Strong gravitational lensing with the SKA

Understand

Strong gravitational lenses provide an important tool to measure masses in the distant Universe, thus testing models for galaxy formation and dark matter; to investigate structure at the Epoch of Reionization; and to measure the Hubble constant and possibly w as a function of redshift.

• However, the limiting factor in all of these studies has been the currently small samples of known gravitational lenses (~10^2).
• The era of the SKA will transform our understanding of the Universe with gravitational lensing, particularly at radio wavelengths where the number of known gravitational lenses will increase to ~10^5.
• Here we discuss the technical requirements, expected outcomes and main scientific goals of a survey for strong gravitational lensing with the SKA.