96392 - GRAVITATIONAL LENSING

Academic Year 2024/2025

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Astrophysics and Cosmology (cod. 5828)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, the student will acquire the basic knowledge of the theory of gravitational lensing, and will be able to discuss the applications of lensing in different astrophysical branches. In particular, the student will be able to distinguish between different regimes of lensing (strong, weak, etc) and will learn through examples how to carry out lensing analyses. The basics of the Python programming language will also be taught to allow the students to better understand the examples and work on small projects.

Course contents

The course covers:

The propagation of light in a gravitational field.

The lensing equation & lensing potential.

  Shear & convergence

  Microlensing in our galaxy

  detection of planets

  Strong gravitational lensing by galaxies

  lens models and their properties

  Strong gravitational lensing by galaxy clusters

  Lens modelling 

  Weak gravitational lensing

  density reconstruction

cosmic shear & cosmology

  The gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background

Readings/Bibliography

“Introduction to Gravitational Lensing — with python examples”, M. Meneghetti, 2021, Springer-Verlag

"Principles of Gravitational Lensing" - Congdon & Keeton

"Gravitational Lensing" - Dodelson

"Gravitational Lensing: strong, weak and micro" - Schneider, Kochaneck & Wambsganss


Teaching methods

The course will have a combination of lectures and practical computer projects.

Assessment methods

Oral exam

Teaching tools

Black board

Slides

Python Notebooks

 

Office hours

See the website of Robert Benton Metcalf