Related papers: The Current Status of CLASS
This lecture note presents a survey of the current status of the determination of the three cosmological parameters, the Hubble constant, the mass density paramater and the cosmological constant, to the closing date of the end of November…
Studies of galaxy clusters have proved crucial in helping to establish the standard model of cosmology, with a universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. A theoretical basis that describes clusters as massive, multi-component,…
Time delays in strong gravitational lensing systems possess significant complementarity with distance measurements to determine the dark energy equation of state, as well as the matter density and Hubble constant. Time delays are most…
The Lenses Structure & Dynamics (LSD) Survey aims at studying the internal structure of luminous and dark matter - as well as their evolution - of field early-type (E/SO) galaxies to z~1. In particular, E/S0 lens galaxies are studied by…
I briefly discuss the current state of the Planes of Satellite Galaxies Problem in light of some new observational data for satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, Andromeda, Centaurus A, and other systems beyond the Local Group. In…
Basic considerations of lens detection and identification indicate that a wide field survey of the types planned for weak lensing and Type Ia SNe with SNAP are close to optimal for the optical detection of strong lenses. Such a…
We discuss the present status and future prospects for cosmic shear observations and their cosmological constraints. We review the evidences supporting the cosmological origin of the measured signal, and discuss the possible problems coming…
We review the current observational status of string cosmology when confronted with experimental datasets. We begin by defining common observational parameters and discuss how they are determined for a given model. Then we review the…
Formulae for the line-of-sight and transverse comoving distances, proper motion distance, angular diameter distance, luminosity distance, k-correction, distance modulus, comoving volume, lookback time, age, and object intersection…
We investigate the possibility of measuring the Hubble constant, the fractional energy density components and the equation of state parameter of the ``dark energy'' using lensed multiple images of high-redshift supernovae. With future…
A new two-image gravitational lens system has been discovered as a result of the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey (CLASS). Radio observations with the VLA, MERLIN and the VLBA at increasingly higher resolutions all show two components with a flux…
Strong gravitational lenses with measured time delays between the multiple images allow a direct measurement of the time-delay distance to the lens, and thus a measure of cosmological parameters, particularly the Hubble constant, $H_{0}$.…
In the last years, the need for automated real-time detection and classification of astronomical transients began to be more impelling. Better technologies involve a higher number of detected candidates and an automated classification will…
Aims: To predict time delays for a sample of gravitationally lensed quasars and to evaluate the accuracy that can be realistically achieved on the value of H_0. Methods: We consider 14 lensed quasars that are candidates for time-delay…
Compact groups of galaxies recently have been discovered in association with several strong gravitational lens systems. These groups provide additional convergence to the lensing potential and thus affect the value of H_0 derived from the…
Time delays between multiple images of lensed sources can probe the geometry of the universe. We propose a novel method based on free-form modelling of gravitational lenses to estimate time-delay distances and, in turn, cosmological…
There are now 10 firm time delay measurements in gravitational lenses. The physics of time delays is well understood, and the only important variable for interpreting the time delays to determine H_0 is the mean surface mass density <k> (in…
This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of weak gravitational lensing and its current applications in cosmology. We begin by introducing the fundamental concepts of gravitational lensing and derive the key equations for the…
Research in cosmology traditionally divided into two separate lines. On the one hand was the search for initial conditions: the cosmological parameters H, Omega, Omega_b, and Lambda, and the power spectrum P(k). On the other hand was the…
We discuss a new method which is potentially capable of constraining cosmological parameters using observations of giant luminous arcs in rich X-ray clusters of galaxies. The mass profile and the mass normalization of the lenses are…