Related papers: Structural and dynamical uncertainties in modeling…
The kinematics of the outer parts of three intermediate-luminosity elliptical galaxies have been studied using the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph. The galaxies' velocity dispersion profiles are found to decline with radius; dynamical…
The Sersic model has become the standard to parametrize the surface brightness distribution of early-type galaxies and bulges of spiral galaxies. A major problem is that the deprojection of the Sersic surface brightness profile to a…
Measurements of the peculiar velocities of large samples of galaxies enable new tests of the standard cosmological model, including determination of the growth rate of cosmic structure that encodes gravitational physics. With the size of…
Current theories of structure formation predict specific density profiles of galaxy dark matter haloes, and with weak gravitational lensing we can probe these profiles on several scales. On small scales, higher-order shape distortions known…
We show that evolution of the luminosity density of galaxies in the universe provides a powerful test for the geometry of the universe. Using reasonable galaxy evolution models of population synthesis which reproduce the colors of local…
A major problem in extragalactic astronomy is the inability to distinguish in a robust, physical, and model independent way how galaxy populations are related to each other and to their formation histories. A similar, but distinct, and also…
Weak gravitational lensing has become an important method to determine the masses of galaxy clusters. The intrinsic shapes of the galaxies are a dominant source of uncertainty, but there are other limitations to the precision that can be…
Models for the formation and evolution of galaxies readily predict physical properties such as the star formation rates, metal enrichment histories, and, increasingly, gas and dust content of synthetic galaxies. Such predictions are…
We describe the classical cosmological tests, such as the Log$N$-Log$S$, redshift-magnitude and angular diameter tests, and propose some new tests of the evolution of galaxies and the universe. Most analyses of these tests treat the problem…
Low-surface brightness galaxies (LSBGs) are defined as galaxies with central surface brightness levels fainter than the night sky, making them challenging to observe. A key open question is whether their faint appearance arises from…
We test the isotropy of the local distribution of galaxies using the 2MASS extended source catalogue. By decomposing the full sky survey into distinct patches and using a combination of photometric and spectroscopic redshift data, we use…
The dynamics of cosmological gravitating system is governed by the Euler and the Poisson equations. Tiny fluctuations near the big bang singularity are amplified by gravitational instability into the observed structure today. Given the…
The probability distribution of lens image separations is calculated for the ``standard'' gravitational lensing statistics model in an arbitrary, flat Robertson-Walker universe, where lensing galaxies are singular isothermal spheres that…
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…
The measurement of the integrated optical polarization of weakly gravitationally lensed galaxies can provide considerable constraints on lens models. The method outlined depends on fact that the orientation of the direction of optical…
The arrival times, positions, and fluxes of multiple images in strong lens systems can be used to infer the presence of dark subhalos in the deflector, and thus test predictions of cold dark matter models. However, gravitational lensing…
We present a percent-level accurate model of the line-of-sight velocity distribution of galaxies around dark matter halos as a function of projected radius and halo mass. The model is developed and tested using synthetic galaxy catalogs…
The selective light absorption in space has been raised in astronomical literature. The substance producing the absorption must have some mass; thus the question is how large it is. We develop a dynamical model of the Milky Way system,…
In the context of gravitational lensing, the density profile of lensing galaxies is often considered to be perfectly elliptical. Potential angular structures are generally ignored, except to explain flux ratios anomalies. Surprisingly, the…
Observations show that early-type galaxies contain a considerable amount of interstellar dust, most of which is believed to exist as a diffusely distributed component. We construct a four-parameter elliptical galaxy model in order to…