Related papers: Turning AGN Microlensing From a Curiosity Into a T…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool to detect compact matter on very different mass scales. Of particular importance is the fact that lensing is sensitive to both luminous and dark matter alike. Depending on the mass scale, all lensing…
In this review, I discuss the use of galaxy-galaxy weak lensing measurements to study the masses of dark matter halos in which galaxies reside. After summarizing how weak gravitational lensing measurements can be interpreted in terms of…
Studies of the lensed quasar ${\rm Q}0957+561 {\rm A,B}$ have shown evidence for microlensing in the brightness history of the quasar images. It had been suggested that a frequency offset between the brightness fluctuations in each of the…
This article reviews recent advances in the application of machine learning to weak-lensing cosmology. Weak gravitational lensing provides a unique and powerful probe of the total matter distribution in the Universe, independent of its…
The distortion of images of faint background galaxies by (weak) gravitational lensing can be used to measure the mass distribution of the deflector. The image distortions can be used to define a weighted mean of the mass inside a circular…
Strong lensing is a powerful tool to address three major astrophysical issues: understanding the spatial distribution of mass at kpc and sub-kpc scale, where baryons and dark matter interact to shape galaxies as we see them; determining the…
Flux ratios of multiple images in strong gravitational lensing systems provide a powerful probe of dark matter substructure. Optical flux ratios of lensed quasars are typically affected by stellar microlensing, and thus studies of dark…
Gravitational lensing directly measures mass density fluctuations along the lines of sight to very distant objects. No assumptions need to be made concerning bias, the ratio of fluctuations in galaxy density to mass density. Hence, lensing…
Gravitational microlensing is a phenomenon that allows us to observe dark remnants of stellar evolution even if they no longer emit electromagnetic radiation. In particular, it can be useful to observe solitary neutron stars or stellar-mass…
While the direct detection of the dark-matter particle remains very challenging, the nature of dark matter could be possibly constrained by comparing the observed abundance and properties of small-scale sub-galactic mass structures with…
The innermost regions of quasars can be resolved by a gravitational-lens {\lq}telescope{\rq} on scales down to a few AU. For the purpose, X-ray observations are most preferable, because X-rays originating from the innermost regions, can be…
Gravitational microlensing provides a new technique for studying the surfaces of distant stars. Microlensing events are detected in real time and can be followed up with precision photometry and spectroscopy. This method is particularly…
I show that the standard microlensing technique to measure the angular radius of a star using color/surface-brightness relations can be inverted, via late-time proper motion measurements, to calibrate these relations. The method is…
We examine recent results of two kinds of microlensing experiments intended to detect galactic dark matter objects, and we suggest that the lack of short period star-microlensing events observed for stars near the Galaxy does not preclude…
Gravitational lenses can provide crucial information on the geometry of the Universe, on the cosmological scenario of formation of its structures as well as on the history of its components with look-back time. In this review, I focus on…
After decades of searching, the true nature of dark matter still eludes us. One potential probe of the form of dark matter in galaxy clusters is to search for microlensing variability in the giant arcs and arclets. In this paper, a simple…
If the Dark Matter consists of primordial black holes (PBHs), we show that gravitational lensing of stars being monitored by NASA's Kepler search for extra-solar planets can cause significant numbers of detectable microlensing events. A…
The mass function and statistics of binaries provide important diagnostics of the star formation process. Despite this importance, the mass function at low masses remains poorly known due to observational difficulties caused by the…
Stellar microlensing surveys are a powerful tool for probing dark matter in the form of planetary and stellar mass compact objects (COs), in particular primordial black holes (PBHs). Under standard assumptions, current observations exclude…
Gravitational lensing has become one of the most interesting tools to study the mass distribution in the Universe. Since gravitational light deflection is independent of the nature and state of the matter, it is ideally suited to…