Related papers: Detecting Mass Substructure in Galaxy Clusters: An…
The morphology of galaxy clusters reflects the epoch at which they formed and hence depends on the value of the mean cosmological density, Omega. Recent studies have shown that the distribution of dark matter in clusters can be mapped from…
The use of large, X-ray selected galaxy cluster catalogues for cosmological analyses requires a thorough understanding of the X-ray mass estimates. Weak gravitational lensing is an ideal method to shed light on such issues, due to its…
Large galaxies are thought to form hierarchically, from the accretion and disruption of many smaller galaxies. Such a scenario should naturally lead to galactic phase-space distributions containing some degree of substructure. We examine…
Clusters of galaxies, the most massive virialized systems known, provide a powerful tool for studying the structure, the mass density, and the cosmology of our universe. Clusters furnish one of the best estimates of the dynamical mass…
The exploitation of clusters of galaxies as cosmological probes relies on accurate measurements of their total gravitating mass. X-ray observations provide a powerful means of probing the total mass distribution in galaxy clusters, but…
All galaxies are thought to reside within large halos of dark matter, whose properties can only be determined from indirect observations. The formation and assembly of galaxies is determined from the interplay between these dark matter…
Weak gravitational lensing of background galaxies provides a direct probe of the projected matter distribution in and around galaxy clusters. Here we present a self-contained pedagogical review of cluster--galaxy weak lensing, covering a…
Galaxies which fall into clusters as part of the same infall halo can retain correlations due to their shared origin. N-body simulations are used to study properties of such galaxy subgroups within clusters, including their richnesses and…
Current theories of structure formation predict specific density profiles of galaxy dark matter haloes, and with weak gravitational lensing we can probe these profiles on several scales. On small scales, higher-order shape distortions known…
Weak shear maps of the outer regions of clusters have been successfully used to map the distribution of mass at large radii from the cluster center. The typical smoothing lengths employed thus far preclude the systematic study of the…
We explore the mass distribution of material associated with galaxies from the observation of gravitational weak lensing for the galaxy mass correlation function with the aid of $N$-body simulations of dark matter. The latter is employed to…
The maximum-entropy method is applied to the problem of reconstructing the projected mass density of a galaxy cluster using its gravitational lensing effects on background galaxies. We demonstrate the method by reconstructing the mass…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool for constraining substructure in the mass distribution of galaxies, be it from the presence of dark matter sub-halos or due to physical mechanisms affecting the baryons throughout galaxy evolution.…
We present a method for measuring the masses of galaxy clusters using the imprint of their gravitational lensing signal on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. The method first reconstructs the projected…
We predict the amplitude of the gravitational redshift of galaxies in galaxy clusters using an N-body simulation of a Lambda CDM universe. We examine if it might be possible to detect the gravitational effect on the total redshift observed…
Strong gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics provide two complementary and orthogonal constraints on the density profiles of galaxies. Based on spherically symmetric, scale-free, mass models, it is shown that the combination of both…
Gravitational microlensing provides a new technique for studying the surfaces of distant stars. Microlensing events are detected in real time and can be followed up with precision photometry and spectroscopy. This method is particularly…
Using a non-parametric procedure developed by Kaiser \& Squires (1993), we analyse the statistical image distortions of faint field galaxies to $I\ls25.5$ in two distant X-ray luminous clusters 1455+22 ($z_{cl}=0.26$) and 0016+16…
Determination of cluster masses is a fundamental tool for cosmology. Comparing mass estimates obtained by different probes allows to understand possible systematic uncertainties. The cluster Abell 315 is an interesting test case, since it…
Clusters of galaxies as gravitational lenses allow to study the stellar content and properties of high-z galaxies much fainter than the usual spectroscopic field surveys. We review the recent results obtained on the identification and study…