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Title: Substructure detection reanalysed: dark perturber shown to be a line-of-sight halo
ABSTRACT

Observations of structure at subgalactic scales are crucial for probing the properties of dark matter, which is the dominant source of gravity in the universe. It will become increasingly important for future surveys to distinguish between line-of-sight haloes and subhalos to avoid wrong inferences on the nature of dark matter. We reanalyse a subgalactic structure (in lens JVAS B1938 + 666) that has been previously found using the gravitational imaging technique in galaxy-galaxy lensing systems. This structure has been assumed to be a satellite in the halo of the main lens galaxy. We fit the redshift of the perturber of the system as a free parameter, using the multiplane thin-lens approximation, and find that the redshift of the perturber is $z_\mathrm{int} = 1.42^{+0.10}_{-0.15}$ (with a main lens redshift of z = 0.881). Our analysis indicates that this structure is more massive than the previous result by an order of magnitude. This constitutes the first dark perturber shown to be a line-of-sight halo with a gravitational lensing method.

 
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Award ID(s):
2019786
NSF-PAR ID:
10369510
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Oxford University Press
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume:
515
Issue:
3
ISSN:
0035-8711
Page Range / eLocation ID:
p. 4391-4401
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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