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  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
    ABSTRACT We present a study of the stellar host galaxy, CO (1–0) molecular gas distribution and AGN emission on 50–500 pc-scales of the gravitationally lensed dust-obscured AGN MG J0751+2716 and JVAS B1938+666 at redshifts 3.200 and 2.059, respectively. By correcting for the lensing distortion using a grid-based lens modelling technique, we spatially locate the different emitting regions in the source plane for the first time. Both AGN host galaxies have 300–500 pc-scale size and surface brightness consistent with a bulge/pseudo-bulge, and 2 kpc-scale AGN radio jets that are embedded in extended molecular gas reservoirs that are 5–20 kpc in size. The CO (1–0) velocity fields showmore »structures possibly associated with discs (elongated velocity gradients) and interacting objects (off-axis velocity components). There is evidence for a decrement in the CO (1–0) surface brightness at the location of the host galaxy, which may indicate radiative feedback from the AGN, or offset star formation. We find CO–H2 conversion factors of around αCO = 1.5 ± 0.5 (K km s−1 pc2)−1, molecular gas masses of >3 × 1010 M⊙, dynamical masses of ∼1011 M⊙, and gas fractions of around 60 per cent. The intrinsic CO line luminosities are comparable to those of unobscured AGN and dusty star-forming galaxies at similar redshifts, but the infrared luminosities are lower, suggesting that the targets are less efficient at forming stars. Therefore, they may belong to the AGN feedback phase predicted by galaxy formation models, because they are not efficiently forming stars considering their large amount of molecular gas.« less
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  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
    Abstract We investigate the environment and line of sight of the H0LiCOW lens B1608+656 using Subaru Suprime-Cam and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to perform a weak lensing analysis. We compare three different methods to reconstruct the mass map of the field, i.e. the standard Kaiser-Squires inversion coupled with inpainting and Gaussian or wavelet filtering, and ${\tt Glimpse}$ a method based on sparse regularization of the shear field. We find no substantial difference between the 2D mass reconstructions, but we find that the ground-based data is less sensitive to small-scale structures than the space-based observations. Marginalising over the results obtainedmore »with all the reconstruction techniques applied to the two available HST filters F606W and F814W, we estimate the external convergence, κext at the position of B1608+656 is $\kappa _{\mathrm{ext}}= 0.11^{+0.06}_{-0.04}$, where the error bars corresponds respectively to the 16th and 84th quartiles. This result is compatible with previous estimates using the number-counts technique, suggesting that B1608+656 resides in an over-dense line of sight, but with a completely different technique. Using our mass reconstructions, we also compare the convergence at the position of several groups of galaxies in the field of B1608+656 with the mass measurements using various analytical mass profiles, and find that the weak lensing results favor truncated halo models.« less
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  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
    Abstract We present an analysis of seven strongly gravitationally lensed quasars and the corresponding constraints on the properties of dark matter. Our results are derived by modelling the lensed image positions and flux-ratios using a combination of smooth macro models and a population of low-mass haloes within the mass range 106 to 109 M⊙. Our lens models explicitly include higher-order complexity in the form of stellar discs and luminous satellites, as well as low-mass haloes located along the observed lines of sight for the first time. Assuming a Cold Dark Matter (CDM) cosmology, we infer an average total mass fraction inmore »substructure of $f_{\rm sub} = 0.012^{+0.007}_{-0.004}$ (68 per cent confidence limits), which is in agreement with the predictions from CDM hydrodynamical simulations to within 1σ. This result is closer to the predictions than those from previous studies that did not include line-of-sight haloes. Under the assumption of a thermal relic dark matter model, we derive a lower limit on the particle relic mass of mth > 5.58 keV (95 per cent confidence limits), which is consistent with a value of mth > 5.3 keV from the recent analysis of the Lyα forest. We also identify two main sources of possible systematic errors and conclude that deeper investigations in the complex structure of lens galaxies as well as the size of the background sources should be a priority for this field.« less
