The first shear measurements from precision weak lensing
Abstract
We present an end-to-end methodology to measure the effects of weak lensing on individual galaxy-galaxy systems exploiting their kinematic information. Using this methodology, we have measured a shear signal from the velocity fields of 18 weakly lensed galaxies. We selected a sample of systems based only on the properties of the sources, requiring them to be bright (apparent i-band magnitude <17.4) and in the nearby Universe ( $z$ < 0.15). We have observed the velocity fields of the sources with WiFeS, an optical IFU on a 2.3 m telescope, and fitted them using a simple circular motion model with an external shear. We have measured an average shear of <γ> = 0.020 ± 0.008 compared to a predicted <γpred> = 0.005 obtained using median stellar-to-halo relationships from the literature. While still a statistical approach, our results suggest that this new weak lensing methodology can overcome some of the limitations of traditional stacking-based techniques. We describe in detail all the steps of the methodology and make publicly available all the velocity maps for the weakly lensed sources used in this study.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1093/mnras/staa2893
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2009.10067
- Bibcode:
- 2020MNRAS.499.4591G
- Keywords:
-
- gravitational lensing: weak;
- galaxies: evolution;
- galaxies: formation;
- galaxies: general;
- galaxies: haloes;
- dark matter;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- doi:10.1093/mnras/staa2893