Multiscale cluster lens mass mapping - I. Strong lensing modelling

By E. Jullo, Jean-Paul Kneib. 2009

145 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We propose a novel technique to refine the modelling of galaxy cluster mass distribution using gravitational lensing. The idea is to combine the strengths of both ‘parametric’ and ‘non-parametric’ methods to improve the quality of the fit. We develop a multiscale model that allows sharper contrast in regions of higher density where the number of constraints is generally higher. Our model consists of (i) a multiscale grid of radial basis functions with physically motivated profiles and (ii) a list of galaxy-scale potentials at the location of the cluster member galaxies. This arrangement of potentials of different sizes allows us to reach a high resolution for the model with a minimum number of parameters. We apply our model to the well-studied cluster Abell 1689. We estimate the quality of our mass reconstruction with a Bayesian Monte Carlo Markov Chain sampler. For a selected subset of multiple images, we manage to halve the errors between the positions of predicted and observed images compared to previous studies. This is due to the flexibility of multiscale models at intermediate scale between cluster and galaxy scale. The software developed for this paper is part of the public lenstool package which can be found at http://www.oamp.fr/cosmology/lenstool.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/abbaad979f9df1dc5fe470ef9e3de6c01eb7b89a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Richard S. Ellis
2. P. Oesch
3. R. Bouwens
4. G. Illingworth
5. J. Richard
6. M. Oguri
7. L. Hernquist
8. M. Franx

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. Richard S. Ellis
2. G. Illingworth
3. J. Richard
4. R. Bouwens
5. R. Livermore
6. S. Finkelstein
7. H. Atek
8. J. Lotz

Citations in the corpus

• The Frontier Fields lens modelling comparison project (2016, methodology): “Further details of the methodology are outlined in Jullo & Kneib (2009).”
• LoCuSS: Subaru Weak Lensing Study of 30 Galaxy Clusters (2009, methodology): “We are also testing this more thoroughly with our new HST data (SNAP:10881; Hamilton-Morris et al. in preparation, and GO:11312; Richard et al. 2010) and the new Bayesian version of lenstool (Jullo & Kneib 2009).”
• LoCuSS: first results from strong-lensing analysis of 20 massive galaxy clusters at z= 0.2 (2009, methodology): “To explore this, we used the new, more flexible method presented by Jullo & Kneib (2009) that employs a multiscale adaptive grid to refine a parametric model that is constrained by a large number of strong lensing constraints – thus dropping the assumption of elliptical symmetry.”
• The extreme faint end of the UV luminosity function at z ∼ 6 through gravitational telescopes: a comprehensive assessment of strong lensing uncertainties (2018, methodology): “…lensing models constructed by the CATS team (clusters as telescopes) using version 7.0 of the Lenstool2 2 http://projets.lam.fr/projects/lenstool/wiki software, which follows a parametric approach to map the mass distribution in the cluster (Kneib 1993; Jullo et al. 2007; Jullo & Kneib 2009).”
• Directly Observing the Galaxies Likely Responsible for Reionization (2016, methodology): “The fake galaxy images are each added to a blank image of the source plane of the field at the appropriate positions and then lensed back to the image plane using LENSTOOL (Kneib 1993; Jullo et al. 2007; Jullo & Kneib 2009) with the latest lens models (Jauzac et al. 2015a, 2015b).”
• Mass and magnification maps for the Hubble Space Telescope Frontier Fields clusters: implications for high-redshift studies (2014, background): “…from large numbers of multiple-image systems with high-quality weak-lensing data can measure the mass in cluster cores (and thus the gravitational amplification along a given line of sight) to an accuracy of a few per cent (e.g. Bradač et al. 2006, 2009; Jullo et al. 2007; Jullo & Kneib 2009).”
• The z ∼ 6 Luminosity Function Fainter than −15 mag from the Hubble Frontier Fields: The Impact of Magnification Uncertainties (2016, methodology): “Again, we use a forward modeling procedure where we create the mock catalogs using the GLAFIC magnification maps and then alternatively recover the LFs with the CATS, Grale, Zitrin-LTM, and 32 median parametric magnification maps.”
• ARE ULTRA-FAINT GALAXIES AT z = 6–8 RESPONSIBLE FOR COSMIC REIONIZATION? COMBINED CONSTRAINTS FROM THE HUBBLE FRONTIER FIELDS CLUSTERS AND PARALLELS (2015, methodology): “The CATS HFF mass models are built using the Lenstool16 software (Kneib 1993; Jullo et al. 2007; Jullo & Kneib 2009).”