Looking Mass: Detecting and Analyzing Gravitational Lensing

Abstract

Gravitational lensing occurs when light is distorted by gravity and its presence can cause distortions in images of space. Manual calculations to detect gravitational lensing can be slow and cumbersome, and the use of machine learning methods such as CNNs are impeded by the fact that there are not enough images containing gravitational lensing to create large datasets. Looking Mass is an open-source software application that modifies source images to produce new images that realistically simulate gravitational lensing. The team intends for datasets generated from Looking Mass to be used for gravitational lensing detection methods.