Speaker
Description
Galaxy-scale strong lens systems are powerful laboratories for studying the nature of dark matter, galaxy formation history, magnetic fields, and cosmology. Very long baseline radio interferometry (VLBI) is the current gold standard for observing individual strong lens systems, with the ability to probe milli-arcsecond scales in both the lens plane and source plane. However, only a handful of such observations currently exist, and their analysis was (until recently) computationally prohibitive. The next few years will see the discovery of over $10^5$ strong lens systems thanks to the Euclid space telescope, the Vera C. Rubin observatory, and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Follow-up of newly discovered lens systems with high-resolution radio imaging will provide a unique opportunity to make major contributions to the strong lensing field within the next five years, and to develop analysis tools capable of handling a further flood of high-resolution data from next-generation VLBI observatories like SKA-VLBI and ngVLA within the decade. In this talk, I will review my work on modeling strong lens systems observed at milli-arcsecond resolution with VLBI, and my development of the computational techniques needed to do so. I will then discuss future research opportunities using VLBI follow-up of Euclid and SKA lenses, as well as my long-term vision for developing the analysis tools and expertise needed to produce the best possible strong lensing science in an era of abundant high-quality VLBI lens observations.
| What is your career stage? | Non-tenured scientist (post PhD) |
|---|---|
| Which telescopes do you use / are you affiliated with? | VLBA, EVN, ALMA, SKA, ngVLA |
