Physics Colloquium - Exploring the Dark Universe Using Weak Gravitational Lensing

We have learned much about the origin and evolution of the Universe, but its main ingredients remain a mystery: atoms only make up only 5%. The rest consists of dark matter and dark energy, components for which we lack a fundamental physical theory. Better observations are needed to guide theory, and weak gravitational lensing plays an important role in mapping the evolution of the large-scale structure which will allow us to distinguish between cosmological models. However, many challenges remain if we are to extract cosmological information from the complex data that are being collected.