Related papers: Arc Statistics
We carry out ray tracing through five high resolution simulations of a galaxy cluster to study how its ability to produce giant gravitationally lensed arcs is influenced by the collision cross-section of its dark matter. In three cases…
We present the first three galaxy clusters of a larger sample of the most X-ray luminous galaxy clusters selected from the ROSAT Bright Survey. This project, which is a systematic search for strong lensing, aims at arc statistics, mass…
We present an estimation of the expected number of arcs and arclets in a sample of nearby (z<0.1) clusters of galaxies, that takes into account the magnitude limit of the objects as well as seeing effects. We show that strong lensing…
The gravitational lensing of faint background galaxies by rich clusters is emerging as a very efficient method to constrain both the mass distribution of cluster of galaxies and probe the statistical properties of faint background galaxies.…
The observables in a strong gravitational lens are usually just the image positions and sometimes the flux ratios. We develop a new and simple algorithm which allows a set of models to be fitted exactly to the observations. Taking our cue…
The abundance of peaks in weak gravitational lensing maps is a potentially powerful cosmological tool, complementary to measurements of the shear power spectrum. We study peaks detected directly in shear maps, rather than convergence maps,…
Strong gravitational lensing of quasars has the potential to unlock the poorly understood physics of these fascinating objects, as well as serve as a probe of the lensing mass distribution and of cosmological parameters. In particular,…
We use ray-tracing through the Millennium simulation to study how secondary matter structures along the line-of-sight and the stellar mass in galaxies affect strong cluster lensing, in particular the cross-section for giant arcs.…
Upcoming and ongoing large area weak lensing surveys will also discover large samples of galaxy clusters. Accurate and precise masses of galaxy clusters are of major importance for cosmology, for example, in establishing well calibrated…
In these lectures I give an overview of gravitational lensing, concentrating on theoretical aspects, including derivations of some of the important results. Topics covered include the determination of surface mass densities of intervening…
Using a singular isothermal sphere model for the matter distribution of foreground clusters of galaxies, we study the statistics of giant arcs in flat cosmologies with and without a cosmological constant. We find that the relative number of…
Gravitational lensing has now become a popular tool to measure the mass distribution of structures in the Universe on various scales. Here we focus on the study of galaxy's scale dark matter halos with galaxy-galaxy lensing techniques:…
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…
Gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies offers a powerful probe of their structure and mass distribution. Deriving a lens magnification map for a galaxy cluster is a classic inversion problem and many methods have been developed over…
Strong gravitational lensing provides fundamental insights into the understanding of the dark matter distribution in massive galaxies, galaxy clusters and the background cosmology. Despite their importance, the number of gravitational arcs…
Strong lensing is one of the most direct probes of the mass distribution in the inner regions of galaxy clusters. It can be used to constrain the density profiles and to measure the mass of the lenses. Moreover, the abundance of strong…
Gravitational lensing in clusters of galaxies is an efficient tool to probe the mass distribution of galaxies and clusters, high redshift objects thanks to the gravitational amplification, and the geometry of the universe. We review some…
The clustering of galaxy clusters is a powerful cosmological tool, which can help to break degeneracies between parameters when combined with other cosmological observables. We aim to demonstrate its potential in constraining cosmological…
Cosmic structures at large scales represent the earliest and most extended form of matter condensation. In this lecture we review the application of the methods and concepts of modern statistical physics to these structures. This leads to a…
Over the past decade advancements in the understanding of several astrophysical phenomena have allowed us to infer a concordance cosmological model that successfully accounts for most of the observations of our universe. This has opened up…