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Is every strong lens model unhappy in its own way? Uniform modelling of a sample of 13 quadruply+ imaged quasars

Shajib, AJ; Birrer, S; Treu, T; Auger, MW; Agnello, A; Anguita, T; Buckley-Geer, EJ; Chan, JHH; Collett, TE; Courbin, F; Fassnacht, CD; Frieman, J; Kayo, I; Lemon, C; Lin, H; Marshall, PJ; McMahon, R; More, A; Morgan, ND; Motta, V; Oguri, M; Ostrovski, F; Rusu, CE; Schechter, PL; Shanks, T; Suyu, SH; Meylan, G; Abbott, TMC; Allam, S; Annis, J; Avila, S; Bertin, E; Brooks, D; Carnero Rosell, A; Carrasco Kind, M; Carretero, J; Cunha, CE; da Costa, LN; De Vicente, J; Desai, S; Doel, P; Flaugher, B; Fosalba, P; García-Bellido, J; Gerdes, DW; Gruen, D; Gruendl, RA; Gutierrez, G; Hartley, WG; Hollowood, DL; Hoyle, B; James, DJ; Kuehn, K; Kuropatkin, N; Lahav, O; Lima, M; Maia, MAG; March, M; Marshall, JL; Melchior, P; Menanteau, F; Miquel, R; Plazas, AA; Sanchez, E; Scarpine, V; Sevilla-Noarbe, I; Smith, M; Soares-Santos, M; Sobreira, F; Suchyta, E; Swanson, MEC; Tarle, G; Walker, AR

Is every strong lens model unhappy in its own way? Uniform modelling of a sample of 13 quadruply+ imaged quasars Thumbnail


Authors

AJ Shajib

S Birrer

T Treu

MW Auger

A Agnello

T Anguita

EJ Buckley-Geer

JHH Chan

TE Collett

F Courbin

CD Fassnacht

J Frieman

I Kayo

C Lemon

H Lin

PJ Marshall

R McMahon

A More

ND Morgan

V Motta

M Oguri

F Ostrovski

CE Rusu

PL Schechter

T Shanks

SH Suyu

G Meylan

TMC Abbott

S Allam

J Annis

S Avila

E Bertin

D Brooks

A Carnero Rosell

M Carrasco Kind

J Carretero

CE Cunha

LN da Costa

J De Vicente

S Desai

P Doel

B Flaugher

P Fosalba

J García-Bellido

DW Gerdes

D Gruen

RA Gruendl

G Gutierrez

WG Hartley

DL Hollowood

B Hoyle

DJ James

K Kuehn

N Kuropatkin

O Lahav

M Lima

MAG Maia

M March

JL Marshall

P Melchior

F Menanteau

R Miquel

AA Plazas

E Sanchez

V Scarpine

I Sevilla-Noarbe

M Smith

M Soares-Santos

F Sobreira

E Suchyta

MEC Swanson

G Tarle

AR Walker



Abstract

Strong-gravitational lens systems with quadruply imaged quasars (quads) are unique probes to address several fundamental problems in cosmology and astrophysics. Although they are intrinsically very rare, ongoing and planned wide-field deep-sky surveys are set to discover thousands of such systems in the next decade. It is thus paramount to devise a general framework to model strong-lens systems to cope with this large influx without being limited by expert investigator time. We propose such a general modelling framework (implemented with the publicly available software LENSTRONOMY) and apply it to uniformly model three-band Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 images of 13 quads. This is the largest uniformly modelled sample of quads to date and paves the way for a variety of studies. To illustrate the scientific content of the sample, we investigate the alignment between the mass and light distribution in the deflectors. The position angles of these distributions are well-aligned, except when there is strong external shear. However, we find no correlation between the ellipticity of the light and mass distributions. We also show that the observed flux-ratios between the images depart significantly from the predictions of simple smooth models. The departures are strongest in the bluest band, consistent with microlensing being the dominant cause in addition to millilensing. Future papers will exploit this rich data set in combination with ground-based spectroscopy and time delays to determine quantities such as the Hubble constant, the free streaming length of dark matter, and the normalization of the initial stellar mass function.

Citation

Shajib, A., Birrer, S., Treu, T., Auger, M., Agnello, A., Anguita, T., …Walker, A. (2019). Is every strong lens model unhappy in its own way? Uniform modelling of a sample of 13 quadruply+ imaged quasars. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 483(4), 5649-5671. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3397

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 9, 2018
Online Publication Date Dec 17, 2018
Publication Date Mar 11, 2019
Deposit Date Mar 14, 2019
Publicly Available Date Mar 14, 2019
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN 0035-8711
Electronic ISSN 1365-2966
Publisher Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 483
Issue 4
Pages 5649-5671
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty3397

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Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.





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