Related papers: The Current Status of CLASS
The present generation of weak lensing surveys will be superseded by surveys run from space with much better sky coverage and high level of signal to noise ratio, such as SNAP. However, removal of any systematics or noise will remain a…
We present new Hubble Space Telescope images of the gravitational lens PKS 1830-211, which allow us to characterize the lens galaxy and update the determination of the Hubble constant from this system. The I-band image shows that the lens…
I summarize the successes and failures of the most popular current cosmological models in accounting for the available observations. This evaluation, presented as the summary of the 11th Potsdam Workshop on Large-Scale Structure, was…
Cosmology contributes a good deal to the investigation of variation of fundamental physical constants. High resolution data is available and allows for detailed analysis over cosmological distances and a multitude of methods were developed.…
This is a review article for The Review of Particle Physics 2022 (aka the Particle Data Book). It forms a compact review of knowledge of the cosmological parameters near the end of 2021. Topics included are Parametrizing the Universe;…
Time delay cosmography uses the arrival time delays between images in strong gravitational lenses to measure cosmological parameters, in particular the Hubble constant $H_0$. The lens models used in time delay cosmography omit dark matter…
This talk is a brief account of recent developments on light scalar meson spectroscopy. I mostly focus on the major revision of the $\sigma$ or $f_0(500)$ meson in the Review of Particle Physics, driven by new data and the accummulation of…
In this paper we give a pedagogical review of the recent observational results in cosmology from the study of type Ia supernovae and anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. By providing consistent constrainst on the cosmological…
We study the effect of the cosmological constant on the statistical properties of gravitational lenses in flat cosmologies (Omega_{0}+lambda_{0} = 1). It is shown that some of the lens observables are strongly affected by the cosmological…
In a recent paper, Hawkins (1997) argues on the basis of statistical studies of double-image gravitational lenses and lens candidates that a large population of dark lenses exists and that these outnumber galaxies with more normal…
We perform a joint analysis of the abundance, the clustering and the galaxy-galaxy lensing signal of galaxies measured from Data Release 11 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (SDSS III-BOSS) in our…
We present a massive spectroscopic survey of Galactic O stars, GOSSS, based on new, high signal-to-noise ratio, R~2500 blue-violet digital observations from both hemispheres. The sample size and selection criteria; the relationship between…
Weak lensing galaxy surveys are currently undergoing a dramatic revolution as the dawn of the Stage-IV surveys are upon us. Hence, ensuring that our analysis methods are as accurate and precise as the raw data is of upmost importance. This…
I summarize the current spectroscopic sky surveys and some of the scientific results, emphasizing the largest sky survey to-date, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Techniques used commonly in spectral analyses are discussed, followed by…
Strong gravitational lensing enables a wide range of science: probing cosmography; testing dark matter models; understanding galaxy evolution; and magnifying the faint, small and distant Universe. However to date exploiting strong lensing…
Given the tension between the values of the Hubble parameter $H_0$ inferred from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and from supernovae, attention is turning to time delays of strongly lensed quasars. Current time-delay measurements…
Isothermal models and other simple smooth models of dark matter halos of gravitational lenses often predict a dimensionless time delay $H_0\Delta t$ much too small to be comfortable with the observed time delays $\Delta t$ and the widely…
This is the summary of two lectures that aim to give an overview of cosmology. I will not try to be too rigorous in derivations, nor to give a full historical overview. The idea is to provide a "taste" of cosmology and some of the…
We are now beginning to learn detailed information about cosmological parameters from the shapes of the matter and radiation power spectra, together with their relative normalization. As more high quality data are gathered from galaxy…
Over the past decade, sky surveys such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey have proven the power of large data sets for answering fundamental astrophysical questions. This observational progress, based on a synergy of advances in telescope…