Detection of dark matter Skewness in the VIRMOS-DESCART survey: Implications for Ω₀

Weak gravitational lensing provides a direct statistical measure of the dark matter distribution. The variance is easiest to measure, which constrains the degenerate product \sigma_8\Omega^0.6. The degeneracy is broken by measuring the skewness arising from the fact that densities must remain positive, which is not possible when the initially symmetric perturbations become non-linear. Skewness measures the non-linear mass scale, which in combination with the variance measures \Omega directly. We present the first detection of dark matter skewness from the Virmos-Decart survey. We have measured the full three point function, and its projections onto windowed skewness. We separate the lensing mode and the B mode. The lensing skewness is detected for a compensated Gaussian on scales of 5.37 arc minutes to be \kappa^3=1.06+/-0.06x10^-6. The B-modes are consistent with zero at this scale. The variance for the same window function is \kappa^2= 5.32+/-0.62+/-0.98x10^-5, resulting in S_3=375^{+342}_{-124}. Comparing to N-body simulations, we find \Omega_0<0.5 at 90% confidence. The Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope legacy survey and newer simulations should be able to improve significantly on the constraint.