scholarly journals TDCOSMO

2020 ◽  
Vol 642 ◽  
pp. A194 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Gilman ◽  
S. Birrer ◽  
T. Treu

Time delay cosmography uses the arrival time delays between images in strong gravitational lenses to measure cosmological parameters, in particular the Hubble constant H0. The lens models used in time delay cosmography omit dark matter subhalos and line-of-sight halos because their effects are assumed to be negligible. We explicitly quantify this assumption by analyzing mock lens systems that include full populations of dark matter subhalos and line-of-sight halos, applying the same modeling assumptions used in the literature to infer H0. We base the mock lenses on six quadruply imaged quasars that have delivered measurements of the Hubble constant, and quantify the additional uncertainties and/or bias on a lens-by-lens basis. We show that omitting dark substructure does not bias inferences of H0. However, perturbations from substructure contribute an additional source of random uncertainty in the inferred value of H0 that scales as the square root of the lensing volume divided by the longest time delay. This additional source of uncertainty, for which we provide a fitting function, ranges from 0.7 − 2.4%. It may need to be incorporated in the error budget as the precision of cosmographic inferences from single lenses improves, and it sets a precision limit on inferences from single lenses.

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S289) ◽  
pp. 331-338
Author(s):  
S. H. Suyu

AbstractThe time delays between the multiple images of a strong gravitational-lens system, together with a model of the lens-mass distribution, provide a one-step determination of the time-delay distance, and thus a measure of cosmological parameters, particularly the Hubble constant, H0. I review the recent advances in measuring time-delay distances, and present the current status of cosmological constraints based on gravitational-lens time delays. In particular, I report the time-delay distance measurements of two gravitational lenses and their implication for cosmology from a recent study by Suyuet al.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 394-400
Author(s):  
Baghdad Science Journal

This paper including a gravitational lens time delays study for a general family of lensing potentials, the popular singular isothermal elliptical potential (SIEP), and singular isothermal elliptical density distribution (SIED) but allows general angular structure. At first section there is an introduction for the selected observations from the gravitationally lensed systems. Then section two shows that the time delays for singular isothermal elliptical potential (SIEP) and singular isothermal elliptical density distributions (SIED) have a remarkably simple and elegant form, and that the result for Hubble constant estimations actually holds for a general family of potentials by combining the analytic results with data for the time delay and by using the models of distances.


2019 ◽  
Vol 489 (2) ◽  
pp. 2097-2103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Birrer ◽  
Tommaso Treu

ABSTRACT The time-delay between the arrival of photons of multiple images of time-variable sources can be used to constrain absolute distances in the Universe, and in turn obtain a direct estimate of the Hubble constant and other cosmological parameters. To convert the time-delay into distances, it is well known that the gravitational potential of the main deflector and the contribution of the matter along the line of sight need to be known to a sufficient level of precision. In this paper, we discuss a new astrometric requirement that is becoming important, as time-delay cosmography improves in precision and accuracy with larger samples, and better data and modelling techniques. We derive an analytic expression for the propagation of astrometric uncertainties on the multiple image positions into the inference of the Hubble constant and derive requirements depending on image separation and relative time-delay. We note that this requirement applies equally to the image position measurements and to the accuracy of the model in reproducing them. To illustrate the requirement, we discuss some example lensing configurations and highlight that, especially for time-delays of order 10 d or shorter, the relative astrometric requirement is of order milliarcseconds, setting a tight requirement on both measurements and models. With current optical infrared technology, astrometric uncertainties may be the dominant limitation for strong lensing cosmography in the small image-separation regime when high-precision time-delays become accessible.


Author(s):  
Alexandres Lazar ◽  
James S Bullock ◽  
Michael Boylan-Kolchin ◽  
Robert Feldmann ◽  
Onur Çatmabacak ◽  
...  

