[HET seminar] Unscrambling Galaxy Cluster Fields in the JWST Era

by Brenda Frye (Arizona)

Thursday 19 Jan 2023, 11:00 → 12:30 US/Eastern

https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1605999124?pwd=eCs3M0t2eGtiL0dyMGNoUDIzamxqQT09

IN PERSON in small seminar room.

Abstract: Galaxy clusters as gravitational lenses offer two advantages: to boost the brightnesses of objects in the background, and to study the dark matter in the lens. We introduce a novel approach to detect galaxy overdense regions by their rest-frame far-infrared colors (and not by the Sunyaev-Z'eldovich effect).  We will see why this selection picks up a combination of galaxy clusters at z > 1.5 and at z ~ 0.5. We construct the lens model for one such "rebel" cluster based on its image multiplicities. We then investigate the lensing properties of the first galaxy cluster field acquired using the James Webb Space Telescope. The results look promising for the JWST to accelerate advances in the emerging field of caustic transients and other local lensing events which yield insights into our understanding of dark matter substructure, and which may offer a viable route to discover first-light sources.

Frye_BNL_23Jan19.pdf