Weak gravitational shear and flexion with polar shapelets

We derive expressions, in terms of 'polar shapelets', for the image distortion operations associated with weak gravitational lensing. Shear causes galaxy shapes to become elongated, and is sensitive to the second derivative of the projected gravitational potential along their line of sight; flexion bends galaxy shapes into arcs, and is sensitive to the third derivative. Polar shapelets provide a natural representation, in which both shear and flexion transformations are compact. Through this tool, we understand progress in several weak lensing methods. We then exploit various symmetries of shapelets to construct a range of shear estimators with useful properties. Through an analogous investigation, we also explore several flexion estimators. In particular, some of the estimators can be measured simultaneously and independently for every galaxy, and will provide unique checks for systematics in future weak lensing analyses. Using simulated images from the Shear TEsting Programme, we show that we can recover input shears with no significant bias. A complete software package to parametrize astronomical images in terms of polar shapelets, and to perform a full weak lensing analysis, is available on the Internet.     

The Chang–Refsdal lens revisited

This paper provides a complete theoretical treatment of the point-mass lens perturbed by constant external shear, often called the Chang–Refsdal lens. We show that simple invariants exist for the products of the (complex) positions of the four images, as well as moment sums of their signed magnifications. The image topographies and equations of the caustics and critical curves are also studied. We derive the fully analytic expressions for pre-caustics, which are the loci of non-critical points that map to the caustics under the lens mapping. They constitute boundaries of the region in the image domain that maps on to the interior of the caustics. The areas under the critical curves, caustics and pre-caustics are all evaluated, which enables us to calculate the mean magnification of the source within the caustics. Additionally, the exact analytic expression for the magnification distribution for the source in the triangular caustics is derived, as well as a useful approximate expression. Finally, we find that the Chang–Refsdal lens with additional convergence greater than unity (the 'overfocusing case') can exhibit third-order critical behaviour, if the 'reduced shear' is exactly equal to     , and that the number of images for N -point masses with non-zero constant shear cannot be greater than  5 N − 1  .     

Gravitational signals due to tidal interactions between white dwarfs and black holes

In this paper, we compute the gravitational signal emitted when a white dwarf moves around a black hole on a closed or open orbit using the affine-model approach. We compare the orbital and the tidal contributions to the signal, assuming that the star moves in a safe region where, although very close to the black hole, the strength of the tidal interaction is insufficient to provoke the stellar disruption. We show that for all considered orbits the tidal signal presents sharp peaks corresponding to the excitation of the non-radial oscillation modes of the star, the amplitude of which depends on how deep the star penetrates the black hole tidal radius and on the type of orbit. Further structure is added to the emitted signal by the coupling between the orbital and the tidal motions.     

Designing weak lensing surveys: a generalized eigenmode analysis

We study the estimators of various second-order weak lensing statistics such as the shear correlation functions  ξ_±  and the aperture mass dispersion  〈 M ²_ap〉  which can directly be constructed from weak lensing shear maps. We compare the efficiency with which these estimators can be used to constrain cosmological parameters. To this end we introduce the Karhunen–Loève (KL) eigenmode analysis techniques for weak lensing surveys. These tools are shown to be very effective as a diagnostics for optimizing survey strategies. The usefulness of these tools to study the effect of angular binning, the depth and width of the survey and noise contributions due to intrinsic ellipticities and number density of source galaxies on the estimation of cosmological parameters is demonstrated. Results from independent analysis of various parameters and joint estimations are compared. We also study how degeneracies among various cosmological and survey parameters affect the eigenmodes associated with these parameters.