Abstract A promising route for revealing the existence of dark matter structures on mass scales smaller than the faintest galaxies is through their effect on strong gravitational lenses. We examine the role of local, lens-proximate clustering in boosting the lensing probability relative to contributions from substructure and unclustered line-of-sight (LOS) haloes. Using two cosmological simulations that can resolve halo masses of Mhalo ≃ 109 M⊙ (in a simulation box of length Lbox ∼ 100 Mpc) and 107 M⊙ (Lbox ∼ 20 Mpc), we demonstrate that clustering in the vicinity of the lens host produces a clear enhancement relative to an assumption of unclustered haloes that persists to >20 Rvir. This enhancement exceeds estimates that use a two-halo term to account for clustering, particularly within 2 − 5 Rvir. We provide an analytic expression for this excess, clustered contribution. We find that local clustering boosts the expected count of 109 M⊙ perturbing haloes by ${\sim }35{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ compared to substructure alone, a result that will significantly enhance expected signals for low-redshift (zl ≃ 0.2) lenses, where substructure contributes substantially compared to LOS haloes. We also find that the orientation of the lens with respect to the line of sight (e.g. whether the line of sight passes through the major axis of the lens) can also have a significant effect on the lensing signal, boosting counts by an additional $\sim 50{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ compared to a random orientations. This could be important if discovered lenses are biased to be oriented along their principal axis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 617 ◽  
pp. A140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Wertz ◽  
Bastian Orthen ◽  
Peter Schneider

The central ambition of the modern time delay cosmography consists in determining the Hubble constant H0 with a competitive precision. However, the tension with H0 obtained from the Planck satellite for a spatially flat ΛCDM cosmology suggests that systematic errors may have been underestimated. The most critical of these errors probably comes from the degeneracy existing between lens models that was first formalized by the well-known mass-sheet transformation (MST). In this paper, we assess to what extent the source position transformation (SPT), a more general invariance transformation which contains the MST as a special case, may affect the time delays predicted by a model. To this aim, we have used pySPT, a new open-source python package fully dedicated to the SPT that we present in a companion paper. For axisymmetric lenses, we find that the time delay ratios between a model and its SPT-modified counterpart simply scale like the corresponding source position ratios, Δtˆ/Δt ≈ βˆ/β, regardless of the mass profile and the isotropic SPT. Similar behavior (almost) holds for nonaxisymmetric lenses in the double image regime and for opposite image pairs in the quadruple image regime. In the latter regime, we also confirm that the time delay ratios are not conserved. In addition to the MST effects, the SPT-modified time delays deviate in general no more than a few percent for particular image pairs, suggesting that its impact on time delay cosmography seems not be as crucial as initially suspected. We also reflected upon the relevance of the SPT validity criterion and present arguments suggesting that it should be reconsidered. Even though a new validity criterion would affect the time delays in a different way, we expect from numerical simulations that our conclusions will remain unchanged.


2004 ◽  
Vol 220 ◽  
pp. 159-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tommaso Treu ◽  
Léon V. E. Koopmans ◽  
David J. Sand ◽  
Graham P. Smith ◽  
Richard S. Ellis

We describe the first results from two observational projects aimed at measuring the amount and spatial distribution of dark matter in distant early-type galaxies (E/S0s) and clusters of galaxies. At the galaxy scale, the Lenses Structure and Dynamics (LSD) Survey is gathering kinematic data for distant (up to z ⋐ 1) E/S0s that are gravitational lenses. A joint lensing and dynamical analysis constrains the fraction of dark matter within the Einstein radius, the mass-to-light ratio of the stellar component, and the total slope of the mass density profile. These properties and their evolution with redshift are briefly discussed in terms of the formation and evolution of E/S0 galaxies and measurement of the Hubble Constant from gravitational time delay systems. At the cluster scale – after careful removal of the stellar component with a joint lensing and dynamical analysis – systems with giant radial arcs can be used to measure precisely the inner slope of the dark matter halo. An HST search for radial arcs and the analysis of a first sample are briefly discussed in terms of the universal dark matter halos predicted by CDM simulations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 645 ◽  
pp. A44
Author(s):  
O. Wucknitz ◽  
L. G. Spitler ◽  
U.-L. Pen

High-precision cosmological probes have revealed a small but significant tension between the parameters measured with different techniques, among which there is one based on time delays in gravitational lenses. We discuss a new way of using time delays for cosmology, taking advantage of the extreme precision expected for lensed fast radio bursts, which are short flashes of radio emission originating at cosmological distances. With coherent methods, the achievable precision is sufficient for measuring how time delays change over the months and years, which can also be interpreted as differential redshifts between the images. It turns out that uncertainties arising from the unknown mass distribution of gravitational lenses can be eliminated by combining time delays with their time derivatives. Other effects, most importantly relative proper motions, can be measured accurately and disentangled from the cosmological effects. With a mock sample of simulated lenses, we show that it may be possible to attain strong constraints on cosmological parameters. Finally, the lensed images can be used as galactic interferometer to resolve structures and motions of the burst sources with incredibly high resolution and help reveal their physical nature, which is currently unknown.


