Detection of Lensing of the CMB by Dark Matter Halos

by Mathew S Madhavacheril (Stony Brook University)

Thursday 18 Jun 2015, 15:00 → 16:00 US/Eastern

Universe

I will report on the first detection of lensing of the cosmic microwave background by dark matter halos. Halo lensing of the CMB provides a method for constraining cluster masses complementary to optical weak lensing, with the advantage that the source plane has a very well determined redshift and statistical properties. In this work, the lensing field was reconstructed from CMB temperature observations using the ACTPol telescope and stacked at the location of CMASS galaxies which trace dark matter halos of ~10^13 M_solar galaxy groups, providing a 3.2 sigma detection and a ~35% mass constraint. I will also briefly touch on the capabilities of future CMB experiments to use this method to constrain dark energy parameters.