Strong lensing clusters as powerful tools
Strong gravitational lensing (SL) is nowadays at the very heart of important issues in modern cosmology, which I will address in my talk. SL allows, for instance, to map the dark matter (DM) distribution of galaxy cluster’s cores, to image very high redshift sources otherwise too faint to be detected or to constrain the geometry of the Universe.
In an era where high-resolution observations have become standard, systematic errors in the SL modelling have to be better understood. I will address what systematic errors affect the SL modelling of galaxy clusters- by analysing two state-of-the-art simulated clusters, with the same characteristics as those from the Hubble Frontier Fields clusters- and its implications towards constraining cosmological parameters for the ΛCDM or parametric dark energy models. Finally, I will discuss the potential of SL clusters to uncover high-redshift galaxies which can shed some light on the reionization epoch. We have taken advantage of the recent RELICS project to analyse two massive SL clusters, map their DM distribution and characterise the properties of background z~6 galaxies.