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E.S. Sheldon (U. Michigan), J. Annis (Fermilab), P. Fischer (U. Michigan), J. Frieman, M. Joffre, D. Johnston (U. Chicago), T.A. Mckay, D. Sowards-Emmerd (U. Michigan), A. Stebbins (Fermilab), SDSS Collaboration
Weak lensing of background galaxies by foreground large scale structure can provide strong constraints on the spectrum and evolution of mass fluctuations in the universe. For identical sky coverage, the statistical uncertainties are similar to those derived from measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Combining even a modest weak lensing survey with CMBR measurements can greatly improve measurements of cosmologically interesting parameters (in particular \Omega\Lambda) over what is possible from each data set individually.
Additionally weak lensing studies can be used to study the mass distributions of individual galaxy clusters and samples of galaxies. The primary advantage of the lensing-based studies is that they are direct measurements of mass and do not require assumptions about the dynamical state of the matter. In the case of galaxies, one is able to probe to much larger radii from the centers than is possible spectroscopically.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) will image one quarter of the sky in five bandpasses. The images will reach 23rd magnitude in r' and will include over one hundred million galaxies. The excellent statistics provided by the survey and the undistorted telescope optics make SDSS images well-suited for weak lensing studies.
In this poster we will present an overview of the SDSS weak lensing effort. We will discuss the results of our analysis of the early SDSS data including first results for galaxy halo measurements.
If the author provided an email address or URL for general inquiries, it is a
s follows:
www.sdss.org