Mapping the dark matter with polarized radio surveys

In a recent paper (Brown & Battye 2011), we proposed the use of integrated polarization measurements of background galaxies in radio weak gravitational lensing surveys and investigated the potential impact on the statistical measurement of cosmic shear. Here we extend this idea to reconstruct maps of the projected dark matter distribution, or lensing convergence field. The addition of polarization can, in principle, greatly reduce shape noise due to the intrinsic dispersion in galaxy ellipticities. We show that maps reconstructed using this technique in the radio band can be competitive with those derived using standard lensing techniques which make use of many more galaxies. In addition, since the reconstruction noise is uncorrelated between these standard techniques and the polarization technique, their comparison can serve as a powerful check for systematics and their combination can reduce noise further. We examine the convergence reconstruction which could be achieved with two forthcoming facilities: (i) a deep survey, covering 1.75 square degrees using the e-MERLIN instrument currently being commissioned in the UK and (ii) the high resolution, deep wide field surveys which will eventually be conducted with the Square Kilometre Array.