Paper detail

Measuring neutrino masses and dark energy with weak lensing tomography

Surveys of weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies will be one of the key cosmological probes in the future. We study the ability of such surveys to constrain neutrino masses and the equation of state parameter of the dark energy, focussing on how tomographic information can improve the sensitivity to these parameters. We also provide a detailed discussion of systematic effects pertinent to weak lensing surveys, and the possible degradation of sensitivity to cosmological parameters due to these effects. For future probes such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope survey, we find that, when combined with cosmic microwave background data from the Planck satellite, a sensitivity to neutrino masses of sigma(sum m_nu) < 0.05 eV can be reached. This results is robust against variations in the running of the scalar spectral index, the time-dependence of dark energy equation of state, and/or the number of relativistic degrees of freedom.