Related papers: A New Approach to Identifying the Most Powerful Gr…
We report on the first results of an imaging survey to detect strong gravitational lensing targeting the richest clusters selected from the photometric data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with follow-up deep imaging observations…
Clusters of galaxies as gravitational lenses allow to study the stellar content and properties of high-z galaxies much fainter than the usual spectroscopic field surveys. We review the recent results obtained on the identification and study…
We present results from a systematic search for strong gravitational lenses in the GOODS ACS data. The search technique involves creating a sample of likely lensing galaxies, which we define as massive early-type galaxies in a redshift…
The combination of deep exposures and high resolution offered by telescopes in space allows the detection of lensing over a wide range of source redshifts and lens masses. As an example, we model a lens candidate found in the southern…
We present different methods used to identify high redshift (z>5) objects in the high-magnification regions of lensing galaxy clusters, taking advantage of very well constrained lensing models. The research procedures are explained and…
Large scale imaging surveys will increase the number of galaxy-scale strong lensing candidates by maybe three orders of magnitudes beyond the number known today. Finding these rare objects will require picking them out of at least tens of…
[Abridged] We exploit the clustering of massive galaxies to perform a high efficiency imaging search for gravitational lenses. Our dataset comprises 44 fields imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS),…
Many distant objects can only be detected, or become more scientifically valuable, if they have been highly magnified by strong gravitational lensing. We use EAGLE and BAHAMAS, two recent cosmological hydrodynamical simulations, to predict…
Many strong gravitational lenses lie in complex environments, such as poor groups of galaxies, that significantly bias conclusions from lens analyses. We are undertaking a photometric survey of all known galaxy-mass strong lenses to…
We describe a new method of combining optical and infrared photometry to select Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) at redshifts $z > 0.6$. We explore this technique using a combination of optical photometry from CFHTLS and HST, infrared…
Bright gravitationally lensed galaxies provide our most detailed view of galaxies at high redshift. Yet as a result of the small number of ultra-bright z~2 lensed systems with confirmed redshifts, most detailed spectroscopic studies have…
The volume of data that will be produced by new-generation surveys requires automatic classification methods to select and analyze sources. Indeed, this is the case for the search for strong gravitational lenses, where the population of the…
We propose a new technique, which we call the lens parallax method, to determine simultaneously the redshift distribution of the faint blue galaxies and the mass distributions of foreground clusters of galaxies. The method is based on…
The magnification effect of gravitational lensing is a powerful probe of the distribution of matter in the universe, yet it is frequently overlooked due to the fact that its signal to noise is smaller than that of lensing shear. Because its…
Most surveys for multiply-imaged gravitational lenses, outside of rich galaxy clusters, are based on sifting through large samples of distant sources to identify the rare examples of lensing. An alternative strategy, based on the selection…
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…
We present the first automated spectroscopic search for disk-galaxy lenses, using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database. We follow up eight gravitational lens candidates, selected among a sample of ~40000 candidate massive disk galaxies,…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful astrophysical and cosmological probe and is particularly valuable at submillimeter wavelengths for the study of the statistical and individual properties of dusty starforming galaxies. However the…
We discuss a method to build up and study a sample of distant galaxies, with 2<z<5, using the gravitational amplification effect in cluster-lenses for which the mass distribution is well known. The candidates are selected close to the…
Lens modeling is the key to successful and meaningful automated strong galaxy-scale gravitational lens detection. We have implemented a lens-modeling "robot" that treats every bright red galaxy (BRG) in a large imaging survey as a potential…