Gravitational Lensing Signal Research Articles

Measurements of the Matter Density Perturbation Amplitude from Cosmological Data

We compare various physically different measurements of linear matter density perturbation amplitude, $sigma_8$, which are obtained from the observations of CMB anisotropy, galaxy cluster mass function, weak gravitation lensing, matter power spectrum and redshift space distortions. We show that $\sigma_8$ measurement from CMB gravitational lensing signal based on Planck CMB temperature anisotropy data at high multipoles, $\ell>1000$, contradict to all other measurements obtained both from remaining Planck CMB anisotropy data and from other cosmological data, at about $3.7\sigma$ significance level. Therefore, these data currently should not be combined with other data to constrain cosmological parameters. With the exception of Planck CMB temperature anisotropy data at high multipoles, all other measurements are in good agreement between each other and give the following measurements of linear density perturbation amplitude: $\sigma_8=0.792\pm0.006$, mean density of the Universe: $\Omega_m=0.287\pm0.007$, and Hubble constant: $H_0 = 69.4\pm 0.6$~km~s$^{-1}$~Mpc$^{-1}$. Taking in account the data on baryon acoustic oscillations and (or) direct measurements of the Hubble constant, one can obtain different constraints on sum of neutrino mass and number of relativistic species.

Gravitational lensing detection of an extremely dense environment around a galaxy cluster

Galaxy clusters form at the highest-density nodes of the cosmic web1,2. The clustering of dark matter halos hosting these galaxy clusters is enhanced relative to the general mass distribution, with the matter density beyond the virial region being strongly correlated to the halo mass (halo bias)3. Halo properties other than mass can further enhance the halo clustering (secondary bias)4–7. Observational campaigns have ascertained the halo bias8–10, but efforts to detect this secondary bias for massive halos have been inconclusive11–13. Here, we report the analysis of the environment bias in a sample of massive clusters, selected through the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect by the Planck mission14,15, focusing on the detection of the environment dark matter correlated to a single cluster, PSZ2 G099.86+58.45. The gravitational lensing signal of the outskirts is very large and can be traced up to 30 megaparsecs with a high signal-to-noise ratio (about 3.4), implying environment matter density in notable excess of the cosmological mean. Our finding reveals this system to be extremely rare in the current paradigm of structure formation and, implies that enhancing mechanisms around high-mass halos can be very effective. Future lensing surveys will probe the surroundings of single haloes, enabling the study of their formation and evolution of structure. The strong gravitational lensing signal around the massive cluster PSZ2 G099.86+58.45 indicates environment matter density in notable excess of the cosmological mean and implies that enhancing mechanisms around high-mass halos can be very effective.

The galaxy–subhalo connection in low-redshift galaxy clusters from weak gravitational lensing

We measure the gravitational lensing signal around satellite galaxies in a sample of galaxy clusters at $z<0.15$ by combining high-quality imaging data from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope with a large sample of spectroscopically-confirmed cluster members. We use extensive image simulations to assess the accuracy of shape measurements of faint, background sources in the vicinity of bright satellite galaxies. We find a small but significant bias, as light from the lenses makes the shapes of background galaxies appear radially aligned with the lens. We account for this bias by applying a correction that depends on both lens size and magnitude. We also correct for contamination of the source sample by cluster members. We use a physically-motivated definition of subhalo mass, namely the mass bound to the subhalo, $m_\mathrm{bg}$, similar to definitions used by common subhalo finders in numerical simulations. Binning the satellites by stellar mass we provide a direct measurement of the subhalo-to-stellar-mass relation, $\log m_\mathrm{bg}/\mathrm{M}_\odot = (11.54\pm0.05) + (0.95\pm0.10)\log[m_\star/(2\times10^{10}\mathrm{M}_\odot)]$. This best-fitting relation implies that, at a stellar mass $m_\star\sim3\times10^{10}\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$, subhalo masses are roughly 50 per cent of those of central galaxies, and this fraction decreases at higher stellar masses. We find some evidence for a sharp change in the total-to-stellar mass ratio around the clusters' scale radius, which could be interpreted as galaxies within the scale radius having suffered more strongly from tidal stripping, but remain cautious regarding this interpretation.

