Evolution of the dark matter distribution with three-dimensional weak lensing

We present a direct detection of the growth of large-scale structure, using weak gravitational lensing and photometric redshift data from the COMBO-17 survey. We use deep R-band imaging of two 0.5 x 0.5 deg(2), affording shear estimates for over 52 000 galaxies; we combine these with photometric redshift estimates from our 17-band survey, in order to obtain a 3D shear field. We find theoretical models for evolving matter power spectra and correlation functions, and fit the corresponding shear correlation functions to the data as a function of redshift. We detect the evolution of the power at the 4.7 sigma level given reasonable priors, and measure the rate of evolution for < z < 1. We also fit correlation functions to our 3D data as a function of cosmological parameters sigma(8) and Omega(Lambda). We find joint constraints on Omega(Lambda) and sigma(8), demonstrating an improvement in accuracy by similar or equal to 40 per cent over that available from 2D weak lensing for the same area.