Related papers: The CASTLES gravitational lensing tool
The identification of strong gravitational lenses in large surveys has historically been a rather time consuming exercise. Early data from the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (Herschel-ATLAS) demonstrate that lenses can…
Weak gravitational lensing is a unique probe of the dark side of the universe: it provides a direct way to map the distribution of dark matter around galaxies, clusters of galaxies and on cosmological scales. Furthermore, the measurement of…
Multiple images, giant arcs, Einstein cross, fold, cusp, lip, caustics, critical lines, sources, mapping, time delay, arclets, weak shear, magnification bias, depletion, ellipticities, polarization, smearing, convergence, kernel, mass…
The last decade has seen an enormous increase of activity in the field of gravitational lensing, mainly driven by improvements of observational capabilities. I will review the basics of gravitational lens theory, just enough to understand…
This course presents some applications of gravitational lensing to the measurement of masses of galaxies (galaxy-galaxy lensing, Eintein rings, perturbations of giant arcs) and cluster of galaxies (strong and weak lensing). This complements…
Gravitational lensing has seen a surge of interest in the past few years. The handful of strong lensing systems known in the year 2000 has now been replaced with hundreds, thanks to innovative multi-wavelength selection, and there is an…
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…
Strong gravitational lensing enables a wide range of science: probing cosmography; testing dark matter models; understanding galaxy evolution; and magnifying the faint, small and distant Universe. However to date exploiting strong lensing…
After exactly a century since the formulation of the general theory of relativity, the phenomenon of gravitational lensing is still an extremely powerful method for investigating in astrophysics and cosmology. Indeed, it is adopted to study…
Extending over three Hubble Space Telescope (HST) cycles, the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) initiative constitutes the largest commitment ever of HST time to the exploration of the distant Universe via gravitational lensing by massive galaxy…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful astrophysical and cosmological probe and is particularly valuable at submillimeter wavelengths for the study of the statistical and individual properties of dusty starforming galaxies. However the…
The best studied gravitational lens is the Twin QSO Q0957+561, and as a result of recent advances in observations and modelling, a ten percent measurement of the Hubble constant is attainable. We discuss in detail this system and review the…
Gravitational lensing represents a powerful tool to estimate the cosmological pa- rameters and the distribution of dark matter. I will describe the main observable quantities, concentrating on strong lensing, that manifests its effect…
Gravitational lensing, a compelling physical phenomenon, offers a unique avenue to investigate the morphology and physical properties of distant and faint celestial objects. This paper seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the…
The potential of gravitational lenses for providing direct, physical measurements of the Hubble constant, free from systematic errors associated with the traditional distance ladder, has long been recognized. However, it is only recently…
Galaxy-scale strong lensing is a powerful tool in Astrophysics and Cosmology, enabling studies of massive galaxies' internal structure, their formation and evolution, stellar initial mass function, and cosmological parameters. In this…
Strong gravitational lenses allow us to peer into the farthest reaches of space by bending the light from a background object around a massive object in the foreground. Unfortunately, these lenses are extremely rare, and manually finding…
We present the first catalog of 67 strong galaxy-galaxy lens candidates discovered in the 1.64 square degree Hubble Space Telescope COSMOS survey. Twenty of these systems display multiple images or strongly curved large arcs. Our initial…
In these lectures I give an overview of gravitational lensing, concentrating on theoretical aspects, including derivations of some of the important results. Topics covered include the determination of surface mass densities of intervening…
The existence of an arc statistics problem was at the center of a strong debate in the last fifteen years. With the aim to clarify if the optical depth for giant gravitational arcs by galaxy clusters in the so called concordance model is…