10 February 2023Séminaire – Giulia Despali (ZAH – Heidelberg)

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Constraining dark matter with strong lensing and hydro simulations

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that strong gravitational lensing is one of the most promising 
methods to distinguish between CDM and alternative dark matter models. Warm dark matter can 
be constrained through the detection of low-mass dark haloes and subhaloes, while self-interacting
dark matter influences the halo density profiles and thus the number and size of lensed images. 
I will discuss what is the status of the field and the current dark matter constraints in general, and in 
particular present the latest results from my work and that of my collaborators, focusing on the 
properties of the typical gravitational lenses (i.e. massive elliptical galaxies) and the near-future 
prospects of more precise dark matter constraints coming from strong lensing.
Using real and mock observations, we quantify the data sensitivity in detail and calculate forecasts 
for HST, Keck, Euclid and ALMA observations. At the same time, we use hydrodynamical simulations 
to predict observed properties of galaxies and gravitational lenses in different dark matter scenarios 
and compare them with observations.