Related papers: Shape, Color and Distance in Weak Gravitational Fl…
Gravitational waves emitted by chirping supermassive black hole binaries could in principle be used to obtain very accurate distance determinations. Provided they have an electromagnetic counterpart from which the redshift can be…
We have performed a detailed V/Vmax test for a sample of the Canada-France Redshift Survey (CFRS) for the purpose of examining whether the comoving number density of field galaxies changes significantly at redshifts of z<1. Taking into…
After a brief introduction to gravitational lensing theory, a rough overview of the types of gravitational lensing statistics that have been performed so far will be given. I shall then concentrate on recent results of galaxy-galaxy…
Given a galaxy image, one cannot simply measure its flexion. An image's spin one and three shape properties, typically associated with F- and G-flexion, are actually complicated functions of the galaxy's intrinsic shape and the telescope's…
We explore the nature of the evolution of faint field galaxies by assuming that the local luminosity function is not well defined. We use a non-negative least squares technique to derive a near optimal set of local luminosity functions for…
We present the discovery and preliminary characterization of a gravitationally lensed quasar with a source redshift $z_{s}=2.74$ and image separation of $2.9"$ lensed by a foreground $z_{l}=0.40$ elliptical galaxy. Since the images of…
Gravitational lensing induces significant errors in the measured distances to high-redshift standard candles and standard sirens such as type-Ia supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and merging supermassive black hole binaries. There will…
I outline a quantitative method for characterizing galaxies both by photometric `form' and indices of spectral-type, applicable to both nearby and distant galaxies. Such a characterization provides insight on galaxy evolution because there…
We measure the r-band galaxy luminosity function (LF) across environments over the redshift range 0<$z$<0.107 using the SDSS. We divide our sample into galaxies residing in large scale voids (void galaxies) and those residing in denser…
The statistical power of weak lensing measurements is principally driven by the number of high redshift galaxies whose shapes are resolved. Conventional wisdom and physical intuition suggest this is optimised by deep imaging at long (red or…
Color gradients in elliptical galaxies in distant clusters ($z=0.37-0.56$) are examined by using the archival deep imaging data of Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on-board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Obtained color gradients are…
A large number of cosmological studies now suggest that roughly two-thirds of the critical energy density of the Universe exists in a component with negative pressure. If the equation of state of such an energy component varies with time,…
Similarly to light, gravitational waves can be gravitationally lensed as they propagate near massive astrophysical objects such as galaxies, stars, or black holes. In recent years, forecasts have suggested a reasonable chance of strong…
We have tested for luminosity, colour and morphology dependence of the degree of filamentarity in seven nearly two dimensional strips from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Four (SDSS DR4). The analysis is carried out at various…
Recent results from gravitational lensing are combined with new modeling of the stellar velocity distributions in nearby galaxies to probe the connection between the luminous and the dark matter in elliptical galaxies. From analysing a…
The observed properties of high redshift galaxies depend on the underlying foreground distribution of large scale structure, which distorts their intrinsic properties via gravitational lensing. We focus on the regime where the dominant…
We present results of a weak gravitational lensing survey of six X-ray selected high-redshift clusters of galaxies. We find that the masses of the clusters derived from weak lensing are comparable to those derived from the X-ray…
Cosmological constraints from galaxy clusters rely on accurate measurements of the mass and internal structure of clusters. An important source of systematic uncertainty in cluster mass and structure measurements is the secure selection of…
We explore the use of the tangential component of weak lensing shear to characterize the ellipticity of clusters of galaxies. We introduce an ellipticity estimator, and quantify its properties for isolated clusters from LCDM N-body…
Direct observations of the first generation of luminous objects will likely become feasible over the next decade. The advent of the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will allow imaging of numerous galaxies and mini-quasars at redshifts…