Related papers: Mapping Dark Matter in Galaxy Clusters: Gravitatio…
Gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies offers a powerful probe of their structure and mass distribution. Deriving a lens magnification map for a galaxy cluster is a classic inversion problem and many methods have been developed over…
Cosmological N-body simulations predict that dark matter halos should have a universal shape characterized by a steep, cuspy inner profile. Here we report on a spectroscopic study of six clusters each containing a dominant brightest cluster…
This paper reviews statistical methods recently developed to reconstruct and analyze dark matter mass maps from weak lensing observations. The field of weak lensing is motivated by the observations made in the last decades showing that the…
We present the distribution of luminous and dark matter in a set of strong lensing (early-type) galaxies. By combining two independent techniques - stellar population synthesis and gravitational lensing - we can compare the baryonic and…
Observations of clusters of galaxies that gravitationally lens faint background galaxies can probe the amount and the equation of state, $\5$, of the dark energy (quintessence) in the universe. Provided that the mass profile and the mass…
The total mass of clusters of galaxies is a key parameter to study massive halos. It relates to numerous gravitational and baryonic processes at play in the framework of large scale structure formation, thus rendering its determination…
We investigate the effect of weak gravitational lensing in the limit of small angular scales where projected galaxy clustering is strongly nonlinear. This is the regime likely to be probed by future weak lensing surveys. We use…
We address the question of how well the density profile of galaxy clusters can be determined by combining strong lensing and velocity dispersion data. We use cosmological dark matter simulations of clusters to test the reliability of the…
Observations of the clustering of galaxies can provide useful information about the distribution of dark matter in the Universe. In order to extract accurate cosmological parameters from galaxy surveys, it is important to understand how the…
Gravitational lensing has developed into one of the most powerful tools for the analysis of the dark universe. This review summarises the theory of gravitational lensing, its main current applications and representative results achieved so…
We propose to use eigenvalue densities of unitary random matrix ensembles as mass distributions in gravitational lensing. The corresponding lens equations reduce to algebraic equations in the complex plane which can be treated analytically.…
After decades of searching, the true nature of dark matter still eludes us. One potential probe of the form of dark matter in galaxy clusters is to search for microlensing variability in the giant arcs and arclets. In this paper, a simple…
The galaxy cluster 1E0657-56 (z = 0.296) is remarkably well-suited for addressing outstanding issues in both galaxy evolution and fundamental physics. We present a reconstruction of the mass distribution from both strong and weak…
Context: The number of known strong gravitational lenses is expected to grow substantially in the next few years. The statistical combination of large samples of lenses has the potential of providing strong constraints on the inner…
We present a new mass estimate of a well-studied gravitational lensing cluster, Abell 1689, from deep Chandra observations with a total exposure of 200 ks. Within r=200 h-1 kpc, the X-ray mass estimate is systematically lower than that of…
Major progresses have been made this last year towards a better knowledge of the invisible mass. Michel Spiro will talk in details about the micro-lensing experiments and their promising results; the ROSAT satellite has provided extended…
The mass of a cluster of galaxies can be estimated from its lens magnification, which can be determined from the variation in number counts of background galaxies. In order to derive the mass one needs to make assumptions for the lens…
The surface mass density of a cluster of galaxies, and thus its total mass, can be estimated from its lens magnification. The magnification can be determined from the variation in number counts of its background galaxies. In the weak…
We investigate the gravitational lensing properties of dark matter halos with Burkert profiles. We derive an analytic expression for the lens equation and use it to compute the magnification, impact parameter and image separations for…
Parametric strong lensing studies of galaxy clusters often display "misleading features". This is the case in the galaxy cluster Abell 370. Using strong lensing techniques, it has been described parametrically by a four dark matter clumps…