How much dark matter really matters?
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Autore principale: | |
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| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2026
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| Soggetti: | |
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| _version_ | 1866916006545326080 |
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| author | Wagner, Jenny |
| author_facet | Wagner, Jenny |
| contents | Strong gravitational lensing is a key probe to trace dark matter. It assumes that mass curves spacetime so that light from a background source is deflected on its way to the observer. If dark matter contributes the major part to a massive cosmic structure, reconstructing the latter from strong-lensing observables allows us to infer characteristics of dark matter. Standard reconstructions fit a pre-defined mass-density model to the data. In this essay, I show how these mass models over-estimate the dark-matter contents of light-deflecting masses. Eliminating these models from the reconstruction reveals that observations directly constrain local properties of light-deflecting masses. How much dark matter is really needed in strong-gravitational-lensing effects and how much do we make up by our model choices? |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_12593 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | How much dark matter really matters? Wagner, Jenny General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Strong gravitational lensing is a key probe to trace dark matter. It assumes that mass curves spacetime so that light from a background source is deflected on its way to the observer. If dark matter contributes the major part to a massive cosmic structure, reconstructing the latter from strong-lensing observables allows us to infer characteristics of dark matter. Standard reconstructions fit a pre-defined mass-density model to the data. In this essay, I show how these mass models over-estimate the dark-matter contents of light-deflecting masses. Eliminating these models from the reconstruction reveals that observations directly constrain local properties of light-deflecting masses. How much dark matter is really needed in strong-gravitational-lensing effects and how much do we make up by our model choices? |
| title | How much dark matter really matters? |
| topic | General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.12593 |