Related papers: Optical Continuum Sources in Gravitationally Lense…
We present R- and V-band photometry of the gravitational lens system QSO 0957+561 from five nights (one in 2000 January and four in 2001 March, corresponding to the approximate time-delay for the system) of uninterrupted monitoring at the…
The strange morphology of the six-component gravitational lens PMN J0134-0931 has resisted explanation. We present the first successful quantitative models for the system, based on the idea that there are two lens galaxies and two…
We report a serendipitous detection of rapid, large amplitude flux density variations in the highly core-dominated, flat-spectrum radio quasar 1156+295 during an observing session at the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). The source was…
Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs) are a distinct category of jetted active galactic nuclei (AGN) whose optical variability characteristics have not been well investigated. We present here the results of our investigation on the optical flux…
Optical and X-ray observations of the quadruply imaged quasar 1RXS J1131-1231 show flux ratio anomalies among the images factors of ~2 in the optical and \~3-9 in X-rays. Temporal variability of the quasar seems an unlikely explanation for…
We report the first results of quasi-simultaneous two passband optical monitoring of six quasi-stellar objects to search for micro-variability. We carried out photometric monitoring of these sources in an alternating sequence of R and V…
The monitoring of the gravitational lens Q2237+0305 carried out by the OGLE group during 1997--1999 is analyzed. The significant light amplifications in the C and A quasar components with maxima in mid- and late 1999, respectively, are…
We investigate the finite source size effect in the context of the wave optics in the gravitational lensing. The magnification of an extended source is presented in an analytic manner for the singular isothermal sphere lens model as well as…
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…
The GLITP collaboration observed the first gravitational lens system (QSO 0957+561) from 2000 February 3 to 2000 March 31. The daily VR observations were made with the 2.56-m Nordic Optical Telescope at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory,…
We present an extended optical monitoring of the quadruply-imaged gravitationally lensed quasar QSO 2237+0305, the Einstein Cross, including observations from different observatories in both hemispheres and using a new photometric…
The long-term variability of a sample of 149 optically selected QSOs in the field of the Selected Area 94 has been studied in the R-band. The relations between variability and luminosity and between variability and redshift have been…
Gravitational lensing magnification is maximal around caustics. At these source locations, an incoming wave from a point source would formally experience an infinite amplification in the high-frequency or geometric optics limit. This…
X-ray observations of gravitationally lensed quasars may allow us to probe the inner structure of the central engine of a quasar. Observations of Q2237+0305 (Einstein Cross) in X-rays may be used to constrain the inner structure of the…
Knowledge about how the nonlinear behaviour of the intrinsic signal from lensed background sources changes on its path to the observer provides much information, particularly about the matter distribution in lensing galaxies and the…
In a gravitational lensing system, the relative transverse velocities of the lens, source, and observer induce a frequency shift in the observed radiation. While this shift is typically negligible in most astrophysical contexts, strategies…
Quasar microlensing analyses implicitly generate a model of the variability of the source quasar. The implied source variability may be unrealistic yet its likelihood is generally not evaluated. We used the damped random walk (DRW) model…
Gravitational waves propagate along null geodesics like light rays in the geometrical optics approximation, and they may have a chance to suffer from gravitational lensing by intervening objects, as is the case for electromagnetic waves.…
It has been proposed to study gravitational lenses from measurements of the spectrum of the fluctuations of the output current of a quadratic detector. The spatial correlation coefficient of the source is the fundamental parameter of the…
We study the optical light curves - primarily probing the variable emission from the accretion disk - of ~ 900 extreme variability quasars (EVQs, with maximum flux variations more than 1 mag) over an observed-frame baseline of ~ 16 years…