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 PhD-level course on

 

Gravitational lensing, 7.5 hp, Spring 2011

This graduate-level course is intended to give the students an overview of the use of gravitational lensing in astronomy (from exoplanets to the cosmic microwave background) and to provide hands-on experience in running and analysing ray-tracing simulations. The examination will consist of a literature exercise (topic chosen individually by the students) and a numerical group exercise (the ray-tracing simulation project). The latter will hopefully generate results for one refereed paper, on which all actively participating students are expected to end up as co-authors.

Literature:

Most of the assigned reading will be based on review papers.
Recommended reference literature:
Schneider, Ehlers & Falco, 1999, ”Gravitational lensesSpringer-Verlag Berlin ISBN 9783540665069

Teachers:

Erik Zackrisson (EZ), organiser, ez(at)astro.su.se
Jakob Jönsson (JJ), organiser, jacke(at)fysik.su.se
Teresa Riehm (TR), teresa(at)astro.su.se

Time:

February-May 2011


If you are interested in participating, please notify Erik Zackrisson as soon as possible!

 

Schedule (preliminary)

Date

Time

Room

Session

Topics

To read

To hand in

Teacher

February 22

10-12

FC61

Lecture 1

Lensing in astronomy I:
Lensing overview & the history of lensing

Wambsganss (1998): Gravitational lensing in Astronomy

 

EZ

March 1

13-15

FC61

Lecture 2

Lensing in astronomy II:
Strong lensing, weak lensing & microlensing

Treu (2010):
Strong lensing by galaxies

Hoekstra & Jain (2008):

Weak gravitational lensing and its cosmological applications

 

EZ

March 7

10-12

FC61

Lecture 3

Computational aspects of gravitational lensing

Narayan & Bartelmann (1996):
Lectures on gravitational lensing

 

JJ

March 16

10-12

FC61

Lecture 4

Lensing signatures of CDM subhalos

Zackrisson & Riehm (2010):
Gravitational lensing as a probe of cold dark matter subhalos

 

TR

March 23

13-15

FC61

Lecture 5

Project introduction &
ray-tracing tutorial

Riehm et al. (2009):

Strong lensing by subhalos in the dwarf galaxy mass range II: Detection probabilities

 

EZ & JJ

April 5

10-12

Aina Elvius

Tutorial I

Project work

 

 

EZ & JJ

April 12

10-12

Aina Elvius

Tutorial II

Project work

 

 

EZ & JJ

April 19

10-12

Aina Elvius

Tutorial III

Project work

 

 

EZ & JJ

April 28

10-12

Aina Elvius

Tutorial IV

Project work

  

 

EZ & JJ

May 5

10-12

Aina Elvius

Tutorial V

Project work

 

 

EZ & JJ

May 11

10-12

Aina Elvius

Tutorial VI

Project work

 

Written essay

EZ & JJ

May 17

13-15

FC61

Essays

Oral presentations

 

 

EZ & JJ

 

Course material

·      Ray-tracing code and documentation


Examination

·      Simulation project: Hunting for dark matter subhalos and intermediate-mass black holes

·      Written essay (minimum 5 pages) + oral presentation (10 minutes)