Detecting unresolved binary stars inEuclidVIS images

Measuring a weak gravitational lensing signal to the level required by the next generation of space-based surveys demands exquisite reconstruction of the point-spread function (PSF). However, unresolved binary stars can significantly distort the PSF shape. In an effort to mitigate this bias, we aim at detecting unresolved binaries in realistic Euclid stellar populations. We tested methods in numerical experiments where (i) the PSF shape is known to Euclid requirements across the field of view, and (ii) the PSF shape is unknown. We drew simulated catalogues of PSF shapes for this proof-of-concept paper. Following the Euclid survey plan, the objects were observed four times. We propose three methods to detect unresolved binary stars. The detection is based on the systematic and correlated biases between exposures of the same object. One method is a simple correlation analysis, while the two others use supervised machine-learning algorithms (random forest and artificial neural network). In both experiments, we demonstrate the ability of our methods to detect unresolved binary stars in simulated catalogues. The performance depends on the level of prior knowledge of the PSF shape and the shape measurement errors. Good detection performances are observed in both experiments. Full complexity, in terms of the images and the survey design, is not included, but key aspects of a more mature pipeline are discussed. Finding unresolved binaries in objects used for PSF reconstruction increases the quality of the PSF determination at arbitrary positions. We show, using different approaches, that we are able to detect at least binary stars that are most damaging for the PSF reconstruction process.

Halo ellipticity of GAMA galaxy groups from KiDS weak lensing

We constrain the average halo ellipticity of ~2 600 galaxy groups from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, using the weak gravitational lensing signal measured from the overlapping Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS). To do so, we quantify the azimuthal dependence of the stacked lensing signal around seven different proxies for the orientation of the dark matter distribution, as it is a priori unknown which one traces the orientation best. On small scales, the major axis of the brightest group/cluster member (BCG) provides the best proxy, leading to a clear detection of an anisotropic signal. In order to relate that to a halo ellipticity, we have to adopt a model density profile. We derive new expressions for the quadrupole moments of the shear field given an elliptical model surface mass density profile. Modeling the signal with an elliptical Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile on scales < 250 kpc, which roughly corresponds to half the virial radius, and assuming that the BCG is perfectly aligned with the dark matter, we find an average halo ellipticity of e_h=0.38 +/- 0.12. This agrees well with results from cold-dark-matter-only simulations, which typically report values of e_h ~ 0.3. On larger scales, the lensing signal around the BCGs does not trace the dark matter distribution well, and the distribution of group satellites provides a better proxy for the halo's orientation instead, leading to a 3--4 sigma detection of a non-zero halo ellipticity at scales between 250 kpc and 750 kpc. Our results suggest that the distribution of stars enclosed within a certain radius forms a good proxy for the orientation of the dark matter within that radius, which has also been observed in hydrodynamical simulations.

PICS: SIMULATIONS OF STRONG GRAVITATIONAL LENSING IN GALAXY CLUSTERS

ABSTRACT Gravitational lensing has become one of the most powerful tools available for investigating the “dark side” of the universe. Cosmological strong gravitational lensing, in particular, probes the properties of the dense cores of dark matter halos over decades in mass and offers the opportunity to study the distant universe at flux levels and spatial resolutions otherwise unavailable. Studies of strongly lensed variable sources offer even further scientific opportunities. One of the challenges in realizing the potential of strong lensing is to understand the statistical context of both the individual systems that receive extensive follow-up study, as well as that of the larger samples of strong lenses that are now emerging from survey efforts. Motivated by these challenges, we have developed an image simulation pipeline, Pipeline for Images of Cosmological Strong lensing (PICS), to generate realistic strong gravitational lensing signals from group- and cluster-scale lenses. PICS uses a low-noise and unbiased density estimator based on (resampled) Delaunay Tessellations to calculate the density field; lensed images are produced by ray-tracing images of actual galaxies from deep Hubble Space Telescope observations. Other galaxies, similarly sampled, are added to fill in the light cone. The pipeline further adds cluster member galaxies and foreground stars into the lensed images. The entire image ensemble is then observed using a realistic point-spread function that includes appropriate detector artifacts for bright stars. Noise is further added, including such non-Gaussian elements as noise window-paning from mosaiced observations, residual bad pixels, and cosmic rays. The aim is to produce simulated images that appear identical—to the eye (expert or otherwise)—to real observations in various imaging surveys.

