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C.O. Wright, T.G. Brainerd (Boston University)
We have run detailed Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the weak gravitational lensing properties of galaxies with finite, elliptically symmetric mass distributions. The simulations match observational constraints as closely as possible, e.g. faint galaxy number counts, the redshift distribution of galaxies as a function of magnitude, the luminosity function of galaxies, a range of reasonable halo shapes, etc. The simulations also include the full effects of multiple lensing events.
The shear pattern due to elliptically symmetric mass distributions is anisotropic about the lens centers. We quantify the level of anisotropy by comparing the mean shear experienced by sources closest to the minor axes of the lenses to that experienced by sources closest to the major axes of the lenses, as a function of distance from the lens center and azimuthal proximity to the symmetry axes.
In the context of a deep ground-based data set for which photometric redshifts are available, we predict the approximate survey areas necessary to detect an anisotropy in the lensing signal at various levels of significance, in the presence of various amounts of noise.