Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses I: shear and mass model parametrisations

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hogg, Natalie B., Johnson, Daniel, Shajib, Anowar J., Larena, Julien
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912747067801600
author Hogg, Natalie B.
Johnson, Daniel
Shajib, Anowar J.
Larena, Julien
author_facet Hogg, Natalie B.
Johnson, Daniel
Shajib, Anowar J.
Larena, Julien
contents Inhomogeneities along the line of sight in strong gravitational lensing distort the images produced, in an effect called shear. If measurable, this shear may provide independent constraints on cosmological parameters, complementary to traditional cosmic shear. We model 23 strong gravitational lenses from the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) catalogue with the aim of measuring the line-of-sight (LOS) shear for the first time. We use the 'minimal model' for the LOS shear, which has been shown to be theoretically safe from degeneracies with lens model parameters, a finding which has been confirmed using mock data. We use the dolphin automated modelling pipeline, which uses the lenstronomy software as a modelling engine, to model our selected lenses. Across the 23 lenses, we measure the LOS shear with a mean magnitude of $0.056 \pm 0.013$. Neglecting the post-Born correction to the potential of the main deflector due to foreground shear leads to a propagation of degeneracies in the LOS shear measurement with other lens model parameters, and the inclusion of an octupole moment in the lens mass profile does not lead to shear measurements that are in better agreement with the expectations from weak lensing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_16292
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses I: shear and mass model parametrisations
Hogg, Natalie B.
Johnson, Daniel
Shajib, Anowar J.
Larena, Julien
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Inhomogeneities along the line of sight in strong gravitational lensing distort the images produced, in an effect called shear. If measurable, this shear may provide independent constraints on cosmological parameters, complementary to traditional cosmic shear. We model 23 strong gravitational lenses from the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) catalogue with the aim of measuring the line-of-sight (LOS) shear for the first time. We use the 'minimal model' for the LOS shear, which has been shown to be theoretically safe from degeneracies with lens model parameters, a finding which has been confirmed using mock data. We use the dolphin automated modelling pipeline, which uses the lenstronomy software as a modelling engine, to model our selected lenses. Across the 23 lenses, we measure the LOS shear with a mean magnitude of $0.056 \pm 0.013$. Neglecting the post-Born correction to the potential of the main deflector due to foreground shear leads to a propagation of degeneracies in the LOS shear measurement with other lens model parameters, and the inclusion of an octupole moment in the lens mass profile does not lead to shear measurements that are in better agreement with the expectations from weak lensing.
title Line-of-sight shear in SLACS strong lenses I: shear and mass model parametrisations
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16292