Related papers: The CASTLES gravitational lensing tool
Current X-ray observations and simulations show that gravitational lensing can be used to infer the structure near the event horizons of black holes, constrain the dynamics and evolution of black-hole accretion and outflows, test general…
The gravitational lensing effect is one of the most promising tools for cosmology. Indeed it probes directly the total mass distribution in large-scale structures and can as well provide valuable informations on the values of the density…
Recent developments in gravitational lensing astronomy have paved the way to genuine mappings of the gravitational potential at cosmological scales. We stress that comparing these data with traditional large scale structure surveys will…
The exploration of the redshift drift, a direct measurement of cosmological expansion, is expected to take several decades of observation with stable, sensitive instruments. We introduced a new method to probe cosmology which bypasses the…
Measured time delays between the images of a gravitationally lensed source can lead to a determination of the Hubble constant ($H_o$), but only if the lensing mass distribution is well understood. The inability to sufficiently constrain…
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…
Strong lensing is a powerful tool to address three major astrophysical issues: understanding the spatial distribution of mass at kpc and sub-kpc scale, where baryons and dark matter interact to shape galaxies as we see them; determining the…
In order to use a gravitational lens to measure the Hubble constant accurately, it is necessary to derive a reliable model of the lens surface potential. If the analysis is restricted to the locations and magnifications of point images, the…
Strong gravitational lensing provides unique opportunities to investigate the mass distribution at the cores of galaxy clusters and to study high redshift galaxies. Using $94$ strong lensing models of $74$ cluster fields from the…
LISA might detect gravitational waves from mergers of massive black hole binaries strongly lensed by intervening galaxies (Sereno et al. 2010). The detection of multiple gravitational lensing events would provide a new tool for cosmography.…
Weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies by foreground structures has proven to be a powerful tool to study the mass distribution in the universe. Nowadays, attention has shifted from clusters of galaxies to the statistical properties…
Surveys with submillimetre telescopes are revealing large numbers of gravitationally lensed high-redshift sources. I describe how, in practice, these lensed systems could be simultaneously used to estimate the values of cosmological…
Strong gravitational lens systems with measured time delays between the multiple images provide a method for measuring the "time-delay distance" to the lens, and thus the Hubble constant. We present a Bayesian analysis of the strong…
We present a forecast analysis on the feasibility of measuring the cosmological parameters with a large number of galaxy-galaxy scale strong gravitational lensing systems. Future wide area surveys are expected to discover and measure the…
Gravitational lensing is a powerful tool to detect compact matter on very different mass scales. Of particular importance is the fact that lensing is sensitive to both luminous and dark matter alike. Depending on the mass scale, all lensing…
I review the observations of gravitationally lensed quasars. These systems are important because they allow us to probe the properties of the lensing galaxies at various scales, and they also allow insights into the structures of the…
Thanks to its sharp view, HST has significantly improved our knowledge of tens of gravitationally lensed quasars in four different respects: (1) confirming their lensed nature; (2) detecting the lensing galaxy responsible for the image…
There are now 10 firm time delay measurements in gravitational lenses. The physics of time delays is well understood, and the only important variable for interpreting the time delays to determine H_0 is the mean surface mass density <k> (in…
Strong gravitational lensing can be used to directly measure the mass function of their satellites, thus testing one of the fundamental predictions of cold dark matter cosmological models. Given the importance of this test it is essential…
Deflection of light by gravity was predicted by General Relativity and observationaly confirmed in 1919. In the following decades various aspects of the gravitational lens effect were explored theoretically, among them the possibility of…