Related papers: Small-Scale Structure, Missing Galaxies and Gravit…
According to the theory of general relativity, masses deflect light in a way similar to convex glass lenses. This gravitational lensing effect is astigmatic, giving rise to image distortions. These distortions allow to quantify cosmic…
We examine gravitational lensing constraints on the structure of galaxy clusters and compare them with the results of cosmological N-body simulations of cluster formation in cold dark matter (CDM) dominated universes. We find that cluster…
Strong gravitational lensing has been identified as a promising astrophysical probe to study the particle nature of dark matter. In this paper we present a detailed study of the power spectrum of the projected mass density (convergence)…
We propose the novel method of ``gravitational imaging'' to detect and quantify luminous and dark-matter substructure in gravitational-lens galaxies. The method utilizes highly-magnified Einstein rings and arcs as sensitive probes of small…
We have previously reported the discovery of strong gravitational lensing by faint elliptical galaxies using the WFPC2 on HST and here we investigate their potential usefulness in putting constraints on lens mass models. We compare various…
The magnifications of the images in a strong gravitational lens system are sensitive to small mass clumps in the lens potential; this effect has been used to infer the amount of substructure in galaxy dark matter halos. I study the theory…
Gravitational Lensing is a UNIQUE tool to constrain the mass distribution of collapsed structures, this is particularly true for galaxies, either on a case by case basis using multiple images of background sources (such as quasars), or…
Axions are a viable candidate for Cold Dark Matter (CDM) which should generically form minihalos of sub-planetary masses from white-noise isocurvature density fluctuations if the Peccei-Quinn phase transition occurs after inflation. Despite…
The statistics of wide-separation (6'' < theta < 15'') gravitational lenses constrain the amount of mass in the cores of dark matter halos on group and cluster mass scales. For a family of halo models with a central cusp $\rho \propto…
The study of dark matter substructure through strong gravitational lensing has shown enormous promise in probing the properties of dark matter on sub-galactic scales. This approach has already been used to place strong constraints on a wide…
Gravitational lenses are a unique new constraint on the structure of galaxies. We review the evidence that most lenses are early-type galaxies, the optical properties of the lens galaxies, the evidence against constant M/L models, recent…
The weak gravitational lensing of high redshift type Ia supernovae has the potential of probing the structure of matter on galaxy halo scales. This is complementary to the weak lensing of galaxies which probes structure of larger scales.…
Standard cosmology has many successes on large scales, but faces some fundamental difficulties on small, galactic scales. One such difficulty is the cusp/core problem. High resolution observations of the rotation curves for dark matter…
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…
The incidence of sub-galactic level substructures is an important quantity, as it is a generic prediction of high-resolution Cold Dark Matter (CDM) models which is susceptible to observational test. Confrontation of theory with observations…
In recent years, gravitational lensing has been used as a means to detect substructure in galaxy-sized halos, via anomalous flux ratios in quadruply-imaged lenses. In addition to causing anomalous flux ratios, substructure may also perturb…
The inability of standard models to explain the flux ratios in many 4-image gravitational lenses has been cited as evidence for significant small-scale structure in lens galaxies. That claim has generally relied on detailed lens modeling,…
We discuss whether one should expect that multiply imaged QSOs can be understood with `simple' lens models which contain a handful of parameters. Whereas for many lens systems such simple mass models yield a remarkably good description of…
The gravitational lensing properties of cosmological halos depend upon the mass distribution within each halo. The description of halos as nonsingular, truncated isothermal spheres, a particular solution of the isothermal Lane-Emden…
Strongly gravitationally lensed quasar-galaxy systems allow us to compare competing cosmologies as long as one can be reasonably sure of the mass distribution within the intervening lens. In this paper, we assemble a catalog of 69 such…