Cosmological Constraints from Strong Gravitational Lensing in Galaxy Clusters

Understand

Current efforts in observational cosmology are focused on characterizing the mass-energy content of the Universe.

• We present results from a geometric test based on strong lensing in galaxy clusters.
• Based on Hubble Space Telescope images and extensive ground-based spectroscopic follow-up of the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1689, we used a parametric model to simultaneously constrain the cluster mass distribution and dark energy equation of state.
• Combining our cosmological constraints with those from X-ray clusters and the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 5-year data gives {\Omega}m = 0.25 +/- 0.05 and wx = -0.97 +/- 0.07 which are consistent with results from other methods.