Mass distribution in an assembling super galaxy group atz= 0.37

We present a weak gravitational lensing analysis of supergroup SG1120$-$1202, consisting of four distinct X-ray-luminous groups, that will merge to form a cluster comparable in mass to Coma at $z=0$. These groups lie within a projected separation of 1 to 4 Mpc and within $\Delta v=550$ km s$^{-1}$ and form a unique protocluster to study the matter distribution in a coalescing system. Using high-resolution {\em HST}/ACS imaging, combined with an extensive spectroscopic and imaging data set, we study the weak gravitational distortion of background galaxy images by the matter distribution in the supergroup. We compare the reconstructed projected density field with the distribution of galaxies and hot X-ray emitting gas in the system and derive halo parameters for the individual density peaks. We show that the projected mass distribution closely follows the locations of the X-ray peaks and associated brightest group galaxies. One of the groups that lies at slightly lower redshift ($z\approx 0.35$) than the other three groups ($z\approx 0.37$) is X-ray luminous, but is barely detected in the gravitational lensing signal. The other three groups show a significant detection (up to $5 \sigma$ in mass), with velocity dispersions between $355^{+55}_{-70}$ and $530^{+45}_{-55}$ km s$^{-1}$ and masses between $0.8^{+0.4}_{-0.3} \times 10^{14}$ and $1.6^{+0.5}_{-0.4}\times 10^{14} h^{-1} M_{\odot}$, consistent with independent measurements. These groups are associated with peaks in the galaxy and gas density in a relatively straightforward manner. Since the groups show no visible signs of interaction, this supports the picture that we are catching the groups before they merge into a cluster.

THE WEAK LENSING SIGNAL AND THE CLUSTERING OF BOSS GALAXIES. I. MEASUREMENTS

A joint analysis of the clustering of galaxies and their weak gravitational lensing signal is well-suited to simultaneously constrain the galaxy-halo connection as well as the cosmological parameters by breaking the degeneracy between galaxy bias and the amplitude of clustering signal. In a series of two papers, we perform such an analysis at the highest redshift ($z\sim0.53$) in the literature using CMASS galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Eleventh Data Release (SDSS-III/BOSS DR11) catalog spanning 8300~deg$^2$. In this paper, we present details of the clustering and weak lensing measurements of these galaxies. We define a subsample of 400,916 CMASS galaxies based on their redshifts and stellar mass estimates so that the galaxies constitute an approximately volume-limited and similar population over the redshift range $0.47\le z\le 0.59$. We obtain a signal-to-noise ratio $S/N\simeq 56$ for the galaxy clustering measurement. We also explore the redshift and stellar mass dependence of the clustering signal. For the weak lensing measurement, we use existing deeper imaging data from the CFHTLS with publicly available shape and photometric redshift catalogs from CFHTLenS, but only in a 105~deg$^2$ area which overlaps with BOSS. This restricts the lensing measurement to only 5,084 CMASS galaxies. After careful systematic tests, we find a highly significant detection of the CMASS weak lensing signal, with total $S/N\simeq 26$. These measurements form the basis of the halo occupation distribution and cosmology analysis presented in More et al. (Paper II).

Tomographic-spectral approach for dark matter detection in the cross-correlation between cosmic shear and diffuse γ-ray emission

We recently proposed to cross-correlate the diffuse extragalactic γ-ray background with the gravitational lensing signal of cosmic shear. This represents a novel and promising strategy to search for annihilating or decaying particle dark matter (DM) candidates. In the present work, we demonstrate the potential of a tomographic-spectral approach: measuring the cross-correlation in separate bins of redshift and energy significantly improves the sensitivity to a DM signal. Indeed, the technique proposed here takes advantage of the different scaling of the astrophysical and DM components with redshift and, simultaneously of their different energy spectra and different angular extensions. The sensitivity to a particle DM signal is extremely promising even when the DM-induced emission is quite faint. We first quantify the prospects of detecting DM by cross-correlating the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) diffuse γ-ray background with the cosmic shear expected from the Dark Energy Survey. Under the hypothesis of a significant subhalo boost, such a measurement can deliver a 5σ detection of DM, if the DM particle is lighter than 300 GeV and has a thermal annihilation rate. We then forecast the capability of the European Space Agency Euclid satellite (whose launch is planned for 2020), in combination with an hypothetical future γ-ray detector with slightly improved specifications compared to current telescopes. We predict that the cross-correlation of their data will allow a measurement of the DM mass with an uncertainty of a factor of 1.5–2, even for moderate subhalo boosts, for DM masses up to few hundreds of GeV and thermal annihilation rates.

