Related papers: Goonhilly Sparklers
The extreme variability of blazars, in both timescale and amplitude, is generally explained as the effect of a relativistic jet closely aligned to the observer's line-of-sight. Due to causality arguments, variability characteristics…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic events at cosmological distances. They provide unique laboratory to investigate fundamental physical processes under extreme conditions. Due to extreme luminosities, GRBs are detectable at…
We present the results from recent VLA 8.5-GHz and WSRT 1.4 and 4.9-GHz monitoring campaigns of the CLASS gravitational lens B1600+434 and show how the observed variations argue strongly in favor of microlensing by MACHOs in the halo of a…
The high-frequency radio sky is bursting with synchrotron transients from massive stellar explosions and accretion events, but the low-frequency radio sky has so far been quiet beyond the Galactic pulsar population and the long-term…
We consider the 1.5 years Fermi Large Area Telescope light curves (E > 100 MeV) of the flat spectrum radio quasars 3C 454.3 and PKS 1510-089, which show high activity in this period of time. We characterise the duty cycle of the source by…
We have detected a strong deflection of radio waves from the pulsar PSR B0834+06 in scintillation observations. Interference between the undeflected pulsar image and deflected subimages allows single dish interferometry of the interstellar…
Pixel microlensing, i.e. gravitational microlensing of unresolved stars, can be used to explore distant stellar systems, and as a bonus may be able to detect extragalactic planets. In these studies, binary-lens events with multiple…
Pulsar timing is a promising technique for detecting low frequency sources of gravitational waves. Historically the focus has been on the detection of diffuse stochastic backgrounds, such as those formed from the superposition of weak…
We study three quasar radio sources (B1257-326, B1519-273, and J1819+385) that show large amplitude intraday and annual scintillation variability produced by the Earth's motion relative to turbulent-scattering screens located within a few…
We consider strong gravitational lensing by nearby stars. Using our wave-optical treatment of lensing phenomena, we study Einstein rings that may form around nearby stellar lenses. It is remarkable that these rings are bright and large…
The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope routinely detects the highly dust-absorbed, reddened, and MeV-peaked flat spectrum radio quasar PKS 1830-211 (z=2.507). Its apparent isotropic gamma-ray luminosity…
Much interest has been generated recently by the ongoing MACHO, EROS and OGLE projects to identify gravitationally lensed stars from the Large Magellanic Cloud and Galactic bulge, and the positive identification of several events (Alcock et…
We present multi-wavelength radio observations with the Very Large Array and narrow- and broad-band optical observations with the 2.5m telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory, of a well-defined sample of high-luminosity Fanaroff-Riley…
During the months when the galactic bulge is visible from the southern hemisphere, there are typically about 8 to 10 on-going microlensing events at any given time. If the lensing stars have planets around them, then the signature of the…
If cluster dark matter is in the form of compact objects it will introduce fluctuations into the light curves of distant sources. Current searches for MACHOs in clusters of galaxies focus on monitoring quasars behind nearby systems. This…
The exploration of the time-variable astronomical sky at submm wavelengths is rapidly becoming more feasible with large sky surveys by Cosmic Microwave Background telescopes with tens of thousands of detectors. Observations with the Atacama…
We discuss flaring variability of radio emission of microquasars, measured in monitoring programs with the RATAN-600 radio telescope. We carried out a multi-frequency (1-30 GHz) daily monitoring of the radio flux variability of the…
Gravitational waves can be gravitationally lensed by massive objects along their path. Depending on the lens mass and the lens--source geometry, this can lead to the observation of a single distorted signal or multiple repeated events with…
Powerful quasars and radio galaxies are injecting large amounts of energy in the form of radio plasma into the inter-galactic medium (IGM). Once this nonthermal component of the IGM has radiatively cooled the remaining radio emission is…
We use numerical simulations to test a broad range of plausible observational strategies designed to measure the time delay between the images of gravitationally lensed quasars. Artificial quasar light curves are created along with…