Related papers: Identifying Lenses with Small-Scale Structure. I. …
We compare galaxy number counts in HST/ACS fields containing moderate-redshift (0.2<z<1.0) strong gravitational lenses with those in two control samples: (1) the first square degree of the COSMOS survey, comprising 259 ACS fields and (2) 20…
The magnifications of compact-source lenses are extremely sensitive to the presence of low mass dark matter halos along the entire sight line from the source to the observer. Traditionally, the study of dark matter structure in…
The shapes of galaxies can be quantified by ratios of their quadrupole moments. For faint galaxies, observational noise can make the denominator close to zero, so the ratios become ill-defined. Knowledge of these ratios (i.e. their measured…
Recent observations of lensed galaxies at cosmological distances have detected individual stars that are extremely magnified when crossing the caustics of lensing clusters. In idealized cluster lenses with smooth mass distributions, two…
Image distortion due to weak gravitational lensing is examined using a non-perturbative method of integrating the geodesic deviation and optical scalar equations along the null geodesics connecting the observer to a distant source. The…
Spectral differences between lensed quasar image components are common. Since lensing is intrinsically achromatic, these differences are typically explained as the effect of either microlensing, or as light path time delays sampling…
While gravitationally lensed quasars are expected to display an odd number of images, invariably systems are observed with an even number of quasars. For this, lensing galaxies must have very small core radii; this provides strong…
We address two selection effects that operate on samples of gravitationally lensed dusty galaxies identified in millimeter- and submillimeter-wavelength surveys. First, we point out the existence of a "size bias" in such samples: due to…
Most gravitational lens systems consist of two or four observable images. The absence of detectable odd images allows us to place a lower limit on the power-law slope of the inner mass profile of lensing galaxies. Using a sample of six…
We study the relation between the internal structure of early-type galaxies and their environment using 70 strong gravitational lenses from the Sloan ACS Lens Survey. The Sloan database is used to determine two measures of overdensity of…
We consider the geometrical optics for refraction of a distant radio source by an interstellar plasma lens, with application to a lens with a Gaussian electron column density profile. The refractive properties of the lens are specified…
Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) imaging of the most powerful lensing clusters provides access to the most magnified distant galaxies. The challenge is to construct lens models capable of describing these complex massive, merging clusters so…
Due to the finite amount of observational data, the best-fit parameters corresponding to the reconstructed cluster mass have uncertainties. In turn, these uncertainties affect the inferences made from these mass models. Following our…
We present a constraint on the abundance of supergiant (SG) stars at redshift z approx. 1, based on recent observations of a strongly lensed arc at this redshift. First we derive a free-form model of MACS J0416.1-2403 using data from the…
We present a survey of mass profiles and mass-to-light ratios of eight typical galaxy clusters at a common redshift (z ~ 0.2). We use weak gravitational lensing as a probe because it is unique in avoiding any assumptions about the dynamical…
Light curves of microlensing events occasionally deviate from the smooth and symmetric form of a single-lens single-source event. While most of these anomalous events can be accounted for by employing a binary-lens single-source (2L1S) or a…
We describe a new method to search for gravitational microlensing toward the Galactic bulge that employs a small camera rather than a conventional telescope and probes new regions of parameter space. The small aperture (~65 mm) permits…
The projected gravitational potential of galaxy clusters is reflected in both their X-ray emission and their imprint on the images of background sources due to their gravitational lensing effects. Since these projections of the potential…
Dark matter subhalos with extended profiles and density cores, and globular stars clusters of mass $10^6-10^8 M_\odot$, that live near the critical curves in galaxy cluster lenses can potentially be detected through their lensing…
Gravitational microlensing is a unique probe of the stellar content in strong lens galaxies. Flux ratio anomalies from gravitationally lensed supernovae (glSNe), just like lensed quasars, can be used to constrain the stellar mass fractions…