Measuring cluster masses with CMB lensing: a statistical approach

We present a method for measuring the masses of galaxy clusters using the imprint of their gravitational lensing signal on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. The method first reconstructs the projected gravitational potential with a quadratic estimator and then applies a matched filter to extract cluster mass. The approach is well-suited for statistical analyses that bin clusters according to other mass proxies. We find that current experiments, such as Planck, the South Pole Telescope and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, can practically implement such a statistical methodology, and that future experiments will reach sensitivities sufficient for individual measurements of massive systems. As illustration, we use simulations of Planck observations to demonstrate that it is possible to constrain the mass scale of a set of 62 massive clusters with prior information from X-ray observations, similar to the published Planck ESZ-XMM sample. We examine the effect of the thermal (tSZ) and kinetic (kSZ) Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) signals, finding that the impact of the kSZ remains small in this context. The stronger tSZ signal, however, must be actively removed from the CMB maps by component separation techniques prior to reconstruction of the gravitational potential. Our study of two such methods highlights the importance of broad frequency coverage for this purpose. A companion paper presents application to the Planck data on the ESZ-XMM sample.

Separating weak lensing and intrinsic alignments using radio observations

We discuss methods for performing weak lensing using radio observations to recover information about the intrinsic structural properties of the source galaxies. Radio surveys provide unique information that can benefit weak lensing studies, such as HI emission, which may be used to construct galaxy velocity maps, and polarized synchrotron radiation; both of which provide information about the unlensed galaxy and can be used to reduce galaxy shape noise and the contribution of intrinsic alignments. Using a proxy for the intrinsic position angle of an observed galaxy, we develop techniques for cleanly separating weak gravitational lensing signals from intrinsic alignment contamination in forthcoming radio surveys. Random errors on the intrinsic orientation estimates introduce biases into the shear and intrinsic alignment estimates. However, we show that these biases can be corrected for if the error distribution is accurately known. We demonstrate our methods using simulations, where we reconstruct the shear and intrinsic alignment auto and cross-power spectra in three overlapping redshift bins. We find that the intrinsic position angle information can be used to successfully reconstruct both the lensing and intrinsic alignment power spectra with negligible residual bias.

Intrinsic alignments of group and cluster galaxies in photometric surveys

Intrinsic alignments of galaxies have been shown to contaminate weak gravitational lensing observables on linear scales, r > 10 h−1 Mpc, but studies of alignments in the non-linear regime have thus far been inconclusive. We present an estimator for extracting the intrinsic alignment signal of galaxies around stacked clusters of galaxies from multiband imaging data. Our estimator removes the contamination caused by galaxies that are gravitationally lensed by the clusters and scattered in redshift space due to photometric redshift uncertainties. It uses posterior probability distributions for the redshifts of the galaxies in the sample and it is easily extended to obtain the weak gravitational lensing signal while removing the intrinsic alignment contamination. We apply this algorithm to groups and clusters of galaxies identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey ‘Stripe 82’ co-added imaging data over ∼150 deg2. We find that the intrinsic alignment signal around stacked clusters in the redshift range 0.1 < z < 0.4 is consistent with zero. In terms of the tidal alignment model of Catelan et al., we set joint constraints on the strength of the alignment and the bias of the lensing groups and clusters on scales between 0.1 and 10 h−1 Mpc, |$b_{\rm L}C_1\rho _{\rm crit} = -2_{-14}^{+14} \times 10^{-4}$|⁠. This constrains the contamination fraction of alignment to lensing signal to the range between [ − 18, 23] per cent below scales of 1 h−1 Mpc at 95 per cent confidence level, and this result depends on our photometric redshift quality and selection criteria used to identify background galaxies. Our results are robust to the choice of photometric band in which the shapes are measured (i and r) and to centring on the Brightest Cluster Galaxy or on the geometrical centre of the clusters.

