Supernovae seen through gravitational telescopes

Abstract

Galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, can act as gravitational lenses and magnify the light of objects behind them. The effect enables observations of very distant supernovae, that otherwise would be too faint to be detected by existing telescopes, and allows studies of the frequency and properties of these rare phenomena when the universe was young. Under the right circumstances, multiple images of the lensed supernovae can be observed, and due to the variable nature of the objects, the difference between the arrival times of the images can be measured. Since the images have taken different paths through space before reaching us, the time-differences are sensitive to the expansion rate of the universe. One class of supernovae, Type Ia, are of particular interest to detect. Their well known brightness can be used to determine the magnification, which can be used to understand the lensing systems. I will also report our discovery of the first resolved multiply-imaged gravitationally lensed supernova Type Ia.

Keywords

lensed supernovae;strong lensing;gravitational telescopes;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2018
Typology:	1.10 - Published Scientific Conference Contribution Abstract (invited lecture)
Organization:	UNG - University of Nova Gorica
UDC:	524
COBISS:	5147387
Views:	2665
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