Project Advisor: Prof. Tereasa Brainerd

Weak lensing by the galaxies in the HDF (North) and the flanking fields will be studied in detail. Here we will make predictions for the number of times distant source galaxies will have been weakly-lensed by the 600 galaxies in the HDF (North) and flanking fields for which redshifts and rest-frame blue luminosities are known.

Time per week needed to carry out the project:
5 to 10 hours

Number of semesters required to complete the project:
2 or more, depending on the student's level of interest

What the student will learn during the project:
The student will learn the basics of weak lensing theory and ray-tracing. The project requires strong analytical skills and basic computer programming skills.

Anticipated results:
By computing the number of times distant galaxies have been weakly-lensed by foreground galaxies in the HDF (and for which the redshift distribution is already known), we will be able to determine the relative importance of multiple-deflections on the interpretation of observations of weak lensing shear in deep data sets.