Related papers: Probing Dark Matter Subhalos in Galaxy Clusters Us…
Dark matter subhalos with extended profiles and density cores, and globular stars clusters of mass $10^6-10^8 M_\odot$, that live near the critical curves in galaxy cluster lenses can potentially be detected through their lensing…
Large magnification factors near gravitational lensing caustics of galaxy cluster lenses allow the study of individual stars or compact stellar associations at cosmological distances. We study how the presence of sub-galactic subhalos, an…
Strong gravitationally lensed arcs produced by galaxy clusters have been observationally detected for several decades now. These strong lensing constraints provided high-fidelity mass models for cluster lenses that include substructure down…
A galaxy cluster acts as a cosmic telescope over background galaxies but also as a cosmic microscope of the lens imperfections. The diverging magnification of lensing caustics enhances the microlensing effect of substructure present within…
Astrometric perturbations of lensed arcs behind galaxy clusters have been recently suggested as promising probes of small-scale ($\lesssim10^9 M_{\odot}$) dark matter substructure. Populations of cold dark matter (CDM) subhalos, predicted…
We show how observations of multiply-imaged quasars at high redshift can be used as a probe of dark matter clumps (subhalos with masses ~ 10^9 solar masses) within the virialized extent of more massive lensing halos. A large abundance 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…
Parametric strong lensing studies of galaxy clusters often display misleading features: group/cluster scale dark matter components without any stellar counterpart, offsets between both components larger than what might be allowed by neither…
Small distortions in the images of Einstein rings or giant arcs offer the exciting prospect of detecting dark matter haloes or subhaloes of mass below $10^9$M$_{\odot}$, most of which are too small to have made a visible galaxy. A very…
If cluster dark matter is in the form of compact objects it will introduce fluctuations into the light curves of distant sources. Current searches for MACHOs in clusters of galaxies focus on monitoring quasars behind nearby systems. This…
We present an axially symmetric formula to calculate the probability of finding gravitational arcs in galaxy clusters, being induced by their massive dark matter haloes, as a function of clusters redshifts and virial masses. The formula…
In the standard structure formation scenario based on the cold dark matter paradigm, galactic halos are predicted to contain a large population of dark matter subhalos. While the most massive members of the subhalo population can appear as…
The properties of substructure in galaxy clusters, exquisitely probed by gravitational lensing, offer a stringent test of dark matter (DM) models. Combining strong- and weak-lensing data for massive clusters, we map their total mass --…
We describe the first results from two observational projects aimed at measuring the amount and spatial distribution of dark matter in distant early-type galaxies (E/S0s) and clusters of galaxies. At the galaxy scale, the Lenses Structure…
Direct evidence for the existence of dark matter and measurements of its interaction cross-section have been provided by the physical offset between dark matter and intra- cluster gas in merging systems like the Bullet Cluster. Although a…
We examine a caustic-straddling arc at $z=0.9397$ in the field of the galaxy cluster MACS J0416.1-2403 ($z=0.397$) using archival multiband HST images and show that its surface brightness exhibits anomalies that can be explained by a single…
According to the cold dark matter scenario, a large number of dark subhalos should be located within the halo of each Milky-way sized galaxy. One promising possibility for detecting such subhalos is to try to observe their gravitational…
High-resolution N-body simulations of dark matter halos indicate that the Milky Way contains numerous subhalos. When a dark matter subhalo passes in front of a star, the light from that star will be deflected by gravitational lensing,…
Weak shear maps of the outer regions of clusters have been successfully used to map the distribution of mass at large radii from the cluster center. The typical smoothing lengths employed thus far preclude the systematic study of the…
Obtaining a census of dark matter structures at low mass ($\leq 10^9 M_\odot$) can provide strong constraints on the nature of dark matter, though identifying such structures remains difficult. In this work, we study the galaxy cluster RX…