Universe ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 329
Author(s):  
Gavin P. Lamb ◽  
Joseph J. Fernández ◽  
Fergus Hayes ◽  
Albert K. H. Kong ◽  
En-Tzu Lin ◽  
...  

For gravitational wave (GW) detected neutron star mergers, one of the leading candidates for electromagnetic (EM) counterparts is the afterglow from an ultra-relativistic jet. Where this afterglow is observed, it will likely be viewed off-axis, such as the afterglow following GW170817/GRB 170817A. The temporal behaviour of an off-axis observed GRB afterglow can be used to reveal the lateral jet structure, and statistical model fits can put constraints on the various model free-parameters. Amongst these parameters is the inclination of the system to the line of sight. Along with the GW detection, the afterglow modelling provides the best constraint on the inclination to the line-of-sight and can improve the estimates of cosmological parameters, for example, the Hubble constant, from GW-EM events. However, modelling of the afterglow depends on the assumed jet structure and—often overlooked—the effects of lateral spreading. Here we show how the inclusion of lateral spreading in the afterglow models can affect the estimated inclination of GW-EM events.


2019 ◽  
Vol 498 (1) ◽  
pp. 1420-1439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth C Wong ◽  
Sherry H Suyu ◽  
Geoff C-F Chen ◽  
Cristian E Rusu ◽  
Martin Millon ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We present a measurement of the Hubble constant (H0) and other cosmological parameters from a joint analysis of six gravitationally lensed quasars with measured time delays. All lenses except the first are analysed blindly with respect to the cosmological parameters. In a flat Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology, we find $H_{0} = 73.3_{-1.8}^{+1.7}~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}$, a $2.4{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ precision measurement, in agreement with local measurements of H0 from type Ia supernovae calibrated by the distance ladder, but in 3.1σ tension with Planck observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This method is completely independent of both the supernovae and CMB analyses. A combination of time-delay cosmography and the distance ladder results is in 5.3σ tension with Planck CMB determinations of H0 in flat ΛCDM. We compute Bayes factors to verify that all lenses give statistically consistent results, showing that we are not underestimating our uncertainties and are able to control our systematics. We explore extensions to flat ΛCDM using constraints from time-delay cosmography alone, as well as combinations with other cosmological probes, including CMB observations from Planck, baryon acoustic oscillations, and type Ia supernovae. Time-delay cosmography improves the precision of the other probes, demonstrating the strong complementarity. Allowing for spatial curvature does not resolve the tension with Planck. Using the distance constraints from time-delay cosmography to anchor the type Ia supernova distance scale, we reduce the sensitivity of our H0 inference to cosmological model assumptions. For six different cosmological models, our combined inference on H0 ranges from ∼73 to 78 km s−1 Mpc−1, which is consistent with the local distance ladder constraints.


2020 ◽  
Vol 498 (3) ◽  
pp. 3241-3274 ◽  
Author(s):  
E J Buckley-Geer ◽  
H Lin ◽  
C E Rusu ◽  
J Poh ◽  
A Palmese ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT In time-delay cosmography, three of the key ingredients are (1) determining the velocity dispersion of the lensing galaxy, (2) identifying galaxies and groups along the line of sight with sufficient proximity and mass to be included in the mass model, and (3) estimating the external convergence κext from less massive structures that are not included in the mass model. We present results on all three of these ingredients for two time-delay lensed quad quasar systems, DES J0408–5354 and WGD 2038–4008 . We use the Gemini, Magellan, and VLT telescopes to obtain spectra to both measure the stellar velocity dispersions of the main lensing galaxies and to identify the line-of-sight galaxies in these systems. Next, we identify 10 groups in DES J0408–5354 and two groups in WGD 2038–4008 using a group-finding algorithm. We then identify the most significant galaxy and galaxy-group perturbers using the ‘flexion shift’ criterion. We determine the probability distribution function of the external convergence κext for both of these systems based on our spectroscopy and on the DES-only multiband wide-field observations. Using weighted galaxy counts, calibrated based on the Millennium Simulation, we find that DES J0408–5354 is located in a significantly underdense environment, leading to a tight (width $\sim 3{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$), negative-value κext distribution. On the other hand, WGD 2038–4008 is located in an environment of close to unit density, and its low source redshift results in a much tighter κext of $\sim 1{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$, as long as no external shear constraints are imposed.


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