The Detection of The Gravitational Lensing of Supernovae

R. Benton Metcalf

Published 1998-10-27Version 1

The weak gravitational lensing of high redshift type Ia supernovae has the potential of probing the structure of matter on galaxy halo scales. This is complementary to the weak lensing of galaxies which probes structure of larger scales. There are already several organized searches for these supernovae being carried out for the purposes of cosmological parameter estimation. A method is proposed for extracting from future supernovae data information on lensing and the structures responsible. This method utilizes the correlations between SN luminosities and foreground galaxies. Simulations of the lensing and uncertainties will be presented. It is found that with a hundred supernovae or more at $z\simgt 1$ or larger, significant measurements of the mass, shape and extent of dark matter halos could be made if they contain a significant proportion of the matter in the universe.