Understand
The observed properties of high redshift galaxies depend on the underlying foreground distribution of large scale structure, which distorts their intrinsic properties via gravitational lensing.
- We focus on the regime where the dominant contribution originates from a single lens and examine the statistics of gravitational lensing by a population of virialized and non-virialized structures using sub-mm galaxies at z ~ 2.6 and Lyman-break galaxies at redshifts z ~ 6 - 15 as the background sources.
- We quantify the effect of lensing on the luminosity function of the high redshift sources, focusing on the intermediate and small magnifications, mu < 2, which affect the majority of the background galaxies, and comparing to the case of strong lensing.
- We show that, depending on the intrinsic properties of the background galaxies, gravitational lensing can significantly affect the observed luminosity function even when no obvious strong lenses are present.