Related papers: Radial cluster lensing: A simple differential equa…
We calculate the deflection of a light ray caused by the gravitational field of a cosmic string loop in the weak field limit and reduce the problem to a single quadrature over a time slice of the loop's world sheet. We then apply this…
Observations of clusters of galaxies that gravitationally lens faint background galaxies can probe the amount and the equation of state, $\5$, of the dark energy (quintessence) in the universe. Provided that the mass profile and the mass…
In this paper, we present new determinations of redshifts on a sample of gravitational arclets identified in the cluster of galaxies Abell 2390. The arclets candidates were selected from their elongated morphology as seen in recent deep HST…
Studies of weak gravitational lensing by large-scale structures require the measurement of the distortions introduced to the shapes of distant galaxies at the few percent level by anisotropic light deflection along the line of sight. To…
Vector perturbations sourced by topological defects can generate rotations in the lensing of background galaxies. This is a potential smoking gun for the existence of defects since rotation generates a curl-like component in the weak…
We investigate the associations between background galaxies and foreground clusters of galaxies due to the effect of gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies. Similar to the well-known quasar-galaxy ones, these associations depend…
There should be two ways to describe the flat rotation curves of galaxies and cluster of galaxies. Either one can introduce a dark matter component for the matter filling the halo, or by modifying the gravity theory and give the flat…
Gravitational lensing is the deflection of light rays due to the gravity of intervening masses. This phenomenon is observed in a variety of scales and configurations, involving any non-uniform mass such as planets, stars, galaxies, clusters…
We examine the gravitational lensing effect of a foreground galaxy cluster on the number count statistics of background X-ray sources. The lensing produces a deficit in the number of resolved sources in a ring close to the critical radius…
Strong gravitational lenses come in many forms, but are typically divided into two populations: galaxies, and groups and clusters of galaxies. The largest objects in the Universe (i.e. galaxy clusters) are highly irregular and composed of…
Gravitational lensing magnifies the luminosity of galaxies behind the lens. We use this effect to constrain the total mass in the cluster Abell 1689 by comparing the lensed luminosities of background galaxies with the luminosity function of…
We examine whether a cosmologically significant distribution of dark galaxy group or cluster-sized objects can have an optical depth for multiple imaging of distant background sources which is comparable to that from known galaxies while at…
The spatial distribution of compact dark matter in our Galaxy can be determined in a few years of monitoring Galactic globular clusters for microlensing. Globular clusters are the only dense fields of stars distributed throughout the…
We present an algorithm developed particularly to detect gravitationally lensed arcs in clusters of galaxies. This algorithm is suited for automated surveys as well as individual arc detections. New methods are used for image smoothing and…
We propose a new technique to reconstruct non-parametrically the projected mass distribution of galaxy clusters from their gravitational lens effect on background galaxies. The beauty of our technique, is that it combines information from…
I present an overview of strong and weak gravitational lensing by galaxy clusters. After briefly introducing the principles of gravitational lensing, I discuss the main lessons learned from lensing on the mass distribution in clusters and…
It is known that the rotation of a gravitational lens affects properties of images. We consider an inverse problem: If the lens is dark, can we infer its rotation from the observed images? We find that, up to the first order in the…
Image distortion due to weak gravitational lensing is examined using a non-perturbative method of integrating the geodesic deviation and optical scalar equations along the null geodesics connecting the observer to a distant source. The…
Lensing by galaxy clusters is a versatile probe of cosmology and extragalactic astrophysics, but the accuracy of some of its predictions is limited by the simplified models adopted to reduce the (otherwise untractable) number of degrees of…
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…