Related papers: The Chang-Refsdal Lens Revisited
We study the gravitational lensing properties of a massive object in a dark matter halo, concentrating on the critical curves and caustics of the combined lens. We model the system in the simplest approximation by a point mass embedded in a…
We investigate the effect of a finite source on the planetary-lensing signals of high-magnification events. From this, we find that the dependency of the finite-source effect on the caustic shape is weak and perturbations survive even when…
Continuing our development of a mathematical theory of stochastic microlensing, we study the random shear and expected number of random lensed images of different types. In particular, we characterize the first three leading terms in the…
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…
We use publicly available N-body simulations and semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to estimate the levels of external shear due to structure near the lens in gravitational lens systems. We also describe two selection effects,…
Quadruply-imaged strongly lensed quasars (quads) are routinely used for measurements of the expansion rate of the Universe with time delays. It has recently been suggested that any quad lens is subject to a Malmquist-like bias that causes…
Geometrical optics provides an excellent description for quasar images crossing caustics which are formed by gravitational microlensing of objects like Q2237+0305. Within this approximation the source size can be estimated from the maximum…
We study the problem of gravitational lensing by binary galaxies, idealized as two isothermal spheres. In a wide binary, each galaxy possesses individual tangential, nearly astroidal, caustics and roundish radial caustics. As the separation…
Using fast confocal microscopy we image the three-dimensional dynamics of particles in a yielded hard-sphere colloidal glass under steady shear. The structural relaxation, observed in regions with uniform shear, is nearly isotropic but is…
We study how joint shear and magnification measurements improve the statistical precision of weak lensing mass calibration experiments, relative to standard shear-only analysis. For our magnification measurements, we consider not only the…
Three point mass gravitational lens equation is a two-dimensional vector equation that can be embedded in a tenth order analytic polynomial equation of one complex variable, and we can solve the one variable equation on the source…
(shortened) We determine the transformation matrix T that maps multiple images with resolved features onto one another and that is based on a Taylor-expanded lensing potential close to a point on the critical curve within our…
The multiple images of lensed quasars provide evidence on the mass distribution of the lensing galaxy. The lensing invariants are constructed from the positions of the images, their parities and their fluxes. They depend only on the…
It has been a persistent question at least for a decade where the gravitational lens caustics are in the radial direction: whether in front of the lensing mass, behind the lensing mass, or on the plane normal to the line of sight that…
Gravitational lensing of point sources located inside the lens caustic is known to produce four images in a configuration closely related to the source position. We study this relation in the particular case of a sample of quadruply-imaged…
In a recent paper we have discussed the higher order singularities in gravitational lensing. We have shown that a singularity map, comprising of $A_3$-lines and unstable (point) singularities ($A_4$ and $D_4$), is a compact representation…
Gravitationally lensed extragalactic sources are often subject to statistical microlensing by stars in the galaxy or cluster lens. Accurate models of the flux statistics are required for inferring source and lens properties from flux…
We present a rigorous, detailed study of the generic, quantitative properties of gravitational microlensing near cusp catastrophes. We derive explicit formulas for the total magnification and centroid of the images created for sources…
The total magnification due to a point lens has been of particular interest as the theorem that gravitational lensing results in light amplification for all observers appears to contradict the conservation of photon number. This has been…
We consider compensated spherical lens models and the caustic surfaces they create in the past light cone. Examination of cusp and crossover angles associated with particular source and lens redshifts gives explicit lensing models that…