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  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
    ABSTRACT In recent years, breakthroughs in methods and data have enabled gravitational time delays to emerge as a very powerful tool to measure the Hubble constant H0. However, published state-of-the-art analyses require of order 1 yr of expert investigator time and up to a million hours of computing time per system. Furthermore, as precision improves, it is crucial to identify and mitigate systematic uncertainties. With this time delay lens modelling challenge, we aim to assess the level of precision and accuracy of the modelling techniques that are currently fast enough to handle of order 50 lenses, via the blind analysismore »of simulated data sets. The results in Rungs 1 and 2 show that methods that use only the point source positions tend to have lower precision ($10\!-\!20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$) while remaining accurate. In Rung 2, the methods that exploit the full information of the imaging and kinematic data sets can recover H0 within the target accuracy (|A| < 2 per cent) and precision (<6 per cent per system), even in the presence of a poorly known point spread function and complex source morphology. A post-unblinding analysis of Rung 3 showed the numerical precision of the ray-traced cosmological simulations to be insufficient to test lens modelling methodology at the percent level, making the results difficult to interpret. A new challenge with improved simulations is needed to make further progress in the investigation of systematic uncertainties. For completeness, we present the Rung 3 results in an appendix and use them to discuss various approaches to mitigating against similar subtle data generation effects in future blind challenges.« less
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  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
    ABSTRACT The magnifications of compact-source lenses are extremely sensitive to the presence of low-mass dark matter haloes along the entire sightline from the source to the observer. Traditionally, the study of dark matter structure in compact-source strong gravitational lenses has been limited to radio-loud systems, as the radio emission is extended and thus unaffected by microlensing which can mimic the signal of dark matter structure. An alternate approach is to measure quasar nuclear-narrow-line emission, which is free from microlensing and present in virtually all quasar lenses. In this paper, we double the number of systems which can be used formore »gravitational lensing analyses by presenting measurements of narrow-line emission from a sample of eight quadruply imaged quasar lens systems, WGD J0405−3308, HS 0810+2554, RX J0911+0551, SDSS J1330+1810, PS J1606−2333, WFI 2026−4536, WFI 2033−4723, and WGD J2038−4008. We describe our updated grism spectral modelling pipeline, which we use to measure narrow-line fluxes with uncertainties of 2–10 per cent, presented here. We fit the lensed image positions with smooth mass models and demonstrate that these models fail to produce the observed distribution of image fluxes over the entire sample of lenses. Furthermore, typical deviations are larger than those expected from macromodel uncertainties. This discrepancy indicates the presence of perturbations caused by small-scale dark matter structure. The interpretation of this result in terms of dark matter models is presented in a companion paper.« less
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  6. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Astronomy & Astrophysics)
    The H0LiCOW collaboration inferred via strong gravitational lensing time delays a Hubble constant value of H 0 = 73.3 −1.8 +1.7 km s −1 Mpc −1 , describing deflector mass density profiles by either a power-law or stars (constant mass-to-light ratio) plus standard dark matter halos. The mass-sheet transform (MST) that leaves the lensing observables unchanged is considered the dominant source of residual uncertainty in H 0 . We quantify any potential effect of the MST with a flexible family of mass models, which directly encodes it, and they are hence maximally degenerate with H 0 . Our calculation ismore »based on a new hierarchical Bayesian approach in which the MST is only constrained by stellar kinematics. The approach is validated on mock lenses, which are generated from hydrodynamic simulations. We first applied the inference to the TDCOSMO sample of seven lenses, six of which are from H0LiCOW, and measured H 0 = 74.5 −6.1 +5.6 km s −1 Mpc −1 . Secondly, in order to further constrain the deflector mass density profiles, we added imaging and spectroscopy for a set of 33 strong gravitational lenses from