Cosmic reality check:
Precision cosmology from gravitational lensing surveys

Tony Tyson
Bell Labs

Dark mass-energy may be "seen" directly via its coherent gravitational lens
distortion of the forest of high redshift galaxies. Tomographic inversion
of these cosmic mirages in deep wide-field imaging surveys enables a unique 
view of our universe: images of mountains of dark matter and their development 
over time provide clues to the process of structure formation in the universe. 
The mass overdensity spectrum and "cosmic shear" correlations as a function 
of look-back time, when combined with microwave background anisotropy probes
of the early universe, will soon lead to precision cosmology and test our 
fundamental assumptions. Current surveys, preliminary results, and plans 
for the future will be reviewed.