Weak gravitational lensing of intrinsically aligned galaxies

Subject of this paper is the weak lensing effect on galaxies that show intrinsically correlated ellipticities. In our model, we investigate the distortion of the ellipticity field if the galaxies experience an apparent shift in their position by weak lensing deflection and compare this effect to the shearing effect induced by tidal fields. Starting with a derivation of intrinsic ellipticity spectra by employing a tidal torquing model generating galactic angular momenta, we model the galaxy ellipticity by assuming that the galactic disc forms perpendicularly to the host halo angular momentum direction and derives intrinsic ellipticity E- mode and B-mode spectra from the angular momentum statistics. The lensing effect on the ellipticity field is modelled by employing the methodology developed in the framework of lensing of the cosmic microwave background polarization. For Euclid, ellipticity correlations are altered by lensing deflection on multipoles l greater than or similar to 1000 by similar to 5 per cent for the ellipticity E modes and similar to 30 per cent for the B modes, while a shallower survey would exhibit larger changes on larger angular scales. In addition to the convolving effect of lensing on the ellipticity spectra, we investigate the E/B-mode conversion and discuss the possibility of measuring correlations between different multipoles, which is evoked by the homogeneity breaking effect of the lensing displacement. Our conclusion is that although shape correlations generated by weak gravitational shear is dominant, the shifting effect due to lensing is shaping the ellipticity spectra on small angular scales and causing a number of interesting phenomena, which might be observable by future surveys.