Talk Details

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 - 3:15pm

Virginia Corless (IoA Cambridge):

"Triaxial Dark Matter Halos: Consequences for parameter estimation in strong and weak lensing"

Abstract. Neglected complexity of dark matter halo shapes has been proposed as a potential explanation for discrepancies between predicted and observed values for both halo and cosmological parameters obtained via parametric weak and strong lensing analyses of various lensing systems, ranging in scale from galaxies to galaxy clusters. To determine the importance of halo shape, I explore the impacts of halo triaxiality on weak lensing analyses of galaxy clusters and on strong lensing analyses of galaxy lensing systems. In the first case, ignoring halo shape significantly biases parameter estimates; in the latter, the impact is small and other solutions must be sought.