Phil Marshall
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Abstract:
Gravitational lensing provides a unique view of the mass in the Universe: multiple imaging by galaxies permit a number of interesting experiments on the dark matter content of galaxies, and cosmology. Strong lenses are at present considered rare events: all the above-mentioned experiments would benefit from much larger samples of objects. I will describe strong lens surveys being planned at KIPAC using two telsecopes due to come online in the next decade or so: SNAP and LSST. Given these timescales, I will also present preliminary results from a precursor survey (using data from the HST archive) and discuss the technology development needed to make strong lens surveys work.