Date: March 7th 2018
Speaker: Nicolas Martinet (Universität Bonn)
Title: Cosmological constraints from shear peaks in the Kilo Degree Survey (KiDS)
Abstract
The peak statistic in weak lensing reconstructed mass maps is a new powerful tool to probe cosmology. Peaks trace the Universe large scale structure, but on the contrary to the two-point correlation function of the shear, they are also sensitive to the non-Gaussian part of the matter distribution. In that sense they are similar to galaxy clusters. In this talk, I will introduce weak lensing peak statistics and review its application to the Kilo Degree Survey (Martinet, Schneider, Hildebrandt et al. 2018, MNRAS 474, 712). I will in particular discuss how combining shear peaks with the two-point correlation function of the shear can improve cosmological constraints.