Related papers: Quasar Lensing
The cold dark matter scenario of hierarchical large-scale structure formation predicts the existence of abundant subhalos around large galaxies. However, the number of observed dwarf galaxies is far from this theoretical prediction,…
The arrival times, positions, and fluxes of multiple images in strong lens systems can be used to infer the presence of dark subhalos in the deflector, and thus test predictions of cold dark matter models. However, gravitational lensing…
It is accepted that quasars are powered by supermassive black holes (SMBH) with masses in the range 10^6 - 10^9 solar masses in their cores. Occasionally, compact stars can plunge into SMBH. In addition, there may be a number of such…
In strong gravitational lens systems, the light bending is usually dominated by one main galaxy, but may be affected by other mass along the line of sight (LOS). Shear and convergence can be used to approximate the contributions from less…
Quasar pairs are either physically distinct binary quasars or the result of gravitational lensing. The majority of known pairs are in fact lenses, with a few confirmed as binaries, leaving a population of objects that have not yet been…
Gravitational microlensing has proven to be a powerful tool in the study of quasars, providing some of the strongest limits on the scales of structure in the central engine. Typically sources are considered to be smoothly varying on some…
We use the first data release of the 2-degree Field Quasar survey to investigate the effect of gravitational magnification by foreground absorbing systems on background quasars. We select two populations of quasars from this sample: one…
When gravitational waves pass near massive astrophysical objects, they can be gravitationally lensed. The lensing can split them into multiple wave-fronts, magnify them, or imprint beating patterns on the waves. Here we focus on the…
Attempts to constrain the Hubble constant using the strong gravitational lens system Q0957+561 are limited by systematic uncertainties in the mass model, since the time delay is known very precisely. One important systematic effect is the…
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…
Current X-ray observations and simulations show that gravitational lensing can be used to infer the structure near the event horizons of black holes, constrain the dynamics and evolution of black-hole accretion and outflows, test general…
We perform a statistical analysis of strong gravitational lensing by quasar hosts of background galaxies, in the two competing models of dark matter halos of quasars, HOD and CS models. Utilizing the BolshoiP Simulation we demonstrate that…
Gravitational waves (GWs) from distant sources such as inspiralling and merging stellar-mass compact binaries, intermediate-mass and supermassive-binary-black-hole can be gravitationally lensed by intervening objects, ranging from stars and…
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…
While the Hubble constant can be derived from observable time delays between images of lensed quasars, the result is often highly sensitive to assumptions and systematic uncertainties in the lensing model. Unlike most previous authors we…
Gravitational lensing has developed into one of the most powerful tools for the analysis of the dark universe. This review summarises the theory of gravitational lensing, its main current applications and representative results achieved so…
Dark matter caustics have specific density profiles and, therefore, precisely calculable gravitational lensing properties. We present a formalism which simplifies the relevant calculations, and apply it to four specific cases. In the first…
Weak gravitational lensing seeks to determine shear by measuring induced quadrupole (elliptical) shapes in background galaxy images. Small impact parameter (a few kpc) gravitational lensing by foreground core masses between 2 10^{9} and 2…
The components of blazar jets that emit radiation span a factor of $10^{10}$ in scale. The spatial structure of these emitting regions depends on the observed energy. Photons emitted at different sites cross the lens plane at different…
Gravitational weak lensing by large scale structures is view as a tool to probe the bias relation between the mass and the light distributions. It is explained how a particular statistic can be used to deproject the 2D mass distribution…