determining empirically the angular diameter distance-redshift relation. This geometric test has been demonstrated several times using massive clusters which produce a large lensing signal. In this case, matter at a single redshift dominates the lensing signal, so the analysis is straightforward. It is less clear how weaker signals from multiple sources at different redshifts can be stacked to demonstrate the geometric dependence. We introduce a simple measure of relative shear which for flat cosmologies separates the effect of lens and source positions into multiplicative terms, allowing signals from many different source-lens pairs to be combined. Applying this technique to a sample of groups and low-mass clusters in the COSMOS survey, we detect a clear variation of shear with distance behind the lens. This represents the first detection of the geometric effect using weak lensing by multiple, low-mass groups. The variation of distance with redshift is measured with sufficient precision to constrain the equation of state of the universe under the assumption of flatness, equivalent to a detection of a dark energy component {Omega}{sub X} at greater than 99% confidence for an equation-of-state parameter -2.5 {<=} w {<=} -0.1. For the case w = -1, we find a value for the cosmological constant density parameter {Omega}{sub {Lambda}} = 0.85{sup +0.044}{sub -}0{sub .19} (68% CL) and detect cosmic acceleration (q{sub 0} < 0) at the 98% CL. We consider the systematic uncertainties associated with this technique and discuss the prospects for applying it in forthcoming weak-lensing surveys.

• OSTI ID: 22020410
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 749; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ACCELERATION
COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT
COSMOLOGY
DISTANCE
EQUATIONS OF STATE
GALAXIES
GEOMETRY
MASS
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
RED SHIFT
SIGNALS
SPACE-TIME
UNIVERSE