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May 11, 2005 - Looking at the Dark Side of the Universe -
Henk
Hoekstra, UVic Astronomy.
 The contents of the universe are dominated by two mysterious components:
dark matter and dark energy. In both cases their existence has been inferred
from astronomical observations. To learn more about the dark side of the
universe I use nature's own weighing scales: gravitational lensing. Massive
structures in the universe deflect the paths of photons passing near them.
By measuring the amount of deflection (or a related quantity) we can infer
the masses of such structures. This relatively new technique is rapidly
gaining ground because of its unique sensitivity to dark matter, and more
indirectly to dark energy. I will show some examples gravitational lensing
and my research, which nowadays is driven by larger and larger data sets.
Presentation:
Bio:
 | PhD. 2000, University of Groningen |
| 2000-2002, Postdoc CITA, Toronto |
| 2002-2004, Senior Research Associate, CITA, Toronto |
| 2004 - , Assistant professor, CIAR scholar, UVic |
My research focuses on observational cosmology, using the distribution of
matter and clusters of galaxies to study the properties of dark matter and
energy. |
