Related papers: Substructure Lensing: Effects of Galaxies, Globula…
In the CDM scenario, dark matter halos are assembled hierarchically from smaller subunits. A long-standing problem with this picture is that the number of sub-halos predicted by CDM simulations is orders of magnitudes higher than the known…
The flux ratios of strongly lensed quasars have previously been used to infer the properties of dark matter. In these analyses it is crucial to separate the effect of the main lensing galaxy and the low-mass dark matter halo population. In…
The Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model for galaxy formation predicts that a significant fraction of mass in the dark matter haloes that surround L L* galaxies is bound in substructures of mass 1E4-1E7Msun. The number of observable baryonic…
We investigate the statistics of flux anomalies in gravitationally lensed QSOs as a function of dark matter halo properties such as substructure content and halo ellipticity. We do this by creating a very large number of simulated lenses…
The fraction of substructures required to account for anomalous flux ratios in gravitational lens systems appears to be higher than that predicted in the standard cold dark matter cosmology. We present a possible alternative route to…
We present high-resolution mass reconstructions for five massive cluster-lenses spanning a redshift range from $z = 0.18$--0.57 utilising archival {\it Hubble Space Telescope} ({\it HST}) data and applying galaxy-galaxy lensing techniques.…
We present an analysis of seven strongly gravitationally lensed quasars and the corresponding constraints on the properties of dark matter. Our results are derived by modelling the lensed image positions and flux-ratios using a combination…
In the past decade, surveys of the stellar component of the Galaxy have revealed a number of streams from tidally disrupted dwarf galaxies and globular clusters. Simulations of hierarchical structure formation in LCDM cosmologies predict…
In cold dark matter cosmological models, structures form and grow by merging of smaller units. Numerical simulations have shown that such merging is incomplete; the inner cores of halos survive and orbit as "subhalos" within their hosts.…
Substructures, expected in cold dark matter haloes, have been proposed to explain the anomalous flux ratios in gravitational lenses. About 25% of lenses in the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS) appear to have luminous satellites within ~ 5…
In the standard structure formation scenario based on the cold dark matter paradigm, galactic halos are predicted to contain a large population of dark matter subhalos. While the most massive members of the subhalo population can appear as…
We provide new constraints on the connection between galaxies in the local universe, identified by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and dark matter halos and their constituent substructures in the $\Lambda$CDM model using WMAP7…
The gravitational lensing constraints on the small mass end of the LCDM mass function are discussed. Here a conservative approach is taken where only the most difficult to explain image flux anomalies in strong QSO lenses are emphasized.…
Strong gravitational lensing offers a powerful probe of the detailed distribution of matter in lenses, while magnifying and bringing faint background sources into view. Observed strong lensing by massive galaxy clusters, which are often in…
Cold dark matter (CDM) constitutes most of the matter in the Universe. The interplay between dark and luminous matter in dense cosmic environments like galaxy clusters is studied theoretically using cosmological simulations. Observed…
The abundance, distribution and inner structure of satellites of galaxy clusters can be sensitive probes of the properties of dark matter. We run 30 cosmological zoom-in simulations with self-interacting dark matter (SIDM), with a…
(Abridged) We conduct a series of high-resolution, dissipationless N-body simulations to investigate the cumulative effect of substructure mergers onto thin disk galaxies in the context of the LCDM paradigm of structure formation. Our…
We describe our recent attempts to model substructure in dark matter halos down to very small masses, using a semi-analytic model of halo formation. The results suggest that numerical simulations of halo formation may still be missing…
Gravitational lenses with anomalous flux ratios are often cited as possible evidence for dark matter satellites predicted by simulations of hierarchical merging in cold dark matter cosmogonies. We show that the fraction of quads with…
We discuss whether one should expect that multiply imaged QSOs can be understood with `simple' lens models which contain a handful of parameters. Whereas for many lens systems such simple mass models yield a remarkably good description of…