During the last decades, strong gravitational lensing has become a powerful tool that can be used to study astronomical objects with different physical scales. It has also proven to be a promising diagnostic that can help solve some of the most important problems in cosmology. We have now reached a critical time for strong gravitational lensing research, as forthcoming large-scale surveys (Euclid, the Roman Space Telescope, the Chinese Space Station Telescope and the Vera Rubin Observatory) will map the entire sky and increase the number of known gravitational lenses from a few hundred to about 100 000. At the same time, strong gravitational lenses with current and forthcoming instruments (e.g. ALMA, JWST, E-ELT, SKA-VLBI) will spatially resolve scales that are beyond the reach of telescopes for individual objects in the high-redshift Universe. These new data will revolutionise our understanding of dark matter and structure formation, and offer unprecedented cosmological applications. This strong gravitational lensing symposium will bring together observational and theoretical members of the community to review their preparedness for this new era, to discuss advanced statistical techniques and possible systematics limitations, and to foster novel collaborations.

Key topics

  • Structure formation and the nature of dark matter: the lensing signature of low-mass structure; dark and baryonic matter in galaxies and clusters; testing models of galaxy evolution and dark matter; simulations, theoretical frameworks and observational synergies
  • Large-scale surveys of gravitational lenses and analysing big data: theoretical, numerical and computational innovation; theoretical predictions
  • Tests of cosmology and fundamental physics from lensing observables
  • Resolving the high-redshift Universe through gravitational lenses: galaxy structure; multi-wavelength synergies; observational frontiers and modelling techniques

    • Invited speakers

  • Ana Acebron (University of Milan)
  • Gabriel Caminha (MPA Garching)
  • Tom Collett (University of Portsmouth)
  • Giulia Despali (University of Bologna)
  • Shude Mao (Tsinghua University)
  • Massimo Meneghetti (INAF Bologna)
  • Anna Nierenberg (UC Merced)
  • James Nightingale (Durham University)
  • Masamune Oguri (Chiba University)
  • Francesca Rizzo (DAWN Cosmic Centre)
  • Piero Rosati (University of Ferrara)
  • Anowar Shajib (University of Chicago)
  • Russell Smith (Durham University)
  • Sherry Suyu (MPA Garching)
  • Tommaso Treu (UCLA)
  • Brian Welch (NASA Goddard)

    • SOC

  • Hannah Stacey (MPA, Germany)
  • Alessandro Sonnenfeld (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China)
  • Claudio Grillo (University of Milan, Italy)
  • Simona Vegetti (MPA, Germany)
  • Simon Birrer (Stony Brook University, USA)
  • Marusa Bradac (UC Davis, USA)
  • Eros Vanzella (INAF Bologna, Italy)
  • Kenneth Wong (NAOJ, Japan)

    • LOC

  • Francesca Rizzo (DAWN, Denmark)
  • Federica Bradascio (CEA Saclay, France)
  • Virginia Ajani (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
  • Fabio Convenga (Karlsruhe Institute, Germany)
  • Victoria Strait (DAWN Institute, Denmark)
  • Luca Di Mascolo (University of Trieste, Italy)