Dark matter astrometry: accuracy of subhalo positions for the measurement of self-interaction cross-sections

Direct evidence for the existence of dark matter and measurements of its interaction cross-section have been provided by the physical offset between dark matter and intra- cluster gas in merging systems like the Bullet Cluster. Although a smaller signal, this effect is more abundant in minor mergers where infalling substructure dark matter and gas are segregated. In such low-mass systems the gravitational lensing signal comes primarily from weak lensing. A fundamental step in determining such an offset in sub- structure is the ability to accurately measure the positions of dark matter sub-peaks. Using simulated Hubble Space Telescope observations, we make a first assessment of the precision and accuracy with which we can measure infalling groups using weak gravitational lensing. We demonstrate that using an existing and well-used mass re- construction algorithm can measure the positions of 1.5x1013 M substructures that have parent halos ten times more massive with a bias of less than 0.3 . In this regime, our analysis suggests the precision is sufficient to detect (at 3 {\sigma} statistical significance) the expected mean offset between dark matter and baryonic gas in infalling groups from a sample of 50 massive clusters.

CFHTLenS: the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey

We present the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Lensing Survey (CFHTLenS) that accurately determines a weak gravitational lensing signal from the full 154 square degrees of deep multi-colour data obtained by the CFHT Legacy Survey. Weak gravitational lensing by large-scale structure is widely recognised as one of the most powerful but technically challenging probes of cosmology. We outline the CFHTLenS analysis pipeline, describing how and why every step of the chain from the raw pixel data to the lensing shear and photometric redshift measurement has been revised and improved compared to previous analyses of a subset of the same data. We present a novel method to identify data which contributes a non-negligible contamination to our sample and quantify the required level of calibration for the survey. Through a series of cosmology-insensitive tests we demonstrate the robustness of the resulting cosmic shear signal, presenting a science-ready shear and photometric redshift catalogue for future exploitation.

INTERNAL KINEMATICS OF GROUPS OF GALAXIES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 7

We present measurements of the velocity dispersion profile (VDP) for galaxy groups in the final data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). For groups of given mass we estimate the redshift-space cross-correlation function (CCF) with respect to a reference galaxy sample, xi(r_p, pi), the projected CCF, w_p(r_p), and the real-space CCF, xi(r). The VDP is then extracted from the redshift distortion in xi(r_p, pi), by comparing xi(r_p, pi) with xi(r). We find that the velocity dispersion (VD) within virial radius (R_200) shows a roughly flat profile, with a slight increase at radii below ~0.3 R_200 for high mass systems. The average VD within the virial radius, sigma_v, is a strongly increasing function of central galaxy mass. We apply the same methodology to N-body simulations with the concordance Lambda cold dark matter cosmology but different values of the density fluctuation parameter sigma_8, and we compare the results to the SDSS results. We show that the sigma_v-M_* relation from the data provides stringent constraints on both sigma_8 and sigma_ms, the dispersion in log M_* of central galaxies at fixed halo mass. Our best-fitting model suggests sigma_8 = 0.86 +/- 0.03 and sigma_ms = 0.16 +/- 0.03. The slightly higher value of sigma_8 compared to the WMAP7 result might be due to a smaller matter density parameter assumed in our simulations. Our VD measurements also provide a direct measure of the dark matter halo mass for central galaxies of different luminosities and masses, in good agreement with the results obtained by Mandelbaum et al. (2006) from stacking the gravitational lensing signals of the SDSS galaxies.

Constraints on the shapes of galaxy dark matter haloes from weak gravitational lensing

We study the shapes of galaxy dark matter haloes by measuring the anisotropy of the weak gravitational lensing signal around galaxies in the second Red-sequence Cluster Survey (RCS2). We determine the average shear anisotropy within the virial radius for three lens samples: all galaxies with 19<m_r'<21.5, and the `red' and `blue' samples, whose lensing signals are dominated by massive low-redshift early-type and late-type galaxies, respectively. To study the environmental dependence of the lensing signal, we separate each lens sample into an isolated and clustered part and analyse them separately. We also measure the azimuthal dependence of the distribution of physically associated galaxies around the lens samples. We find that these satellites preferentially reside near the major axis of the lenses, and constrain the angle between the major axis of the lens and the average location of the satellites to <theta>=43.7 deg +/- 0.3 deg for the `all' lenses, <theta>=41.7 deg +/- 0.5 deg for the `red' lenses and <theta>=42.0 deg +/- 1.4 deg for the `blue' lenses. For the `all' sample, we find that the anisotropy of the galaxy-mass cross-correlation function <f-f_45>=0.23 +/- 0.12, providing weak support for the view that the average galaxy is embedded in, and preferentially aligned with, a triaxial dark matter halo. Assuming an elliptical Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile, we find that the ratio of the dark matter halo ellipticity and the galaxy ellipticity f_h=e_h/e_g=1.50+1.03-1.01, which for a mean lens ellipticity of 0.25 corresponds to a projected halo ellipticity of e_h=0.38+0.26-0.25 if the halo and the lens are perfectly aligned. For isolated galaxies of the `all' sample, the average shear anisotropy increases to <f-f_45>=0.51+0.26-0.25 and f_h=4.73+2.17-2.05, whilst for clustered galaxies the signal is consistent with zero. (abridged)

