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 lenses”,  Springer-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)