Related papers: Ambiguities in gravitational lens models: the dens…
The main obstacle for gravitational lensing to determine accurate masses of deflectors, or to determine precise estimates for the Hubble constant, is the degeneracy of lensing observables with respect to the mass-sheet transformation (MST).…
In gravitational lensing, the Mass-Sheet Transformation (MST)-or mass-sheet degeneracy-leaves image positions unchanged while scaling magnifications and time delays. The transformation scales the lens mass distribution and superposes a…
The modern time-delay cosmography aims to infer the cosmological parameters with a competitive precision from observing a multiply imaged quasar. The success of this technique relies upon a robust modeling of the lens mass distribution.…
The central ambition of the modern time delay cosmography consists in determining the Hubble constant $H_0$ with a competitive precision. However, the tension with $H_0$ obtained from the Planck satellite for a spatially-flat $\Lambda$CDM…
The light travel time differences in strong gravitational lensing systems allows an independent determination of the Hubble constant. This method has been successfully applied to several lens systems. The formally most precise measurements…
The inversion of a gravitational lens system is, as is well known, plagued by the so-called mass-sheet degeneracy: one can always rescale the density distribution of the lens and add a constant-density mass-sheet such that the, also…
The inversion of gravitational lens systems is hindered by the fact that multiple mass distributions are often equally compatible with the observed properties of the images. Besides using clear examples to illustrate the effect of the…
Gravitational lensing offers a competitive method to measure $H_0$ with the goal of 1% precision. A major obstacle comes in the form of lensing degeneracies, such as the mass sheet degeneracy (MSD), which make it possible for a family of…
Mass determinations from gravitational lensing shear and the higher order estimator flexion are both subject to the mass sheet degeneracy. Mass sheet degeneracy refers to a transformation that leaves the reduced shear and flexion invariant.…
Weak gravitational lensing is considered to be one of the most powerful tools to study the mass and the mass distribution of galaxy clusters. However, weak lensing mass reconstructions are plagued by the so-called mass-sheet degeneracy--the…
Gravitational lensing is the phenomenon arising when light rays are deflected by the mass between the source and the observer. Largely magnified and highly distorted images of background galaxies are formed by these angular deflections if…
Strong gravitational lensing of sources with different redshifts has been used to determine cosmological distance ratios, which in turn depend on the expansion history. Hence, such systems are viewed as potential tools for constraining…
A standard method to study the mass distribution in galaxy clusters is through strong lensing of background galaxies in which the positions of multiple images of the same source constrain the surface mass distribution of the cluster.…
When light from a distant source object, like a galaxy or a supernova, travels towards us, it is deflected by massive objects that lie on its path. When the mass density of the deflecting object exceeds a certain threshold, multiple, highly…
Based on the standard gravitational lensing formalism with its effective, projected lensing potential in a given background cosmology, we investigate under which transformations of the source position and of the deflection angle the…
Weak gravitational lensing is considered to be one of the most powerful tools to study the mass and the mass distribution of galaxy clusters. However, weak lensing mass reconstructions are plagued by the so-called mass-sheet degeneracy--the…
[Abridged] Many current and future astronomical surveys will rely on samples of strong gravitational lens systems to draw conclusions about galaxy mass distributions. We use a new strong lensing pipeline (presented in Paper I of this…
If it is hypothesised that there is no dark matter then some alternative gravitational theory must take the place of general relativity (GR) on the largest scales. Dynamical measurements can be used to investigate the nature of such a…
The Hubble constant ($H_0$), a crucial parameter in cosmology, quantifies the expansion rate of the universe so its precise measurement is important to understand the fundamental dynamics of our evolving universe. One of the major…
Strong gravitational lensing has to deal with many modeling degeneracies, the most notable being the Mass Sheet Degeneracy (MSD). We review the MSD when one needs to model more lens planes, each one with an internal mass sheet. We take into…