Investigating cosmological weak lensing with the ray-bundle method

Abstract

Using the ray-bundle method for calculating gravitational lens magnifications, we outline a method by which the magnification probability may be determined specifically in the weak lensing limit for cosmological models obtained from N-body simulations. 16 different models are investigated, which are variations on three broad classes of cold dark matter model: the standard model with (Ω0, λ0) = (1.0,0.0), the open model with (Ω0, λ0) = (0.3,0.0) and the lambda model, which is a flat model with a cosmological constant (Ω0, λ0) = (0.3,0.7). The effects of varying the Hubble parameter, H0, the power spectrum shape parameter, Γ, and the cluster mass normalization, σ8, are studied. It is shown tha..