All Outputs (13)

Strong gravitational lensing’s ‘external shear’ is not shear (2024)
Journal Article

The distribution of mass in galaxy-scale strong gravitational lenses is often modelled as an elliptical power-law plus ‘external shear’, which notionally accounts for neighbouring galaxies and cosmic shear along our line of sight. A small amount of e... Read More about Strong gravitational lensing’s ‘external shear’ is not shear.

Scanning for dark matter subhaloes in Hubble Space Telescope imaging of 54 strong lenses (2023)
Journal Article

The cold dark matter (DM) model predicts that every galaxy contains thousands of DM subhaloes; almost all other DM models include a physical process that smooths away the subhaloes. The subhaloes are invisible, but could be detected via strong gravit... Read More about Scanning for dark matter subhaloes in Hubble Space Telescope imaging of 54 strong lenses.

Abell 1201: detection of an ultramassive black hole in a strong gravitational lens (2023)
Journal Article

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a key catalyst of galaxy formation and evolution, leading to an observed correlation between SMBH mass MBH and host galaxy velocity dispersion σe. Outside the local Universe, measurements of MBH are usually only p... Read More about Abell 1201: detection of an ultramassive black hole in a strong gravitational lens.

Beyond the bulge–halo conspiracy? Density profiles of early-type galaxies from extended-source strong lensing (2023)
Journal Article

Observations suggest that the dark matter and stars in early-type galaxies ‘conspire’ to produce a surprisingly simple distribution of total mass, ρ(r) ∝ ρ−γ, with γ ≈ 2. We measure the distribution of mass in 48 early-type galaxies that gravitationa... Read More about Beyond the bulge–halo conspiracy? Density profiles of early-type galaxies from extended-source strong lensing.

PyAutoGalaxy: Open-Source Multiwavelength Galaxy Structure & Morphology (2023)
Journal Article

Nearly a century ago, Edwin Hubble famously classified galaxies into three distinct groups: ellipticals, spirals and irregulars (Hubble, 1926). Today, by analysing millions of galaxies with advanced image processing techniques Astronomers have expand... Read More about PyAutoGalaxy: Open-Source Multiwavelength Galaxy Structure & Morphology.

Testing strong lensing subhalo detection with a cosmological simulation (2022)
Journal Article

Strong gravitational lensing offers a compelling test of the cold dark matter paradigm, as it allows for subhaloes with masses of ∼109 M⊙ and below to be detected. We test commonly-used techniques for detecting subhaloes superposed in images of stron... Read More about Testing strong lensing subhalo detection with a cosmological simulation.

Automated galaxy-galaxy strong lens modelling: No lens left behind (2022)
Journal Article

The distribution of dark and luminous matter can be mapped around galaxies that gravitationally lens background objects into arcs or Einstein rings. New surveys will soon observe hundreds of thousands of galaxy lenses, and current, labour-intensive a... Read More about Automated galaxy-galaxy strong lens modelling: No lens left behind.

Galaxy–galaxy strong lens perturbations: line-of-sight haloes versus lens subhaloes (2022)
Journal Article

We rederive the number density of intervening line-of-sight haloes relative to lens subhaloes in galaxy-galaxy strong lensing observations, where these perturbers can generate detectable image fluctuations. Previous studies have calculated the detect... Read More about Galaxy–galaxy strong lens perturbations: line-of-sight haloes versus lens subhaloes.

Systematic Errors Induced by the Elliptical Power-law model in Galaxy–Galaxy Strong Lens Modeling (2022)
Journal Article

The elliptical power-law (EPL) model of the mass in a galaxy is widely used in strong gravitational lensing analyses. However, the distribution of mass in real galaxies is more complex. We quantify the biases due to this model mismatch by simulating... Read More about Systematic Errors Induced by the Elliptical Power-law model in Galaxy–Galaxy Strong Lens Modeling.

A forward-modelling method to infer the dark matter particle mass from strong gravitational lenses (2022)
Journal Article

A fundamental prediction of the cold dark matter (CDM) model of structure formation is the existence of a vast population of dark matter haloes extending to subsolar masses. By contrast, other dark matter models, such as a warm thermal relic (WDM), p... Read More about A forward-modelling method to infer the dark matter particle mass from strong gravitational lenses.

Halo concentration strengthens dark matter constraints in galaxy-galaxy strong lensing analyses (2021)
Journal Article

A defining prediction of the cold dark matter cosmological model is the existence of a very large population of low-mass haloes. This population is absent in models in which the dark matter particle is warm (WDM). These alternatives can, in principle... Read More about Halo concentration strengthens dark matter constraints in galaxy-galaxy strong lensing analyses.

PyAutoLens: Open-Source Strong Gravitational Lensing (2021)
Journal Article

Strong gravitational lensing, which can make a background source galaxy appears multiple times due to its light rays being deflected by the mass of one or more foreground lens galaxies, provides astronomers with a powerful tool to study dark matter,... Read More about PyAutoLens: Open-Source Strong Gravitational Lensing.

Constraining the inner density slope of massive galaxy clusters (2020)
Journal Article

We determine the inner density profiles of massive galaxy clusters (M200 > 5 × 1014 M⊙) in the Cluster-EAGLE (C-EAGLE) hydrodynamic simulations, and investigate whether the dark matter density profiles can be correctly estimated from a combination of... Read More about Constraining the inner density slope of massive galaxy clusters.