First measurement of gravitational lensing by cosmic voids in SDSS

We report the first measurement of the diminutive lensing signal arising from matter underdensities associated with cosmic voids. While undetectable individually, by stacking the weak gravitational shear estimates around 901 voids detected in Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 by Sutter et al., we find su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inMonthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. 440; no. 4; pp. 2922 - 2927
Main Authors Melchior, Peter, Sutter, P. M., Sheldon, Erin S., Krause, Elisabeth, Wandelt, Benjamin D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Oxford University Press 01.06.2014
Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy P - Oxford Open Option A
Subjects
Cosmology
Dark matter
Gravity
Sciences of the Universe
gravitational lensing: weak
cosmology: observations
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
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Summary:We report the first measurement of the diminutive lensing signal arising from matter underdensities associated with cosmic voids. While undetectable individually, by stacking the weak gravitational shear estimates around 901 voids detected in Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR7 by Sutter et al., we find substantial evidence for a depression of the lensing signal compared to the cosmic mean. This depression is most pronounced at the void radius, in agreement with analytical models of void matter profiles. Even with the largest void sample and imaging survey available today, we cannot put useful constraints on the radial dark matter void profile. We invite independent investigations of our findings by releasing data and analysis code to the public at https://github.com/pmelchior/void-lensing.
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1093/mnras/stu456