Related papers: Testing the gravitational lensing explanation for …
Gravitational lensing of high-redshift supernovae is potentially an important source of uncertainty when deriving cosmological parameters from the measured brightness of Type Ia supernovae, especially in deep surveys with scarce statistics.…
All gravitational-wave signals are inevitably gravitationally lensed by intervening matter as they propagate through the Universe. When a gravitational-wave signal is magnified, it \emph{appears} to have originated from a closer, more…
A tiny fraction of observed gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may be lensed. The time delays induced by the gravitational lensing are milliseconds to seconds if the point lenses are intermediate-mass black holes. The prompt emission of the lensed…
In this paper, we study gravitational lensing by groups of galaxies. Since groups are abundant and therefore have a large covering fraction on the sky, lensing by groups is likely to be very important observationally. Besides, it has…
We have compiled a new and extensive catalog of heavy-element QSO absorption line systems and analyzed the distribution of absorbers in bright and faint QSOs, to search for gravitational lensing of background QSOs by the matter associated…
Gravitational lensing directly measures mass density fluctuations along the lines of sight to very distant objects. No assumptions need to be made concerning bias, the ratio of fluctuations in galaxy density to mass density. Hence, lensing…
The detection of x-ray afterglows of gamma-ray burst (GRB) sources has enabled the optical discovery that GRBs are at cosmological distances, which confirms that the enormous luminosities required must produce a relativistically expanding…
I show here that the time-delay between the gamma ray burst proper and the onset of the afterglow is a sensitive function of the surrounding density, going from ~10s for typical disk densities to several hours for IGM densities. Since bulk…
We examine the abundance of molecular hydrogen (H2) in the spectra of gamma ray burst afterglows (GRBs). In nearby galaxies H2 traces the cold neutral medium (CNM) and dense molecular star-forming interstellar gas. Though H2 is detected in…
Absorption spectroscopy of gravitationally lensed quasars (GLQs) enables study of spatial variations in the interstellar and/or circumgalactic medium of foreground galaxies. We report observations of 4 GLQs, each with two images separated…
Galaxy clusters form at the highest density nodes of the cosmic web. The clustering of massive halos is enhanced relative to the general mass distribution and matter beyond the virial region is strongly correlated to the halo mass (halo…
The steep source counts and negative K-corrections of bright submillimetre galaxies (SMGs) suggest that a significant fraction of those observed at high flux densities may be gravitationally lensed, and that the lensing objects may often…
We study the connections between on-going star formation, galaxy mass, and extended halo gas, in order to distinguish between starburst-driven outflows and infalling clouds that produce the majority of observed MgII absorbers at large…
When gravitational waves pass through the nuclear star clusters of galactic lenses, they may be microlensed by the stars. Such microlensing can cause potentially observable beating patterns on the waveform due to waveform superposition and…
We study the chemical abundances of the interstellar medium surrounding high z gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) through analysis of the damped Lya systems (DLAs) identified in afterglow spectra. These GRB-DLAs are characterized by large HI column…
Detection of Lyman-Break Galaxies (LBGs) at high-redshift can be affected by gravitational lensing induced by foreground deflectors not only in galaxy clusters, but also in blank fields. We quantify the impact of strong magnification in the…
The inner regions of active galaxies host the most extreme and energetic phenomena in the universe including, relativistic jets, supermassive black hole binaries, and recoiling supermassive black holes. However, many of these sources cannot…
The redshift distribution of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is strongly biased by selection effects. We investigate, via Monte Carlo simulations, one possible selection effect that may be modifying the Swift GRB redshift distribution. We show how…
To study environmental effects on the circumgalactic medium (CGM), we use the samples of redMaPPer galaxy clusters, background quasars and cluster galaxies from the SDSS. With ~82 000 quasar spectra, we detect 197 MgII absorbers in and…
We study the frequency of Mg II absorption in the outer haloes of galaxies at z = 0.6 - 1.4 (with median z = 0.87), using new spectra obtained of ten background quasars with galaxy impact parameters of b < 100 kpc. The quasar sightlines…