Related papers: Are High-Redshift Quasars Blurry?
We consider the effects of large structures in the Universe on the Hubble diagram. This problem is treated non-linearly by considering a Swiss Cheese model of the Universe in which under-dense voids are represented as negatively curved…
Powerful radio sources and quasars emit relativistic jets of plasma and magnetic fields that travel hundreds of kilo-parsecs, ultimately depositing energy into the intra- or inter-cluster medium. In the rest frame of the jet, the energy…
We present spectroscopic observations of six optical counterparts of intermediate luminosity X-ray sources (ULXs) around nearby galaxies. The spectra of the six objects show the presence of broad emission features. The identification of…
Plasma lensing is the refraction of low-frequency electromagnetic rays due to cold free electrons in the universe. For sources at a cosmological distance, there is observational evidence of elongated, complex plasma structures along the…
We study the effects of large-scale density fluctuations on strong gravitational lensing. Previous studies have focused mostly on weak lensing, since large-scale structure alone cannot produce multiple images. When a galaxy or cluster acts…
Thanks to the availability of high-resolution high-sensitivity telescopes such as the Very Large Array, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, there is now a wealth of observational data on relativistic jets from…
Hard X-ray, large area surveys are a fundamental complement of ultra-deep, pencil beam surveys in obtaining a more complete coverage of the L-z plane, allowing to find luminous QSO in wide z ranges. Furthermore, results from these surveys…
Many gravitationally lensed quasars exhibit flux ratio "anomalies" that cannot be explained under the hypothesis that the lensing potential is smooth on scales smaller than one kpc. Micro-lensing by stars is a natural source of granularity…
Very deep imaging data of three optically luminous radio-loud quasars with redshifts between z=0.9 and z=1.36 are presented. The data are complete for galaxies down to R=26. There is no evidence for excess numbers of galaxies around the…
The exact mechanism for the production of fast $\gamma$-ray variability in blazars remains debated. Magnetic reconnection, in which plasmoids filled with relativistic particles and magnetic fields are formed, is a viable candidate to…
Obscuration in high-redshift quasi-stellar objects (QSO) has a profound impact on our understanding of the evolution of supermassive black holes across the cosmic time. An accurate quantification of its relevance is therefore mandatory. We…
D. Wouters and P. Brun in Phys. Rev. D 86, 043005 (2012) claim that an observable effect in the spectra of distant very-high-energy blazars arises as a consequence of oscillations of photons into axion-like particles (ALPs) in the presence…
New observations suggest that high redshift quasars can be turned into Gamma Ray Bursters and BL Lacertids by interaction with absorbing clouds in their vicinity.
Gravitational lensing distorts the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization fields and encodes valuable information on distances and growth rates at intermediate redshifts into the lensed power spectra. The…
Strong gravitational lensing of time variable sources such as quasars and supernovae creates observable time delays between the multiple images. Time delays can provide a powerful cosmographic probe through the "time delay distance"…
Presently, the Galactic plane receives relatively few observations compared to most of the LSST footprint. While this may address static science, the plane will also represent the highest density of variable Galactic sources. The proper…
A blazar is believed to exist in every radio-loud quasar. This is expected in a unified scheme where the differences in both optical and radio observations of radio-loud quasars are the result of different viewing angles. We have predicted…
(Abridged) We analyse Hubble Space Telescope images of a complete sample of 341 galaxies drawn from both the Canada France and Autofib/Low Dispersion Survey Spectrograph ground-based redshift surveys. We discuss morphological…
Photometric redshifts for galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field are measured. Luminosity functions show steepening of the faint-end slope and mild brightening of M* out to z~3, followed by a decline at higher z; an excess of faint, star-forming…
Microlensing of stars in strongly lensed galaxies can lead to temporary extreme magnification factors ($\mu\!>\!1000$), enabling their detection at high redshifts. Following the discovery of Icarus, several stars at cosmological distances…