At Gila National Forest
Weak Gravitational Lensing of Clusters in Simulations
The study and interpretation of weak gravitational lensing in simulations requires several steps. First, halos (the dark matter component of galaxies) are extracted using the Mass mAp GeNerator for the Multidark Suite (MAGNMS), which generates 2D FITS images containing the suface density projected along a line of sight, using MultiDark simulation catalogs and particle files. The FITS images are then interpreted by a code that calculates the shear and convergence (parameters governing the distortion of light) at every pixel using Ben Metcalf's GLAMER library, which generates 2D maps of reduced shear components, as well as mock measurements from randomly placed sources. These allow direct comparison between true mass and shear profiles from halos and what is recovered by traditional observational methods.