Related papers: Using the 2dF galaxy redshift survey to detect gra…

We report on the 2dF Galaxy and QSO Redshift Surveys now in progress with the Two Degree Field facility at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. We describe the 2dF instrumentation, outline the scientific aims of the surveys and their current…

We describe the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS), and the current status of the observations. In this exploratory paper, we apply a Principal Component Analysis to a preliminary sample of 5869 galaxy spectra and use the two most…

We describe a new method for measuring galaxy magnification due to weak gravitational lensing. Our method makes use of a tight scaling relation between galaxy properties that are modified by gravitational lensing, such as apparent size, and…

We have analyzed images from the VST ATLAS survey to identify candidate gravitationally lensed quasar systems in a sample of WISE sources with W1 - W2 > 0.7. Results from followup spectroscopy with the Baade 6.5 m telescope are presented…

Observed magnitudes of many quasars with redshifts exceeding $z=5$ correspond to luminosities $L_{\rm bol} > 10^{14}\,L_\odot$. The standard mechanism of quasar energy release by accretion suggests that masses of superluminous quasars…

Next-generation cosmological surveys will observe larger cosmic volumes than ever before, enabling us to access information on the primordial Universe, as well as on relativistic effects. We consider forthcoming 21cm intensity mapping…

Luminosity functions and their integrated luminosity densities are presented for the 6dF Galaxy Survey (6dFGS). This ongoing survey ultimately aims to measure around 150,000 redshifts and 15,000 peculiar velocities over almost the entire…

We present a comprehensive set of mock 2dF and SDSS galaxy redshift surveys constructed from a set of large, high-resolution cosmological N-body simulations. The radial selection functions and geometrical limits of the catalogues mimic…

Gravitational lensing provides a means to measure mass that does not rely on detecting and analysing light from the lens itself. Compact objects are ideal gravitational lenses, because they have relatively large masses and are dim. In this…

I review the observations of gravitationally lensed quasars. These systems are important because they allow us to probe the properties of the lensing galaxies at various scales, and they also allow insights into the structures of the…

We describe a new method of combining optical and infrared photometry to select Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) at redshifts $z > 0.6$. We explore this technique using a combination of optical photometry from CFHTLS and HST, infrared…

Weak lensing is emerging as a powerful observational tool to constrain cosmological models, but is at present limited by an incomplete understanding of many sources of systematic error. Many of these errors are multiplicative and depend on…

Gravitationally lensed quasars are valuable, but extremely rare, probes of observational cosmology and extragalactic astrophysics. Progress in these fields has been limited just by the paucity of systems with good ancillary data. Here we…

We estimate how clustering in large-scale redshift surveys can constrain various cosmological parameters. Depth and sky coverage of modern redshift surveys are greater than ever, opening new possibilities for statistical analysis. We have…

Gravitationally lensed quasars are useful for studying astrophysics and cosmology, and enlarging the sample size of lensed quasars is important for multiple studies. In this work, we develop a lens search algorithm for four-image (quad)…

We reconstruct the underlying density field of the 2 degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) for the redshift range 0.035<z<0.200 using the Wiener Filtering method. The Wiener Filter suppresses shot noise and accounts for selection and…

We present a science case to perform high-redshift cosmic shear surveys for cosmology with next-generation spectroscopic instruments, such as the proposed MegaMapper and Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope. We argue that by using the novel…

Context. Strong gravitationally lensed quasars are among the most interesting and useful observable extragalactic phenomena. Because their study constitutes a unique tool in various fields of astronomy, they are highly sought, not without…

Dedicated 'Stage IV' observatories will soon observe the entire extragalactic sky, to measure the 'cosmic shear' distortion of galaxy shapes by weak gravitational lensing. To measure the apparent shapes of those galaxies, we present an…

[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),…