Freiburg 2008 – scientific programme

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SYRZ: Symposium Raum, Zeit, Gravitation

SYRZ 1: Symposium Raum, Zeit und Gravitation

SYRZ 1.2: Plenary Talk

Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 14:45–15:30, KGII-Audimax

In search of dark matter with the strong gravitational lens effect — •Joachim Wambsganss — Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg (ZAH), Heidelberg, Germany

In the almost three decades since the first multiply imaged quasar was discovered, gravitational lensing has developed into a valuable tool in many branches of astrophysics and cosmology. Because its effect depends entirely on the deflection of light from background sources by gravity of intervening objects, an important aspect is that lensing is sensitive to dark matter as well. After a general introduction on the basics of gravitational lensing - including a few historic remarks - some impressive examples of multiple images, Einstein rings and giant arcs will be presented. The main focus of the talk will then be on the attempts to detect dark matter objects with the strong lensing effect, and the results so far. These searches extend over a large mass range: almost 20 orders of magnitude in mass have been covered in these searches, ranging from galaxy cluster scales down to substellar objects.