Weak gravitational lensing

Understand

Luminous tracers have been used extensively to map the large-scale matter distribution in the Universe.

• Similarly the dynamics of stars or galaxies can be used to estimate masses of galaxies and clusters of galaxies.
• However, assumptions need to be made about the dynamical state or how well galaxies trace the underlying dark matter distribution.
• The gravitational tidal field affects the paths of photons, leading to observable effects.