The statistical era of strong gravitational lensing

强引力透镜的统计时代

• 批准号: ST/T003723/1
• 负责人: Thomas Collett
• 金额: $ 58.46万
• 依托单位: University of Portsmouth
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FT003723%2F1
• 关键词: statistical; era; strong; gravitational; lensing

The expansion of the Universe is getting faster and we don't know why. To solve this mystery I am using an effect called gravitational lensing to answer three questions: How fast is the Universe currently expanding? How does gravity work over astronomical distance scales? What is the dominant component of the Universe's energy budget?Gravitational lensing occurs when two galaxies are aligned on the sky to about 1/3600 of a degree. The mass of the foreground galaxy warps spacetime and deflects the light from the background galaxy as it passes. A gravitational lens is where multiple images of the background galaxy are seen. The image separation is sensitive to the mass of the foreground galaxy, the way gravity works and the expansion of the Universe. I have used small samples of gravitational lenses to give preliminary answers to my three questions, and I have new data from the world's biggest telescopes to improve these answers. The main limitation of my work is that there aren't enough lenses. Fortunately there is a giant new telescope forthcoming. It will find 100 times more lenses than are currently known. I lead the strong lensing efforts in this survey. Finding the lenses will be challenging as there are a million non-lenses for every lens. I am working on new discovery methods using computer vision algorithms, and volunteer citizen scientists. At the end of the ERF I will have enough lenses to answer my three questions and understand the accelerated expansion of the Universe.

宇宙的膨胀越来越快，但我们不知道为什么。为了解开这个谜团，我正在使用一种叫做引力透镜的效应来回答三个问题：宇宙目前膨胀的速度有多快？引力如何在天文距离尺度上起作用？宇宙能量收支的主要组成部分是什么？当两个星系在天空中排成1/3600度的直线时，就会发生引力透镜效应。前景星系的质量会扭曲时空，并使背景星系经过时发出的光发生偏转。引力透镜是背景星系的多个图像被看到的地方。图像分离对前景星系的质量、引力的作用方式和宇宙的膨胀很敏感。我已经用引力透镜的小样本对我的三个问题给出了初步的答案，我有来自世界上最大的望远镜的新数据来改进这些答案。我的工作的主要局限是没有足够的镜头。幸运的是，一个巨大的新望远镜即将问世。它将找到比目前已知的多100倍的镜头。我在这次调查中领导了强大的透镜努力。寻找镜片将是一个挑战，因为每一个透镜都有一百万个非镜片。我正在使用计算机视觉算法和志愿公民科学家研究新的发现方法。在ERF结束时，我将有足够的镜头来回答我的三个问题，并理解宇宙的加速膨胀。