Related papers: Strong Lensing by Galaxies
[Abridged] We exploit the clustering of massive galaxies to perform a high efficiency imaging search for gravitational lenses. Our dataset comprises 44 fields imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS),…
We describe a series of new applications of gravitational lenses as astrophysical and cosmological tools. Such applications are becoming possible thanks to advances in the quality and quantity of observations. CASTLES…
If it is hypothesised that there is no dark matter then some alternative gravitational theory must take the place of general relativity (GR) on the largest scales. Dynamical measurements can be used to investigate the nature of such a…
Despite consistent progress in numerical simulations, the observable properties of galaxy clusters are difficult to predict ab initio. It is therefore important to compare both theoretical and observational results to a direct measure of…
Clusters of galaxies are the most recently assembled, massive, bound structures in the Universe. As predicted by General Relativity, given their masses, clusters strongly deform space-time in their vicinity. Clusters act as some of the most…
Strong gravitational lensing is a unique observational tool for studying the dark and luminous mass distribution both within and between galaxies. Given the presence of substructures, current strong lensing observations demand more complex…
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…
Luminosity profiles of galaxies acting as strong gravitational lenses can be tricky to study. Indeed, strong gravitational lensing images display several lensed components, both point-like and diffuse, around the lensing galaxy. Those…
Context. Strong lenses are a biased subset of the general population of galaxies. Aims. The goal of this work is to quantify how lens galaxies and lensed sources differ from their parent distribution, namely the strong lensing bias.…
Galaxy-scale strong gravitational lensing is not only a valuable probe of the dark matter distribution of massive galaxies, but can also provide valuable cosmological constraints, either by studying the population of strong lenses or by…
Strong gravitational lensing can be used to directly measure the mass function of their satellites, thus testing one of the fundamental predictions of cold dark matter cosmological models. Given the importance of this test it is essential…
The precision reached by current and forthcoming strong-lensing observations requires to accurately model various perturbations to the main deflector. Hitherto, theoretical models have been developed to account for either cosmological…
Strong gravitational lensing observations can provide extremely valuable information on the structure of galaxies, but their interpretation is made difficult by selection effects, which, if not accounted for, introduce a bias between the…
Weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies can probe the total projected mass distribution of foreground gravitational structures on all scales and has been used successfully to map the projected mass distribution of rich intermediate…
When light from a distant source object, like a galaxy or a supernova, travels towards us, it is deflected by massive objects that lie on its path. When the mass density of the deflecting object exceeds a certain threshold, multiple, highly…
These lectures give an introduction to Gravitational Lensing. We discuss lensing by point masses, lensing by galaxies, and lensing by clusters and larger-scale structures in the Universe. The relevant theory is developed and applications to…
Strong field gravitational lensing in the Brans-Dicke theory has been studied. The deflection angle for photons passing very close to the photon sphere is estimated for the static spherically symmetric space-time of the theory and the…
With today's millimeter and submillimeter instruments observers use gravitational lensing mostly as a tool to boost the sensitivity when observing distant objects. This is evident through the dominance of gravitationally lensed objects…
For a wide variety of cosmological models characterized by the cosmic mass density $\Omega_M$ and the normalized cosmological constant $\Omega_{\Lambda}$, we derive an analytic expression for the estimate of magnification cross-sections by…
Strong gravitational lensing gives access to the total mass distribution of galaxies. It can unveil a great deal of information about the lenses dark matter content when combined with the study of the lenses light profile. However,…