Related papers: Empirical constraints on alternative gravity theor…
We study gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies in the context of the generic class of unconventional gravity theories of the scalar--tensor type. For positive energy scalar fields with any dynamics, the bending of light by a weakly…
Gravitational lensing is most often used as a tool to investigate the distribution of (dark) matter in the universe, but, if the mass distribution is known a priori, it becomes, at least in principle, a powerful probe of gravity itself.…
Modifications to GR generically predict time and scale-dependent effects which may be probed by observations of strong lensing by galaxies. Measurements of the stellar velocity dispersion determine the dynamical mass whereas measurements of…
Dark matter structures within strong gravitational lens galaxies and along their line of sight leave a gravitational imprint on the multiple images of lensed sources. Strong gravitational lensing provides, therefore, a key test of different…
The mass of an astrophysical object can be estimated by the amount of gravitational lensing of another object that it causes. To arrive at the estimation however, one assumes the validity of the inverse square law of gravity, or…
The standard cosmological model is based on general relativity and includes dark matter and dark energy. An important prediction of this model is a fixed relationship between the gravitational potentials responsible for gravitational…
In this work are reviewed several aspects of gravitational lensing produced by astrophysical bodies that strongly curve the spacetime in their vicinity. When an object with a photon sphere (e.g. a black hole) is interposed between a source…
Gravitational lensing is the phenomenon arising when light rays are deflected by the mass between the source and the observer. Largely magnified and highly distorted images of background galaxies are formed by these angular deflections if…
Whereas considerable effort has been afforded in understanding the properties of galaxies, a full physical picture, connecting their baryonic and dark-matter content, super-massive black holes, and (metric) theories of gravity, is still…
Gravitational lensing has become one of the most interesting tools to study the mass distribution in the Universe. Since gravitational light deflection is independent of the nature and state of the matter, it is ideally suited to…
It is generally thought that galaxies are embedded in dark matter halos extending well beyond their luminous matter. The existence of these galactic halos is mainly derived from the larger than expected velocities of stars and gas in the…
There is a vast menagerie of plausible candidates for the constituents of dark matter, both within and beyond extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Each of these candidates may have scattering (and other) cross section…
Gravitational lensing has now become a popular tool to measure the mass distribution of structures in the Universe on various scales. Here we focus on the study of galaxy's scale dark matter halos with galaxy-galaxy lensing techniques:…
After exactly a century since the formulation of the general theory of relativity, the phenomenon of gravitational lensing is still an extremely powerful method for investigating in astrophysics and cosmology. Indeed, it is adopted to study…
Bright galaxy-galaxy strong lenses are much more powerful than lensed quasars for measuring the mass profiles of galaxies, but until this year only a handful have been known. Here we present five new examples, identified via the optimal…
The theory of General Relativity predicts that, since massive bodies curve spacetime, light from a distant source would be deflected by a foreground massive object -- a phenomenon known as \emph{Gravitational Lensing}. Historically, the…
Gravitational lensing allows us to probe the structure of matter on a broad range of astronomical scales, and as light from a distant source traverses an intervening galaxy, compact matter such as planets, stars, and black holes act as…
We review progress in understanding dark matter by astrophysics, and particularly via the effect of gravitational lensing. Evidence from many different directions now all imply that five sixths of the material content of the universe is in…
The unknown nature of dark energy motivates continued cosmological tests of large-scale gravitational physics. We present a new consistency check based on the relative amplitude of non-relativistic galaxy peculiar motions, measured via…
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…