the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) sample. For nine of the 33 SLAC lenses, we used resolved kinematics to constrain the stellar anisotropy. From the joint hierarchical analysis of the TDCOSMO+SLACS sample, we measured H 0 = 67.4 −3.2 +4.1 km s −1 Mpc −1 . This measurement assumes that the TDCOSMO and SLACS galaxies are drawn from the same parent population. The blind H0LiCOW, TDCOSMO-only and TDCOSMO+SLACS analyses are in mutual statistical agreement. The TDCOSMO+SLACS analysis prefers marginally shallower mass profiles than H0LiCOW or TDCOSMO-only. Without relying on the form of the mass density profile used by H0LiCOW, we achieve a ∼5% measurement of H 0 . While our new hierarchical analysis does not statistically invalidate the mass profile assumptions by H0LiCOW – and thus the H 0 measurement relying on them – it demonstrates the importance of understanding the mass density profile of elliptical galaxies. The uncertainties on H 0 derived in this paper can be reduced by physical or observational priors on the form of the mass profile, or by additional data.« less
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  7. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Astronomy & Astrophysics)
    We present six new time-delay measurements obtained from R c -band monitoring data acquired at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPIA) 2.2 m telescope at La Silla observatory between October 2016 and February 2020. The lensed quasars HE 0047−1756, WG 0214−2105, DES 0407−5006, 2M 1134−2103, PSJ 1606−2333, and DES 2325−5229 were observed almost daily at high signal-to-noise ratio to obtain high-quality light curves where we can record fast and small-amplitude variations of the quasars. We measured time delays between all pairs of multiple images with only one or two seasons of monitoring with the exception of the time delaysmore »relative to image D of PSJ 1606−2333. The most precise estimate was obtained for the delay between image A and image B of DES 0407−5006, where τ AB = −128.4 −3.8 +3.5 d (2.8% precision) including systematics due to extrinsic variability in the light curves. For HE 0047−1756, we combined our high-cadence data with measurements from decade-long light curves from previous COSMOGRAIL campaigns, and reach a precision of 0.9 d on the final measurement. The present work demonstrates the feasibility of measuring time delays in lensed quasars in only one or two seasons, provided high signal-to-noise ratio data are obtained at a cadence close to daily.« less
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  8. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Astronomy & Astrophysics)
    Time-delay cosmography of lensed quasars has achieved 2.4% precision on the measurement of the Hubble constant, H 0 . As part of an ongoing effort to uncover and control systematic uncertainties, we investigate three potential sources: 1- stellar kinematics, 2- line-of-sight effects, and 3- the deflector mass model. To meet this goal in a quantitative way, we reproduced the H0LiCOW/SHARP/STRIDES (hereafter TDCOSMO) procedures on a set of real and simulated data, and we find the following. First, stellar kinematics cannot be a dominant source of error or bias since we find that a systematic change of 10% of measured velocitymore »dispersion leads to only a 0.7% shift on H 0 from the seven lenses analyzed by TDCOSMO. Second, we find no bias to arise from incorrect estimation of the line-of-sight effects. Third, we show that elliptical composite (stars + dark matter halo), power-law, and cored power-law mass profiles have the flexibility to yield a broad range in H 0 values. However, the TDCOSMO procedures that model the data with both composite and power-law mass profiles are informative. If the models agree, as we observe in real systems owing to the “bulge-halo” conspiracy, H 0 is recovered precisely and accurately by both models. If the two models disagree, as in the case of some pathological models illustrated here, the TDCOSMO procedure either discriminates between them through the goodness of fit, or it accounts for the discrepancy in the final error bars provided by the analysis. This conclusion is consistent with a reanalysis of six of the TDCOSMO (real) lenses: the composite model yields H 0 = 74.0 −1.8 +1.7 km s −1 Mpc −1 , while the power-law model yields 74.2 −1.6 +1.6 km s −1 Mpc −1 . In conclusion, we find no evidence of bias or errors larger than the current statistical uncertainties reported by TDCOSMO.« less
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  9. ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)
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  10. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , Astronomy & Astrophysics)
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