Abstract
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. We find that an all-sky (3pi sr) survey carried out with the
SKA1-MID array at an angular resolution of 0.25-0.5 arcsec and to a
depth of 3 microJy / beam is required for studies of galaxy formation
and cosmology with gravitational lensing. In addition, the capability to
carryout VLBI with the SKA1 is required for tests of dark matter and
studies of supermassive black holes at high redshift to be made using
gravitational lensing.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 84 |
| Journal | Proceedings of Advancing Astrophysics with the Square Kilometre Array (AASKA14). 9 -13 June, 2014. Giardini Naxos, Italy. Online at http://pos.sissa.it/cgi-bin/reader/conf.cgi?confid=215, id.84 |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |