Related papers: Testing Gravity with the CFHTLS-Wide Cosmic Shear …
The light we observe from distant astrophysical objects including supernovae and quasars allows us to determine large distances in terms of a cosmological model. Despite the success of the standard cosmological model in fitting the data,…
Observations of galaxy-scale strong gravitational lensing (SGL) systems have enabled unique tests of nonlinear departures from general relativity (GR) on the galactic and supergalactic scales. One of the most important cases of such tests…
Einstein's theory of gravity, General Relativity, has been precisely tested on Solar System scales, but the long-range nature of gravity is still poorly constrained. The nearby strong gravitational lens, ESO 325-G004, provides a laboratory…
We propose a novel test of gravity that combines galaxy clustering with gravitational lensing. In general relativity, the evolution of matter density fluctuations and of the Weyl potential -- the sum of spatial and temporal distortions of…
Cosmology is built on a relativistic understanding of gravity, where the geometry of the Universe is dynamically determined by matter and energy. In the cosmological concordance model, gravity is described by General Relativity, and it is…
A key task in cosmology is to test the validity of general relativity (GR) at cosmological scales and, therefore, to distinguish between dark energy and modified gravity (MG) as the driver of the late-time cosmic acceleration. The decay…
Only galaxies bright enough and large enough to be unambiguously identified and measured are included in galaxy surveys used to estimate cosmic shear. We demonstrate that because gravitational lensing can scatter galaxies across the…
Einstein's theory of general relativity (GR) has been precisely tested on solar system scales, but extragalactic tests are still poorly performed. In this work, we use a newly compiled sample of galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses to…
In these lectures I give an overview of gravitational lensing, concentrating on theoretical aspects, including derivations of some of the important results. Topics covered include the determination of surface mass densities of intervening…
There are a number of approaches to testing General Relativity (GR) on linear scales using parameterized frameworks for modifying cosmological perturbation theory. It is sometimes assumed that the details of any given parameterization are…
Stage-IV surveys will enable unprecedented tests of gravity on cosmological scales. However, assuming General Relativity in the analysis of large-scale structure could introduce systematic biases if gravity deviates from GR at these scales.…
This study aims to test the validity of general relativity (GR) on kiloparsec scales by employing a newly compiled galaxy-scale strong gravitational lensing (SGL) sample. We utilize the distance sum rule within the…
We derive a new relation between cosological distances, valid in any (statistically) isotropic space-time and independent of cosmological parameters or even the validity of the field equation of General Relativity. In particular, this…
Alterations of the gravity Lagrangian introduced in modified torsion gravity theories---also referred to as $f(T)$ gravity---allows for an accelerated expansion in a matter dominated Universe. In this framework, the cosmic speed up is…
Based on a mass-selected sample of galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses from the SLACS, BELLS, LSD and SL2S surveys and using a well-motivated fiducial set of lens-galaxy parameters we tested the weak-field metric on kiloparsec scales…
Nowadays, thanks to the improved precision of cosmological data, it has been possible to search for deviation from the general relativity theory with tests on large cosmic scales. Particularly, there is a class of modified gravity theories…
We employ robust weak gravitational lensing measurements to improve cosmological constraints from measurements of the galaxy cluster mass function and its evolution, using X-ray selected clusters detected in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey. Our…
Modifications to GR generically predict time and scale-dependent effects which may be probed by observations of strong lensing by galaxies. Measurements of the stellar velocity dispersion determine the dynamical mass whereas measurements of…
We investigate the cosmic evolution of the linear bias in the framework of a flat FLRW spacetime. We consider metric perturbations in the Newtonian gauge, including Hubble scale effects. Making the following assumptions, (i) scale…
If it is hypothesised that there is no dark matter then some alternative gravitational theory must take the place of general relativity (GR) on the largest scales. Dynamical measurements can be used to investigate the nature of such a…