A filament of dark matter between two clusters of galaxies

It is a firm prediction of the concordance cold-dark-matter cosmological model that galaxy clusters occur at the intersection of large-scale structure filaments. The thread-like structure of this 'cosmic web' has been traced by galaxy redshift surveys for decades. More recently, the warm–hot intergalactic medium (a sparse plasma with temperatures of 10(5) kelvin to 10(7) kelvin) residing in low-redshift filaments has been observed in emission and absorption. However, a reliable direct detection of the underlying dark-matter skeleton, which should contain more than half of all matter, has remained elusive, because earlier candidates for such detections were either falsified or suffered from low signal-to-noise ratios and unphysical misalignments of dark and luminous matter. Here we report the detection of a dark-matter filament connecting the two main components of the Abell 222/223 supercluster system from its weak gravitational lensing signal, both in a non-parametric mass reconstruction and in parametric model fits. This filament is coincident with an overdensity of galaxies and diffuse, soft-X-ray emission, and contributes a mass comparable to that of an additional galaxy cluster to the total mass of the supercluster. By combining this result with X-ray observations, we can place an upper limit of 0.09 on the hot gas fraction (the mass of X-ray-emitting gas divided by the total mass) in the filament.

Moka: a new tool for strong lensing studies

Strong gravitational lensing is a powerful tool for probing the matter distribution in the cores of massive dark matter haloes. Recent and ongoing analyses of galaxy cluster surveys (MACS, CFHTLS, SDSS, SGAS, CLASH, LoCuSS) have adressed the question of the nature of the dark matter distribution in clusters. N-body simulations of cold dark-matter haloes consistently find that haloes should be characterized by a concentration-mass relation that decreases monotonically with halo mass, and populated by a large amount of substructures, representing the cores of accreted progenitor halos. It is important for our understanding of dark matter to test these predictions. We present MOKA, a new algorithm for simulating the gravitational lensing signal from cluster-sized haloes. It implements the most recent results from numerical simulations to create realistic cluster-scale lenses with properties independent of numerical resolution. We perform systematic studies of the strong lensing cross section as a function of halo structures. We find that the strong lensing cross sections depend most strongly on the concentration and on the inner slope of the density profile of a halo, followed in order of importance by halo triaxiality and the presence of a bright central galaxy.

Reconstruction of gravitational lensing using WMAP 7-year data

Gravitational lensing by large scale structure introduces non-Gaussianity into the Cosmic Microwave Background and imprints a new observable, which can be used as a cosmological probe. We apply a four-point estimator to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) 7-year coadded temperature maps alone to reconstruct the gravitational lensing signal. The Gaussian bias is simulated and subtracted, and the higher order bias is investigated. We measure a gravitational lensing signal with a statistical amplitude of $\mathcal {C}$ = $1.27\pm 0.98$ using all the correlations of the W- and V-band Differencing Assemblies (DAs). We therefore conclude that WMAP 7-year data alone, can not detect lensing.

Astronomical Image Simulation for Telescope and Survey Development

ABSTRACTWe present the simage software suite for the simulation of artificial extragalactic images, based empirically around real observations of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The simulations reproduce galaxies with realistic and complex morphologies via the modeling of UDF galaxies as shapelets. Images can be created in the B, V, i and z bands for both space- and ground-based telescopes and instruments. The simulated images can be produced for any required field size, exposure time, PSF, telescope mirror size, pixel resolution, field star density, and a variety of detector noise sources. It has the capability to create images with either a predetermined number of galaxies, or one calibrated to the number counts of preexisting data sets such as the HST COSMOS survey. In addition, simple options are included to add a known weak gravitational lensing signal (both shear and flexion) to the simulated images. The software is available in IDL and can be freely downloaded for scientific, developmental, and teaching purposes.