A new window of exploration in the mass spectrum: strong lensing by galaxy groups in the SL2S

Jean-Paul Richard Kneib, Johan Richard
2009
Article

Résumé

The existence of strong lensing systems with Einstein radii covering the full mass spectrum, from similar to 1-2 '' (produced by galaxy scale dark matter haloes) to >10 '' (produced by galaxy cluster scale haloes) have long been predicted. Many lenses with Einstein radii around 1-2 '' and above 10 '' have been reported but very few in between. In this article, we present a sample of 13 strong lensing systems with Einstein radii in the range 3 ''-8 '' (or image separations in the range 6 ''-16 ''), i.e. systems produced by galaxy group scale dark matter haloes. This group sample spans a redshift range from 0.3 to 0.8. This opens a new window of exploration in the mass spectrum, around 10(13)-10(14) M-circle dot, a crucial range for understanding the transition between galaxies and galaxy clusters, and a range that have not been extensively probed with lensing techniques. These systems constitute a subsample of the Strong Lensing Legacy Survey (SL2S), which aims to discover strong lensing systems in the Canada France Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). The sample is based on a search over 100 square degrees, implying a number density of similar to 0.13 groups per square degree. Our analysis is based on multi-colour CFHTLS images complemented with Hubble Space Telescope imaging and ground based spectroscopy. Large scale properties are derived from both the light distribution of elliptical galaxies group members and weak lensing of the faint background galaxy population. On small scales, the strong lensing analysis yields Einstein radii between 2.5 '' and 8 ''. On larger scales, strong lens centres coincide with peaks of light distribution, suggesting that light traces mass. Most of the luminosity maps have complicated shapes, implying that these intermediate mass structures may be dynamically young. A weak lensing signal is detected for 6 groups and upper limits are provided for 6 others. Fitting the reduced shear with a Singular Isothermal Sphere, we find sigma(SIS) similar to 500 km s(-1) with large error bars and an upper limit of similar to 900 km s(-1) for the whole sample (except for the highest redshift structure whose velocity dispersion is consistent with that of a galaxy cluster). The mass-to-light ratio for the sample is found to be M/L-i similar to 250 (solar units, corrected for evolution), with an upper limit of 500. This compares with mass-to-light ratios of small groups (with sigma(SIS) similar to 300 km s(-1)) and galaxy clusters (with sigma(SIS) > 1000 km s(-1)), thus bridging the gap between these mass scales. The group sample released in this paper will be complemented with other observations, providing a unique sample to study this important intermediate mass range in further detail.

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Jean-Paul Richard Kneib, Johan Richard
2009
Article

Résumé

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/159553?ln=fr

À propos de ce résultat

Concepts associés (31)

Concepts associés

Chargement

Publications associées (111)

Publications associées

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Weak Gravitational Lensing by Large-Scale Structures

