Related papers: The Frontier Fields Lens Modeling Comparison Proje…
Gravitational lensing provides a unique probe of the inner 10-1000 pc of distant galaxies (z=0.2-1). Lens theory predicts that every strong lens system should have a faint image near the center of the lens galaxy, which should be visible in…
The distinction between weak and strong lensing is somewhat arbitrary, and both regimes are manifestations of the same physical phenomenon: gravity bending the path of light. Nevertheless, these two regimes have to a large extent been…
We present a selection of 24 candidate galaxy-galaxy lensing (GGLs) identified from Hubble images in the outskirts of the massive galaxy clusters from the CLASH survey. These GGLs provide insights into the mass distributions at larger…
Gravitational lensing and stellar dynamics are two independent methods, based solely on gravity, to study the mass distributions of galaxies. Both methods suffer from degeneracies, however, that are difficult to break. In this paper, we…
Although N-body simulations of cosmic structure formation suggest that dark matter halos have density profiles shallower than isothermal at small radii and steeper at large radii, whether observed galaxy clusters follow this profile is…
Weak gravitational lensing allows one to reconstruct the spatial distribution of the projected mass density across the sky. These "mass maps" provide a powerful tool for studying cosmology as they probe both luminous and dark matter. In…
Galaxy clusters are tracers of the large scale structures of the Universe, making the time evolution of their mass function dependent on key cosmological parameters, such as the cosmic matter density or the amplitude of density fluctuations…
Weak gravitational lensing provides a direct way to study the mass distribution of clusters of galaxies at large radii. Unfortunately, large scale structure along the line of sight also contributes to the lensing signal, and consequently…
Cosmological cluster-scale strong gravitational lensing probes the mass distribution of the dense cores of massive dark matter halos and the structures along the line of sight from background sources to the observer. It is frequently…
The distribution of mass on galaxy cluster scales is an important test of structure formation scenarios, providing constraints on the nature of dark matter itself. Several techniques have been used to probe the mass distributions of…
The surface mass density of a cluster of galaxies, and thus its total mass, can be estimated from its lens magnification. The magnification can be determined from the variation in number counts of its background galaxies. In the weak…
We examine models of the mass distribution for the first known case of gravitational lensing. Several new sets of constraints are used, based on recent observations. We remodel the VLBI observations of the radio jets in the two images of…
Analysing the weak lensing distortions of the images of faint background galaxies provides a means to constrain the average mass distribution of cluster galaxies and potentially to test the extent of their dark matter haloes as a function…
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…
Galaxy cluster-scale strong gravitational lensing systems are rare yet valuable tools for investigating the properties of dark matter and dark energy, as well as providing the opportunity to study the distant universe at flux levels and…
We introduce a new method for constraining the redshift distribution of a set of galaxies, using weak gravitational lensing shear. Instead of using observed shears and redshifts to constrain cosmological parameters, we ask how well the…
Context: The number of known strong gravitational lenses is expected to grow substantially in the next few years. The statistical combination of large samples of lenses has the potential of providing strong constraints on the inner…
Galaxy clusters are considered as excellent probes for cosmology. For that purpose, their mass needs to be measured and their structural properties needs to be understood. We propose a method for galaxy cluster mass reconstruction which…
We derive a free-form mass distribution for the unrelaxed cluster A370 (z=0.375), using the latest Hubble Frontier Fields images and GLASS spectroscopy. Starting from a reliable set of 10 multiply lensed systems we produce a free-form lens…
We map the lensing-inferred substructure in the first three clusters observed by the Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields Initiative (HSTFF): Abell 2744 (z = 0.308), MACSJ0416, (z = 0.396) and MACSJ1149 (z = 0.543). Statistically…