Related papers: Superluminous quasars and mesolensing
Like light, gravitational waves can be gravitationally lensed by massive astrophysical objects. Strong gravitational lensing by galaxies and galaxy clusters is anticipated to become observable in the coming years. This phenomenon will…
The cosmological background of ionizing radiation has been dominated by quasars once the Universe aged by ~2 billion years. At earlier times (redshifts z>3), the observed abundance of bright quasars declined sharply, implying that cosmic…
Quasars provide our farthest-reaching view of the Universe. The Sloan Survey now contains over 100,000 quasar candidates. A careful look at the angular distribution of quasar magnitudes shows a surprising intensity enhancement with a "bulls…
We use the spectra of 22,000 nearby early-type galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to determine the age distribution of these galaxies as a function of their velocity dispersion sigma_v in the range 100 km/s < sigma_v < 280…
In the last two decades, approximately 200 quasars have been discovered at $z>6$, hosting active super-massive black holes with masses $M_{\bullet} \gtrsim 10^9 M_{\odot}$. While these sources reflect only the tip of the iceberg of the…
We propose a method to remove the mass sheet degeneracy that arises when the mass of galaxy clusters is inferred from gravitational shear. The method utilizes high-redshift standard candles that undergo weak lensing. Natural candidates for…
Given its extraordinary spatial resolution and sensitivity, the projected Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) is likely to detect a large number of high-redshift QSOs lensed by spiral galaxies. Using realistic models for the QSO and…
The probability that high-redshift sources are gravitationally-lensed with large image separations (i.e., greater than can be produced by galactic deflectors) is determined by the cosmological population of group- and cluster-sized halos.…
Gravitationally lensed quasars are powerful and versatile astrophysical tools, but they are challengingly rare. In particular, only ~25 well-characterized quadruple systems are known to date. To refine the target catalogue for the…
Quasars are effective tracers of the large-scale distribution of galaxies at high redshift thanks to their high luminosity and dedicated surveys. Previous studies have shown that quasars exhibit a bias similar to that of rich groups,…
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 most heavily-obscured, luminous quasars might represent a specific phase of the evolution of actively accreting supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, possibly related to mergers. We investigated a sample of the most luminous…
We consider the signature and detectability of gravitational microlensing of distant quasars by cosmic strings. Because of the simple image configuration such events will have a characteristic light curve, in which a source would appear to…
We use a series of ray-tracing experiments to determine the magnification distribution of high-redshift sources by gravitational lensing. We determine empirically the relation between magnification and redshift, for various cosmological…
Quasar microlensing can be used to constrain important astrophysical properties, such as the accretion disk size and the amount of stars in the lensing galaxy. The associated brightness variations over time, in particular high magnification…
Ultraviolet light from early galaxies is thought to have ionized gas in the intergalactic medium. However, there are few observational constraints on this epoch because of the faintness of those galaxies and the redshift of their optical…
A significant fraction of the energy emitted in the early Universe came from very luminous galaxies that are largely hidden at optical wavelengths (because of interstellar dust grains); this energy now forms part of the cosmic background…
We present the analysis of a sample of 20 bright low-redshift quasars (M_B<-23 and z < 0.35) observed spectroscopically with the VLT. The FORS1 spectra, obtained in Multi Object Spectroscopy (MOS) mode, allow to observe simultaneously the…
The damped Lyman alpha absorbers (DLAs) in quasar spectra are believed to be the progenitors of present-day disk galaxies. We examine the probability for microlensing of background quasars by stars in their DLAs. Microlensing by an…
Quasars are widely believed to be powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes and there is now considerable evidence for a link between mergers, quasars and the formation of spheroids. Cattaneo, Haehnelt & Rees (1999) have…