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GAPP Seminar - Weak Gravitational Lensing from the Ground, the Stratosphere, and Space

GAPP Seminar - Weak Gravitational Lensing from the Ground, the Stratosphere, and Space

339 Davey Lab

2024-04-09

Jacqueline McCleary, Northeastern University

The standard model of cosmology (aka L+Cold Dark Matter or LCDM) has successfully explained astrophysical observations as diverse as anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, and the flatness of galaxy rotation curves. A key phenomenon within the LCDM framework is weak gravitational lensing, which describes the small distortions of more distant galaxies due to the gravitational influence of intervening matter. Gravitational lensing is thus a direct probe of all matter, dark and baryonic, offering insights into the universe’s total mass densityWM and the clustering amplitude of cosmic structures (s8).

In this seminar, I will describe three very different campaigns to measure weak gravitational lensing signal from the ground (LoVoCCS), in the stratosphere (SuperBIT), and from space (COSMOS-Web). The discussion will focus on the unique features of each of these observational programs, how they advance our ability to constrainWM and s8,and what they could ultimately contribute to our evolving understanding of dark matter’s role in structure formation.

TimeSpeakerTitle
14:00Jacqueline McClearyWeak Gravitational Lensing from the Ground, the Stratosphere, and Space
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