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Understanding the formation and evolution of the first stars and galaxies represents one of the most exciting frontiers in astronomy. Since the universe was filled with neutral hydrogen at early times, the most promising method for…
In 1936 Einstein predicted the phenomenon presently known as gravitational lensing (GL). A prime feature of GL is the magnification, because of the gravitational field, of the star visible surface as seen from a distant observer. We show…
Gravitational lensing is now widely and successfully used to study a range of astronomical phenomena, from individual objects, like galaxies and clusters, to the mass distribution on various scales, to the overall geometry of the Universe.…
A single-screen model of the gravitational lens system 2016+112 is proposed, that explains recent Hubble Space Telescope} (HST) infrared (NICMOS-F160W) observations and new high-resolution European VLBI Network (EVN) 5-GHz radio…
We have worked out simple analytical formulae that accurately approximate the relationship between the position of the source with respect to the lens center and the amplification of the images, hence the lens cross section, for realistic…
Ongoing microlensing surveys have already yielded more than five hundred microlensing events, most of which have been identified in real-time. In this review I present the basic theory and observational status of these surveys. I highlight…
Gravitational lensing, a compelling physical phenomenon, offers a unique avenue to investigate the morphology and physical properties of distant and faint celestial objects. This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the…
It has recently been suggested in this journal by Benford (2019) that "Lurkers" in the form of interstellar exploration probes could be present in the solar system. Similarly, extraterrestrial intelligence could send long-lived probes to…
The fields of occultation and microlensing are linked historically. Early this century, occultation of the Sun by the Moon allowed the apparent positions of background stars projected near the limb of the Sun to be measured and compared…
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…
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…
The problem of automated separation of stars and galaxies on photographic plates is revisited with two goals in mind : First, to separate galaxies from everything else (as opposed to most previous work, in which galaxies were lumped…
We calculate the expected number of gravitationally lensed optical, radio and sub-mm lensed sources on the whole sky due to foreground galaxy clusters for different cosmological models. We improve previous calculations of lensed arc…
We offer a concise and direct way to derive the bending angle of light (i.e. as generally called, gravitational lensing), while light grazes a star, through the approach suggested earlier by the first author, which is fundamentally based on…
Gravitational waves (GWs) may be magnified or de-magnified due to lensing. This phenomenon will bias the distance estimation based on the matched filtering technique. Via the multi-sphere ray-tracing technique, we study the GW magnification…
We present the first automated spectroscopic search for disk-galaxy lenses, using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database. We follow up eight gravitational lens candidates, selected among a sample of ~40000 candidate massive disk galaxies,…
Strong gravitational lensing at the galaxy scale is a valuable tool for various applications in astrophysics and cosmology. The primary uses of galaxy-scale lensing are to study elliptical galaxies' mass structure and evolution, constrain…
Gravitational lensing has developed into one of the most powerful tools for the analysis of the dark universe. This review summarises the theory of gravitational lensing, its main current applications and representative results achieved so…
Clusters of galaxies as gravitational lenses allow to study the stellar content and properties of high-z galaxies much fainter than the usual spectroscopic field surveys. We review the recent results obtained on the identification and study…
Gravitational lensing has become one of the most interesting tools to study the mass distribution in the Universe. Since gravitational light deflection is independent of the nature and state of the matter, it is ideally suited to…