Related papers: Using Strong Gravitational Lensing to Identify Fos…
The search for the progenitors to today's fossil galaxy systems has been restricted to N-body simulations until recently, where 12 fossil progenitors were identified in the CASSOWARY catalog of strong lensing systems. All 12 systems lie in…
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…
(Abridged) Fossil systems are group- or cluster-sized objects whose luminosity is dominated by a very massive central galaxy. In the current cold dark matter scenario, these objects formed hierarchically at an early epoch of the Universe…
Fossil groups (FGs) have been discovered twenty-five years ago, and are now defined as galaxy groups with an X-ray luminosity higher than $10^{42}\ h_{50}^{-2}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and a brightest group galaxy brighter than the other group members…
Fossil groups are considered the end product of natural galaxy group evolution in which group members sink towards the centre of the gravitational potential due to dynamical friction, merging into a single, massive, and X-ray bright…
Previous observations of the environments of the lensing galaxies in gravitational lens systems suggest that many of the lensing galaxies are associated with small groups of galaxies. As a result, we have begun a coordinated program to…
The luminosity gap between the two brightest members of galaxy groups and clusters is thought to offer a strong test for the models of galaxy formation and evolution. This study focuses on the statistics of the luminosity gap in galaxy…
Most gravitational lens galaxies are early-type galaxies in relatively low density environments. We show that they lie on the same fundamental plane as early-type galaxies in both local and distant rich clusters. Their surface brightness…
Defined as X-ray bright galaxy groups with large differences between the luminosities of their brightest and second brightest galaxies, "fossil groups" are believed to be some of the oldest galaxy systems in the universe. They have…
We use a set of twelve high-resolution N-body/hydrodynamical simulations in the $\Lambda$CDM cosmology to investigate the origin and formation rate of fossil groups (FGs), which are X-ray bright galaxy groups dominated by a large elliptical…
(Abridged) Fossil systems are galaxy associations dominated by a relatively isolated, bright elliptical galaxy, surrounded by a group of smaller galaxies lacking L* objects. We analyzed the near-infrared photometric and structural…
Fossil systems are defined to be X-ray bright galaxy groups with a 2-magnitude difference between their two brightest galaxies within half the projected virial radius,and represent an interesting extreme of the population of galaxy…
In this paper, we study gravitational lensing by groups of galaxies. Since groups are abundant and therefore have a large covering fraction on the sky, lensing by groups is likely to be very important observationally. Besides, it has…
We report the discovery of 12 new fossil groups of galaxies, systems dominated by a single giant elliptical galaxy and cluster-scale gravitational potential, but lacking the population of bright galaxies typically seen in galaxy clusters.…
We describe the properties of a sample of galaxy groups with very unusual distributions of galaxy luminosities. The most extreme example has an X-ray luminosity similar to that of the Virgo cluster but has a very low richness, with only one…
We combine photometry and lens modeling to study the properties of 17 gravitational lens galaxies between z=0.1 and 1. Most of the lens galaxies are passively evolving early-type galaxies, with a few spirals. The colors, scale lengths, and…
We have discovered a strong lensing fossil group (J0454) at z=0.26, projected near the well-studied cluster MS0451-0305. Using multicolour Subaru/Suprime-Cam and CFHT/Megaprime imaging together with Keck spectroscopy we identify member…
We discuss strong gravitational lensing by multiple objects along any line of sight. The probability for strong gravitational lensing by more than one lens is small, but a number of strong lens systems in which more than one separate lens…
Numerical simulations as well as optical and X-ray observations over the last few years have shown that poor groups of galaxies can evolve to what is called a fossil group. Dynamical friction as the driving process leads to the coalescence…
Understanding the evolution of galaxies provides crucial insights into a broad range of aspects in astrophysics, including structure formation and growth, the nature of dark energy and dark matter, baryonic physics, and more. It is,…