Related papers: Lensing by a singular isothermal sphere and a blac…
The silhouette of a black hole having a critical curve (an unstable bound photon orbit) when illuminated by an optically thin accretion disk whose emission is confined to the equatorial plane shows a distinctive central brightness…
Compound strong gravitational lensing is a rare phenomenon, but a handful of such lensed systems are likely to be discovered in forthcoming surveys. In this work, we use a double SIS lens model to analytically understand how the properties…
Most gravitational lens systems consist of two or four observable images. The absence of detectable odd images allows us to place a lower limit on the power-law slope of the inner mass profile of lensing galaxies. Using a sample of six…
We study strong gravitational lensing due to a Schwarzschild black hole. Apart from the primary and the secondary images we find a sequence of images on both sides of the optic axis; we call them {\em relativistic images}. These images are…
Many, if not all, galaxies host massive compact objects at their centers. They are present as singularities (super massive black holes) or high density star clusters (nuclear tar clusters). In some cases they coexist, and interact more or…
Supermassive black holes in the centre of galaxies dominate the gravitational potential of their surrounding stellar clusters. In these dense environments, stars follow nearly Keplerian orbits, which get slowly distorted as a result of the…
The nature of Galactic Center could be probed by lensing experiments capable of testing the spatial and velocity distributions of stars nearby and beyond it. Several hypotheses are possible (e.g. massive neutrino condensation, boson star)…
We investigate how observations of strong lensing can be used to infer cosmological parameters, in particular the equation of state of dark energy. We focus on the growth of the critical lines of lensing clusters with the source redshift as…
We study the critical curves, caustics, and multiple imaging due to one of the simplest many-body gravitational lens configurations: equal-mass point masses on the vertices of a regular polygon. Some examples of the critical curves and…
We develop a unified, analytic framework for gravitational lensing by Kerr black holes. In this first paper we present a new, general lens equation and magnification formula governing lensing by a compact object. Our lens equation assumes…
Astrophysical black holes are likely to be surrounded by various forms of matter in the form of disks or halos. While a number of studies have examined the impact of an environment on the lensing of light or gravitational waves from…
Massive structures, such as galaxies, act as strong gravitational lenses on background sources. When the background source is a quasar, several lensed images are seen, as magnified or de-magnified versions of the same object. The detailed…
The coalescence of massive black hole binaries is one of the main sources of low-frequency gravitational radiation that can be detected by LISA. When two galaxies containing massive black holes merge, a binary forms at the center of the new…
We study analytically a gravitational lens due to a deformed star, which is modeled by using a monopole and a quadrupole moment. Positions of the images are discussed for a source on the principal axis. We present explicit expressions for…
We consider a Kerr black hole acting as a gravitational deflector within the geometrical optics, and point source approximations. The Kerr black hole gravitational lens geometry consisting of an observer and a source located far away and…
NBody realizations of axisymmetric collisional galaxy cores (e.g. M32, M33, NGC205, Milky Way) with embedded growing black holes are presented. Stars which approach the disruption sphere are disrupted and accreted to the black hole. We…
Minor mergers of galaxies are expected to be common in a hierarchical cosmology such as $\Lambda$CDM and have the potential to significantly affect galactic structure. In this paper we dissect the case-by-case outcome from a set of…
Accelerating black holes, connected to cosmic strings could evolve to supermassive black holes. However, if they are going to take part in structure formation and resides at the center of galaxies, their acceleration should be small. This…
The long-standing issues of determination of the mass distribution and nature of the center of our Galaxy could be probed by a lensing experiment capable of testing the spatial and velocity distributions of stars nearby and beyond it. We…
We have observed two blank fields of approximately 30 by 23 arcminutes using the William Herschel Telescope. The fields have been studied as part of the CNOC2 survey, and spectroscopic redshifts are available for 1125 galaxies in the two…