Related papers: Weak Gravitational Lensing and its Cosmological Ap…
Dark energy may be the first sign of new fundamental physics in the Universe, taking either a physical form or revealing a correction to Einsteinian gravity. Weak gravitational lensing and galaxy peculiar velocities provide complementary…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful concept in the Astrophysics to study black holes. The gravitational field of a massive object like a galaxy or black hole bends and magnifies the light from a distant object behind it. The Schwarzchild…
In the search for the nature of dark energy most cosmological probes measure simple functions of the expansion rate. While powerful, these all involve roughly the same dependence on the dark energy equation of state parameters, with…
Weak gravitational lensing has been used extensively in the past decade to constrain the masses of galaxy clusters, and is the most promising observational technique for providing the mass calibration necessary for precision cosmology with…
Cosmic shear probes the distribution of dark matter via gravitational lensing of distant, background galaxies. We describe our cosmic shear survey consisting of deep blank fields observed with the Keck II telescope. We have found biases in…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool to detect compact matter on very different mass scales. Of particular importance is the fact that lensing is sensitive to both luminous and dark matter alike. Depending on the mass scale, all lensing…
I shall outline the basic principles and some observational aspects of weak gravitational lensing, and discuss several applications of this powerful tool in observational cosmology. It will be explained why the applications have been…
We study the deflection of light in the background of a "wiggly" cosmic string, and investigate whether it is possible to detect cosmic strings by means of weak gravitational lensing. For straight strings without small-scale structure there…
In the cold dark matter scenario, dark matter halos are assembled hierarchically from smaller subunits. Some of these subunits are disrupted during the merging process, whereas others survive temporarily in the form of subhalos. A…
Using mock observations of numerical simulations, we investigate the completeness and efficiency of searches for galaxy clusters in weak lensing surveys. While it is possible to search for high mass objects directly as density enhancements…
Weak lensing is the distortion (polarization) of images of distant objects, such as high redshift galaxies, by gravitational fields in the limit where the distortion is small. Gravitational potential fluctuations due to large scale…
Many recent studies have demonstrated that scaling arguments, such as the so-called hierarchical {\em ansatz}, are extremely useful in understanding the statistical properties of weak gravitational lensing. This is especially true on small…
Strong lensing has developed into an important astrophysical tool for probing both cosmology and galaxies (their structure, formation, and evolution). Using the gravitational lensing theory and cluster mass distribution model, we try to…
A long-standing problem in astrophysics is to measure the mass associated with galaxies. Gravitational lensing provides one of the cleanest ways to make this measurement. To date, the most powerful lensing probes of galactic mass have been…
Gravitational lensing can provide pure geometric tests of the structure of space-time, for instance by determining empirically the angular diameter distance-redshift relation. This geometric test has been demonstrated several times using…
Analysing the weak lensing distortions of the images of faint background galaxies provides a means to constrain the mass distribution of cluster galaxies and potentially to test the extent of their dark matter halos as a function of the…
In the past decade, weak gravitational lensing has become an important tool in the study of the universe at the largest scale, giving insights into the distribution of dark matter, the expansion of the universe, and the nature of dark…
I review the current status of combing weak gravitational lensing with depth information from redshifts as a direct probe of dark matter and dark energy in the Universe. In particular I highlight: (1) The first maximum likelihood…
Weak gravitational lensing is one of the most promising cosmological probes of the late universe. Several large ongoing (DES, KiDS, HSC) and planned (LSST, EUCLID, WFIRST) astronomical surveys attempt to collect even deeper and larger scale…
Gravitational lensing has been identified as a powerful tool to address fundamental problems in astrophysics at different scales, ranging from exoplanet identification to dark energy and dark matter characterization in cosmology. Image…