Marc Gentile

There is now very strong evidence that our Universe is undergoing an accelerated expansion period as if it were under the influence of a gravitationally repulsive “dark energy” component. Furthermore, most of the mass of the Universe seems to be in the form of non-luminous matter, the so-called “dark matter”. Together, these “dark” components, whose nature remains unknown today, represent around 96 % of the matter-energy budget of the Universe. Unraveling the true nature of the dark energy and dark matter has thus, obviously, become one of the primary goals of present-day cosmology. Weak gravitational lensing, or weak lensing for short, is the effect whereby light emitted by distant galaxies is slightly deflected by the tidal gravitational fields of intervening foreground structures. Because it only relies on the physics of gravity, weak lensing has the unique ability to probe the distribution of mass in a direct and unbiased way. This technique is at present routinely used to study the dark matter, typical applications being the mass reconstruction of galaxy clusters and the study of the properties of dark halos surrounding galaxies. Another and more recent application of weak lensing, on which we focus in this thesis, is the analysis of the cosmological lensing signal induced by large-scale structures, the so-called “cosmic shear”. This signal can be used to measure the growth of structures and the expansion history of the Universe, which makes it particularly relevant to the study of dark energy. Of all weak lensing effects, the cosmic shear is the most subtle and its detection requires the accurate analysis of the shapes of millions of distant, faint galaxies in the near infrared. So far, the main factor limiting cosmic shear measurement accuracy has been the relatively small sky areas covered. Next-generation of wide-field, multicolor surveys will, however, overcome this hurdle by covering a much larger portion of the sky with improved image quality. The resulting statistical errors will then become subdominant compared to systematic errors, the latter becoming instead the main source of uncertainty. In fact, uncovering key properties of dark energy will only be achievable if these systematics are well understood and reduced to the required level. The major sources of uncertainty resides in the shape measurement algorithm used, the convolution of the original image by the instrumental and possibly atmospheric point spread function (PSF), the pixelation effect caused by the integration of light falling on the detector pixels and the degradation caused by various sources of noise. Measuring the Cosmic shear thus entails solving the difficult inverse problem of recovering the shear signal from blurred, pixelated and noisy galaxy images while keeping errors within the limits demanded by future weak lensing surveys. Reaching this goal is not without challenges. In fact, the best available shear measurement methods would need a tenfold improvement in accuracy to match the requirements of a space mission like Euclid from ESA, scheduled at the end of this decade. Significant progress has nevertheless been made in the last few years, with substantial contributions from initiatives such as GREAT (GRavitational lEnsing Accuracy Testing) challenges. The main objective of these open competitions is to foster the development of new and more accurate shear measurement methods. We start this work with a quick overview of modern cosmology: its fundamental tenets, achievements and the challenges it faces today. We then review the theory of weak gravitational lensing and explains how it can make use of cosmic shear observations to place constraints on cosmology. The last part of this thesis focuses on the practical challenges associated with the accurate measurement of the cosmic shear. After a review of the subject we present the main contributions we have brought in this area: the development of the gfit shear measurement method, new algorithms for point spread function (PSF) interpolation and image denoising. The gfit method emerged as one of the top performers in the GREAT10 Galaxy Challenge. It essentially consists in fitting two-dimensional elliptical Sérsic light profiles to observed galaxy image in order to produce estimates for the shear power spectrum. PSF correction is automatic and an efficient shape-preserving denoising algorithm can be optionally applied prior to fitting the data. PSF interpolation is also an important issue in shear measurement because the PSF is only known at star positions while PSF correction has to be performed at any position on the sky. We have developed innovative PSF interpolation algorithms on the occasion of the GREAT10 Star Challenge, a competition dedicated to the PSF interpolation problem. Our participation was very successful since one of our interpolation method won the Star Challenge while the remaining four achieved the next highest scores of the competition. Finally we have participated in the development of a wavelet-based, shape-preserving denoising method particularly well suited to weak lensing analysis.

EPFL2013

Chargement

We present a parametric strong-lensing analysis of three massive galaxy clusters for which Hubble Space Telescope imaging is available, as well as spectroscopy of multiply imaged systems and galaxy cluster members. Our aim is to probe the inner shape of dark matter haloes, in particular the existence of a core. We adopted the following working hypothesis: any group-or cluster-scale dark matter clump introduced in the modelling should be associated with a luminous counterpart. We also adopted some additional well-motivated priors in the analysis, even when this degraded the quality of the fit, quantified using the root mean square between the observed and model-generated images. In particular, in order to alleviate the degeneracy between the smooth underlying component and the galaxy-scale perturbers, we used the results from previous spectroscopic campaigns, which allowed us to fix the mass of the galaxy-scale component. In the unimodal galaxy cluster AS 1063, a core mass model is favoured over a non-core mass model, and this is also the case in the multimodal cluster MACS J0416. In the unimodal cluster MACS J1206, we fail to reproduce the strong-lensing constraints using a parametric approach within the adopted working hypothesis. We then successfully added a mild perturbation in the form of a superposition of B-spline potentials, which allowed us to obtain a decent fit (root mean square = 0.5 ''), and finally find that a core mass model is favoured. Overall, our analysis suggest evidence for core cluster-scale dark matter haloes in these three clusters. These findings may be useful for the interpretation within alternative dark matter scenario, such as self-interacting dark matter. We propose a working hypothesis for parametric strong-lensing modelling in which the quest for the best-fit model is balanced by the quest for presenting a physically motivated mass model, in particular by imposing priors.

