Special RPM – Rachel Mandelbaum (CMU) "Recent Progress and Future Prospects for Weak Lensing Cosmology""

Abstract:
Measurements of weak gravitational lensing (coherent shape distortions of distant galaxies due to the lensing effect of mass between us and those galaxies) and are among the most promising ways to learn about the equation of state of dark energy, the theory of gravity on cosmological scales, and the connection between galaxies and the dark matter density field.  In this talk, I will review the state of the field of weak lensing, including recent cosmological analysis and prospects with future surveys.  I will then discuss some of the obstacles to robust weak lensing cosmology, such as the difficulty in estimating coherent galaxy shape distortions in real data, or in removing the effect of coherent galaxy shape alignments that arise due to (for example) large-scale tidal fields.  After presenting recent progress on both of these sources of systematic uncertainty, I will conclude with future prospects for reducing them to below the statistical error and enabling robust cosmological constraints with future large surveys such as LSST, Euclid, and WFIRST.