Related papers: Are High-Redshift Quasars Blurry?
Given its extraordinary spatial resolution and sensitivity, the projected Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) is likely to detect a large number of high-redshift QSOs lensed by spiral galaxies. Using realistic models for the QSO and…
Recent studies have demonstrated that detailed monitoring of gravitational microlensing events can reveal the presence of planets orbiting the microlensed source stars. With the potential of probing planets in the Galactic Bulge and…
I discuss and illustrate the development of large-scale structure in the Universe, emphasising in particular the physical processes and cosmological parameters that most influence the observationally accessible aspects of structure at large…
Double neutron stars are one of the most promizing sources for terrestrial gravitational wave interferometers. For actual interferometers and their planned upgrades, the probability of having a signal present in the data is small, but as…
We present a study of the galaxies found in the Hubble Deep Field. A high proportion of HDF galaxies are undergoing a strong episode of star formation, as evidenced by their very blue colours. A wide range of morphological types is found,…
Intensive monitoring campaigns have recently attempted to measure the time delays between multiple images of gravitational lenses. Some of the resulting light-curves show puzzling low-level, rapid variability which is unique to individual…
We present HST/WFC3 narrowband imaging of the H-alpha emission in a sample of eight gravitationally-lensed galaxies at z = 1 - 1.5. The magnification caused by the foreground clusters enables us to obtain a median source plane spatial…
Gravitational microlensing of quasars by stars in external galaxies can introduce fluctuations in the centroid of the ``point-like'' macro--images. The induced shifts are extremely small, on micro--arcsecond scales, below the limits of…
Extreme Scattering Events are sometimes manifest in the light-curves of compact radio-quasars at frequencies of a few GHz. These events are not understood. The model which appears to offer the best explanation requires a new population of…
Kostelecky and Mewes have recently shown that sensitive constraints can be placed on some aspects of Lorentz symmetry violation using certain astronomical data on high-redshift sources. Here, I introduce that data in its astronomical…
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), like pulsars, display radio emission from compact regions such that they can be treated as point sources. As this radiation propagates through space, they encounter sources of lensing such as a gravitational field…
In any Big Bang cosmology, the frequency $\omega$ of light detected from a distant source is continuously and linearly changing (usually redshifting) with elapsed observer's time $\delta t$, because of the expanding Universe. For small…
With increasingly accurate data on RR Lyrae stars we find that the Blazhko effect may be a rule rather than an exception. However, we still do not know what is the cause of this mysterious amplitude and phase modulation. In my talk, I…
In the context of the standard model of particle physics, there is a definite upper limit to the density of stable compact stars. However, if there is a deeper layer of constituents, below that of quarks and leptons, stability may be…
The theoretically expected amplitude of the associations of background quasars with foreground galaxies as a result of gravitational lensing has been updated in this paper. Since the galactic matter alone yields an amplitude of quasar…
A sample of 47 faint Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) radio sources selected from the Westerbork Northern Sky Survey (WENSS, Rengelink et al. 1997), has been imaged in the optical and near infrared, resulting in an identification fraction of…
We derive the bulk viscous damping timescale of hybrid stars, neutron stars with quark matter core. The r-mode instability windows of the stars show that the theoretical results are consistent with the rapid rotation pulsar data, which may…
The flux-ratio anomalies observed in multiply-lensed quasar images are most plausibly explained as the result of perturbing structures superposed on the underlying smooth matter distribution of the primary lens. The cold dark matter…
In this paper I investigate what factors -- both observational and physical -- can change the measured slope of the observed 21cm HI power spectrum. The following effects can make the observed turbulence appear two dimensional rather than…
Aims. The small-scale nature of spacetime can be tested with observations of distant quasars. We comment on a recent paper by Tamburini et al. (A&A, 533, 71) which claims that Hubble Space Telescope observations of the most distant quasars…