  We present the first application of the 3D cosmic shear method developed in
Heavens et al. (2006) and the geometric shear-ratio analysis developed in
Taylor et al. (2006), to the COMBO-17 data set. 3D cosmic shear has been used
to analyse galaxies with redshift estimates from two random COMBO-17 fields
covering 0.52 square degrees in total, providing a conditional constraint in
the (sigma_8, Omega_m) plane as well as a conditional constraint on the
equation of state of dark energy, parameterised by a constant w= p/rho c^2. The
(sigma_8, Omega_m) plane analysis constrained the relation between sigma_8 and
Omega_m to be sigma_8(Omega_m/0.3)^{0.57 +- 0.19}=1.06 +0.17 -0.16, in
agreement with a 2D cosmic shear analysis of COMBO-17. The 3D cosmic shear
conditional constraint on w using the two random fields is w=-1.27 +0.64 -0.70.
The geometric shear-ratio analysis has been applied to the A901/2 field, which
contains three small galaxy clusters. Combining the analysis from the A901/2
field, using the geometric shear-ratio analysis, and the two random fields,
using 3D cosmic shear, w is conditionally constrained to w=-1.08 +0.63 -0.58.
The errors presented in this paper are shown to agree with Fisher matrix
predictions made in Heavens et al. (2006) and Taylor et al. (2006). When these
methods are applied to large datasets, as expected soon from surveys such as
Pan-STARRS and VST-KIDS, the dark energy equation of state could be constrained
to an unprecedented degree of accuracy.