EDP SCIENCES S A2022

Chargement

Gravitational lensing describes how light is deflected as it passes in the vicinity of a mass distribution. The amplitude of the deflection is proportional to the mass of the deflector, called "gravitational lens", and is generally weak, even for large masses. The faintness of this phenomenon explains why gravitational lensing remained essentially unobserved until the late 1970s (only gravitational lensing by the Sun has been observed during the solar eclipse of 1919). Before that time, gravitational lensing was considered merely as a theoretical curiosity. However, the situation dramatically changed with the discovery of the first extragalactic gravitational lens in 1979. Since then, together with the technological progress of astronomical instruments, gravitational lensing has turned from a curiosity into a powerful tool to address important astrophysical and cosmological questions. The present thesis focuses on applications related to gravitationally lensed quasars. Quasars are active galactic nuclei, where matter is heated up as it spirals down onto the central supermassive black hole. When a galaxy is located on the line of sight to a distant quasar, it acts as a gravitational lens and produces multiple images of this background source. The light of the quasar follows different paths for each of its images. Thus, variations of the intrinsic quasar luminosity are observed at different times in each image. The time delays between the images can be used to determine the Hubble constant H0, because they are inversely proportional to H0. This constant describes the current expansion rate of the Universe, and is one of the fundamental parameters of cosmological models. Many efforts have been spent over the years to determine H0, but its value is still poorly constrained. Gravitational lensing has the potential to noticeably decrease the uncertainty of H0. In practice, this requires regular and long-term monitoring of lensed quasars. We have run a series of numerical simulations to both optimize the available telescope time, and measure the time delays with an accuracy of a few percent. The results of these simulations are presented in the form of compact plots to be used to optimize the observational strategy of present and future monitoring programs. Once the time delays are measured, one can infer estimates of H0, provided several other observational constraints are available. A key element to accurately convert time delays into H0 is the redshift of the lensing galaxy. These redshift measurements are difficult because lensing galaxies are generally hidden in the glare of the much brighter quasar images. As a consequence, lens redshifts are often poorly constrained or even completely unknown. We have acquired spectroscopic data of sixteen lensing galaxies with the Very Large Telescope located in Chile. In combination with a powerful deconvolution algorithm, we determine the redshift of these sixteen lensing galaxies, which represents about 25% of all currently known quasar lensing galaxies. These results are useful for both H0 determinations and statistical studies of gravitational lenses, which can be used to provide new constraints on cosmological parameters. While the first part of this thesis focuses on the acquisition of observational constraints for the lens models, the main part consists in using the phenomenon of microlensing to determine the energy profile (or spatial structure) of quasar accretion disks. Microlensing is produced by the stars located in the lensing galaxy. These stars act as secondary lenses, and are called microlenses. Since the stars are moving in the galaxy, they induce flux and color variations in the images of the lensed quasar. These effects can be used as a natural telescope to probe the still mysterious inner structures of quasars with a spatial resolution about ten thousand times better than the capacities of current astronomical instruments, including the Very Large Telescope Interferometer. We present a three-year long spectrophotometric monitoring of the lensed quasar QSO 2237+0305, also known as the Einstein Cross, conducted at the Very Large Telescope. This monitoring reveals significant microlensing-induced variations in the spectra of the quasar images. In a subsequent analysis, we find that the source responsible for the optical and ultraviolet continuum has an energy profile well reproduced by a power-law R α λζ with ζ = 1.2 ± 0.3, where R is the size of the source emitting at wavelength λ. This agrees with the predictions of the standard thin accretion disk model and is, so far, the most accurate determination of a quasar energy profile. As a complement to our microlensing study, we have obtained high spectral and spatial resolution observations of the lensing galaxy of QSO 2237+0305. Our spectroscopic data are acquired with the SINFONI, FLAMES, and FORS2 spectrographs of the Very Large Telescope. We describe the reduction of these data, and provide the currently best and most complete determination of the kinematics of a gravitational lens. The comparison of our data with previously published dynamical models suggests that those may have overestimated the mass of the galaxy bulge. Thus, new and more sophisticated models are required. These models, combined with gravitational lensing, will provide two independent constraints on the mass distribution. This will allow to better determine the quantity and distribution of dark matter in this lensing galaxy, and especially in its extended halo.

EPFL2008

Chargement

Weak Gravitational Lensing by Large-Scale Structures

Marc Gentile

EPFL2013

EPFL2008