Related papers: The CASTLES gravitational lensing tool
Gravitational lensing is an invaluable probe of the nature of dark matter, and the structures it forms. Lensed gravitational waves in particular allow for unparalleled sensitivity to small scale structures within the lenses, due to the…
Strong gravitational lensing offers a powerful and direct probe of dark matter, galaxy evolution and cosmology, yet strong lenses are rare: only 1 in roughly 10,000 massive galaxies can lens a background source into multiple images. The…
The redshift distribution of galaxy lenses in known gravitational lens systems provides a powerful test that can potentially discriminate amongst cosmological models. However, applications of this elegant test have been curtailed by two…
We report the serendipitous discovery of two strong gravitational lens candidates (ACS J160919+6532 and ACS J160910+6532) in deep images obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope, each less than 40 arcsec…
The discovery of HDF~J123652+621227, a candidate gravitational lens in the HDF, is reported. This lens may be multiply imaging several optical sources at different redshifts. If follow-up spectroscopy of the lens and the brightest image…
We have previously reported the discovery of strong gravitational lensing by faint elliptical galaxies using the WFPC2 on HST and here we investigate their potential usefulness in putting constraints on lens mass models. We compare various…
Weak gravitational lensing of distant galaxies can probe the total projected mass distribution of foreground gravitational structures on all scales and has been used successfully to map the projected mass distribution of rich intermediate…
Compact groups of galaxies recently have been discovered in association with several strong gravitational lens systems. These groups provide additional convergence to the lensing potential and thus affect the value of H_0 derived from the…
We have determined the mass-density radial profiles of the first five strong gravitational lens systems discovered by the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey (H-ATLAS). We present an enhancement of the semi-linear lens…
We demonstrate that gravitational lensing can be used to discover and study planets in the habitable zones of nearby dwarf stars. If appropriate software is developed, a new generation of monitoring programs will automatically conduct a…
The different regimes of gravitational lensing constitutes an interesting tool in order to map the mass distribution in galaxy clusters on different scales. In this proceedings article, I review some work I have performed on this topic.…
Gravitational lensing - the deflection of light rays by gravitating matter - has become a major tool in the armoury of the modern cosmologist. Proposed nearly a hundred years ago as a key feature of Einstein's theory of General Relativity,…
The study of light lensed by cosmic matter has yielded much information about astrophysical questions. Observations are explained using geometrical optics following a ray-based description of light. After deflection the lensed light…
Bayesian model selection methods provide a self-consistent probabilistic framework to test the validity of competing scenarios given a set of data. We present a case study application to strong gravitational lens parametric models. Our goal…
Current efforts in observational cosmology are focused on characterizing the mass-energy content of the Universe. We present results from a geometric test based on strong lensing in galaxy clusters. Based on Hubble Space Telescope images…
Lens time delays are a powerful probe of cosmology, provided that the gravitational potential of the main deflector can be modeled with sufficient precision. Recent work has shown that this can be achieved by detailed modeling of the host…
Clusters of galaxies are the most recently assembled, massive, bound structures in the Universe. As predicted by General Relativity, given their masses, clusters strongly deform space-time in their vicinity. Clusters act as some of the most…
The disagreement between early and late Universe electromagnetic measurements of the Hubble constant, $H_0$, known as the Hubble tension, highlights the need for independent and complementary probes. Gravitational-wave events have recently…
We report the serendipitous discovery of ``Einstein cross'' gravitational lens candidates using the Hubble Space Telescope. We have so far discovered two good examples of such lenses, each in the form of four faint blue images located in a…
Gravitational lensing is the relativistic effect generated by massive bodies, which bend the space-time surrounding them. It is a deeply investigated topic in astrophysics and allows validating theoretical relativistic results and studying…