In this talk I will cover the potential of radio surveys, such as SUPERclass (currently being undertaken by e-MERLIN) and similar future efforts by the SKA, as cosmological probes of weak lensing. I will highlight some of the advantages that low frequency observations can offer to their optical counterparts, and review the many challenges still to be solved before a useful signal can be produced.
Finally, I will discuss FILM a new method in development for performing weak lensing analysis directly from radio visibilities, and show some early results.
A key part of the FILM algorithm relies on the successful removal of the circularly symmetric part of all lensed sources in the data. Currently this is achieved by Fourier transforming an assumed average Sersic profile and hence is far from optimal. I will attempt to explain this problem further for discussion.
For more information on the SEPnet student conference please visit http://www.icg.port.ac.uk/studentconference/